Life on the High Seas, pirates, gold, adventures, lust, double-crossing, forbidden love, revenge, stolen fortunes and hidden secrets – it’s all going on in Kate Mosse‘s new book The Ghost Shop published this week.
As much about rewriting women back into history as buccaneering, the protagonist Louise fights for her place in a man’s world as she liberates those enslaved by pirates.
But you can hear all about it yourself when Kate appears at Blackwell’s in Oxford on Wednesday (July 12) to discuss The Ghost Ship with local author Lucy Atkins READ ABOUT LUCY HERE
‘Your readers need to trust that you’ve got it right, that they are in safe hands’
“As you know I have a massive soft spot for Oxford where I went to university (Kate read English at New College), but I always remember my father’s advice ‘If you look like you belong you will’ so even though I came from a massive comprehensive in Chichester, I had nothing to lose so I just enjoyed every minute there,” she says.
Anyone who heard Kate recently on Desert Island Discs will also know it’s where she threw herself into acting and got more involved in women’s rights.
“History has been rewritten by men but men and women built the world together and I wanted to help put women back into history and give them their rightful place,” she says.
“I grew up in a household with two sisters and went to an all girls school so I didn’t notice the differences until I went to Oxford and realised people had had different experiences,” she remembers.
Putting her money where her mouth is Kate has done much to elevate women, from setting up the Women’s Prize For Fiction to touring her first stage show Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World, earlier this year, which came to Chipping Norton READ ABOUT IT HERE
“Obviously I write historical fiction, but the history has to be spot on”
And now it’s the turn of pirate Louise Huber to shine.
So why Louise and why now? “I had a Ladybird book about pirates when I was little which included female pirates such as Mary Read and I absolutely loved it. So it’s taken me 50 years to act on it,” Kate laughs.
Which means she also honed in on other famous female pirates such as Anne Bonny, Zheng Yi Sao and Grace O’Malley. “It was such fun to write,” she smiles.
Famous for her extensive research throughout her many novels, which include The Joubert Family Chronicles (of which The Ghost Ship is the third), multi-million selling Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel), Gothic fiction including The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist’s Daughter as well as four works of non-fiction, Kate has spent years ensuring that the historical details are correct.
“Obviously I write historical fiction, but the history has to be spot on. Your readers need to trust that you’ve got it right, that they are in safe hands, that I know what I’m talking about,” she says.
“the one thing I have learned over the years is to enjoy what I do”
Where Ghost Ship is concerned, her research has taken her from Sweden to Portsmouth, La Rochelle to Amsterdam and The Canaries. “The Canaries were the centre of the world at that time because all the ships passed through there on the way to the New world, round the Cape and en route to the Portuguese Gold Coast,” she says.
And while ensconced in libraries and museums across the world, Kate also likes to walk extensively in her locations, to help imagine her characters doing the same.
“I walk the streets and really get to know a place. That’s what works for me,” she explains.
So how does she choose her topics? “I’ve just always been interested in things, which has taken me down all sorts of rabbit holes. It really matters because these real people lived and died so you have to respect that,” she says.
“But with The Ghost Ship, I have had to be very careful because modern day piracy is violent and awful, and yet there is something about the romance of 17th century piracy, like a floating republic of people who don’t fit into normal society wanting to change things in the world.”
“It really matters because these real people lived and died so you have to respect that”
As for the tour, she says: “People have been really loving the book so I am enjoying it immensely, but the one thing I have learned over the years is to enjoy what I do.
“So in the old days I’d be writing the next book while I toured the last, but I don’t do that anymore. I’m just enjoying The Ghost Ship tour for what it is.”
Book to see Kate Mosse ‘The Ghost Ship’ with Lucy Atkins on Wednesday July 12 at Blackwells on Broad Street at 8pm. Book at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kate-mosse-the-ghost-ship-with-lucy-atkins-tickets-596806302717
