Ruthless Queens panel with Hannah Kaner, Saara El-Arifi, Elodie Harper and Holly Race
Last Thursday, the Mushens Entertainment team headed to Waterstones Piccadilly to see a panel called Ruthless Queens featuring three of our authors, Hannah Kaner, Saara El-Arifi and Elodie Harper, alongside Holly Race. The audience was full and very excited as the authors entered the stage. It was noted that today was the publication date of the first novel in Hannah's second trilogy, A Snake Among Swans, which has now hit the Sunday Times bestseller list at no. 2.
Elodie asked questions to the panel and then all four writers answered in relation to their books. The conversation was impressively erudite and included many references to reading original historical sources as inspiration for the authors' novels, though often with scepticism and some frustration as the sources tended not to be from the perspective of the historical women themselves and from a very biased angle. If it wasn't already evident, it quickly became clear why it is so important that all four novels centre female historical voices and give their protagonists the agency that is often overlooked in the sources, while also being realistic about the brutal experience of women across history. The team especially enjoyed hearing conversations around women in the past receiving the title of King, or pharoh and the panel's praise for Hannah's intricate and alluring magic system in A Snake Among Swans.
Then, it was time for some audience questions. All the questions were asked by committed fans of the extensive historical research that the writers had channelled into their novels, though one fun question asked whether the writers would categorise their protagonists as 'gaslight, gatekeep, or girlboss', referencing a popular internet meme! At the end of the event, the authors signed copies of their books and chatted to fans, giving out illustrations cards with gorgeous artworks based on their books and even adding special stamps to their signatures.
Congratulations all!