Author Kim Sherwood talks to us about her latest novel A Wild & True Relation and tells us about getting commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write the next James Bond novel.
Kim Sherwood’s first novel, Testament, won the Bath Novel Award and Harper’s Bazaar Big Book Award. It was longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize and shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Pick. In 2019, she was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Her second book, Double or Nothing, is the first in a trilogy commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to expand the world of James Bond. Her latest novel, A Wild & True Relation was published by Virago in February 2023 and is also available on our catalogue.
As a child, I wrote stories and made and illustrated books. I loved our local library, and visiting the second hand bookshop. I saved up my pocket money to buy Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series – I loved adventure stories, and it was great to have a character like George, a girl with short hair like me, who was brave and resourceful, and even had her own island, something to aspire to!
I loved classic adventure stories by writers like Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Anthony Hope. I bought the Pan paperback edition of From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming second hand when I was twelve, and fell in love with James Bond. I devoured the whole series. I consumed crime and spy writers like Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley and John le Carré. In my later teens, I fell in love with Georgette Heyer’s regency romances and Jane Austen’s novels. Dr Johnson was always my hero – I used to fall asleep reading the dictionary!
I owe so much to the Bath Novel Award, run by Caroline Ambrose. The BNA is an amazing champion of writers – it was a thrill to win then, and remains a thrill to be part of the BNA family today. Winning was an amazing moment – I only entered at my husband’s urging five minutes to midnight on the day of the deadline, because I didn’t have faith I’d get anywhere! Writing can be a lonely pursuit and it’s a gift to have encouragement and support from those around you.
Writing James Bond is a lifelong dream come true. The Ian Fleming Estate enjoyed Testament, and when they heard what a fan I am they invited me to send some ideas for a new series expanding the Double O section. I also sent a photocopy of a school report I wrote, aged thirteen, about an author I admired – Ian Fleming! (The lesson is to never throw anything out.) The Flemings liked my ideas – and my school report! – and it all took off from there. In many ways, James Bond belongs to the public imagination, and it’s a pressure and a privilege to bring my Bond to life on the page.
I’ve been writing A Wild & True Relation for fourteen years and it’s an incredible feeling to now hold it in my hands. A literary historical feminist smuggling adventure, A Wild & True Relation opens on the night of the Great Storm in Devon in 1703. Smuggling captain Tom West comes ashore in a rage, believing his lover Grace has betrayed him to the Revenue. Following a confrontation, Tom leaves with Grace’s daughter Molly, who he raises as a boy aboard his ship under the name Orlando.
What follows is Molly’s quest for justice and identity, interleaved with sections featuring real historical figures who visited or lived in Devon, who come together to solve the mystery of Molly’s life, from Dr Johnson and Hester Thrale to George Eliot and Charles Dickens. The novel explores genre and gender in what I hope is a thought-provoking and thrilling adventure.
Yes! I love research, it’s the bedrock of my writing. Research provides the spark for setting, era and character, whether it’s a detail like cobbles made of sheep’s knuckles, love tokens scored on coins or how people viewed and articulated their relationship to the land around them. This book owes everything to local libraries, archives and museums, from the archive in a cupboard at Victory Hall in South Zeal on Dartmoor, to the Modbury Devon Rural Archive. I’d like to give a particular shout out to Kingsbridge Public Library and the library at Kingsbridge Cookworthy Museum, my local research havens. I was fortunate to collaborate with Exeter Library on a project illuminating women writers, ‘Unlocking the Cage’, which is now touring Devon libraries.
I’ve just finished writing the second novel in the Double O series and I am sworn to secrecy, so all I can say for now is to look out for announcements from my newsletter, ‘Girl with the Golden Pen’, on Substack. I will be appearing at bookshops and literary festivals this year to talk about A Wild & True Relation, and I’m excited to meet readers and share our love of books. You can find regular updates for events on my website.
Wolf Hall by Dame Hilary Mantel – a cheeky answer, because once you’ve read it you won’t be able to stop yourself reading the next two in the trilogy. Hilary was my writing hero and I was so fortunate to get to know her and share my work with her. When I first read Wolf Hall, it felt like a miraculous epiphany. This was how writing should be – vivid, visceral, muscular, quivering, delicate, blistering and beautiful.
I exist in a constant state of re-reading Ian Fleming, for obvious reasons! I’m also reading Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit, and the Raffles series, written by my great-great-great uncle, E.W Hornung. I bought the latest divine offerings from Ali Smith and Deborah Levy but haven’t had a chance to devote myself to them yet – that’s a delicious and nourishing joy on the horizon.
My writing has opened doors to some very exciting things – a racing driver took me out in an Alpine as research for Double or Nothing, and I got to handle Rolexes at Sotheby’s! I’ve also been lucky to meet my heroes. A particular highlight was interviewing Anthony Horowitz on stage at Edinburgh International Book Festival – I was obsessed with Alex Rider as a kid, so this was a pinch me moment! What feels most special though is sharing the publication of A Wild & True Relation with my family. We’ve taken the book to meet the Devon sea, and toasted it with tea and fudge!
