Debut author Sophie Austin talks to us about her new novel 'The Lamplighter's Bookshop' and shares why she chose York to be the setting of her Victorian novel about rivalry, redemption and love.
Sophie Austin is the debut author of The Lamplighter's Bookshop, a turn of the century tale of rivalry, redemption, and love which is being published by Harper Collins on 13 March. It has been chosen as one of our Suffolk Loves picks so look out for it at a library near you or reserve a copy on the Suffolk Libraries catalogue.
As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved reading. I was the child that always read ahead whenever we were reading something as a class, and the child that got really excited when I was able to take two books home in my bookbag for the weekend, rather than just the one. I was lucky to grow up with books, as my parents always read to me before bed – and me and my Nan (a fellow historical fiction lover) would often go to Beckenham library to find new books. I remember being utterly fascinated with the library – it felt as though there were so many doorways to new worlds in there, and I spent hours picking out books. Later, when I was studying at University, I realised that the University libraries could loan rare copies of books from other Universities – which I made the most of! One of the books I requested while studying at Stockholm University had come all the way from the Princeton University library, which I found particularly exciting. It had crossed oceans so that I could read it!
My journey to publication started as I think many other writers’ journeys do – with me not being entirely sure whether I was capable of having a book published or not. I knew I loved writing, I knew that I couldn’t imagine a future in which I didn’t write, but I had no idea how to turn a vague dream into something real. Luckily when I was studying for my Master’s degree in Transnational Creative Writing, I was invited to be a student volunteer at the Stockholm Writer’s Festival – run by a fantastic writer called Catherine Pettersson. It was there I built some courage, and my craft, and it was there I pitched my first historical novel a year later to my agent, Caroline Hardman from Hardman & Swainson. So I think I got very lucky in terms of becoming agented! The road from agented to published took a little longer – as we had two manuscripts “die” on submission (which just means that no editor makes an offer for it). The Lamplighter’s Bookshop was my next manuscript to go on submission – and that’s how it found a home with Kate Bradley, my editor at HarperFiction!
I wake up very early in the morning to write before work. My alarm goes off at 5am, and I drag myself towards the coffee machine, and then slump back up the stairs to my writing nook – which is a mustard yellow settee by the window. I should probably write from my desk, but as I often work from home I find it’s useful to have a bit of physical separation from where I write my books, and where I do my work. As I write so early in the morning I often get to watch the seasons creep in, the darkness folding around us as we move towards winter, and the sun shining more as we go back towards summer. It’s probably not the best set-up for my back, but it’s certainly good for my creativity!
The Lamplighter’s Bookshop is a story about rivalry and redemption, love and secrets. It’s set in York in 1899, when old Victorian values came head to head with the burgeoning modern age, and it follows the stories of two people whose lives are falling apart. Evelyn is precocious, fiercely private and thanks to her father, completely destitute. William is a writer with dreams of being published – a dream that turns into a spiralling lie when he returns to York. Both Evelyn and William struggle with opening up to people – for Evelyn, she believes she’ll only get hurt, whereas William believes he’ll only be judged as wanting. At its heart it’s a story about the complexities of family, the wounds we carry, and the secrets we keep to protect either ourselves or those around us – but more than that, it’s a story about love, and learning to choose love, even if we’ve been hurt before.
Evelyn actually existed in my mind before any of the other characters. I’d been musing over her story as a part of another, much bigger story – and it wasn’t until the pandemic that I sat down and really looked at her as a character, and whether her story was enough to stand on its own. I’d always envisioned Evelyn as a young woman caught between a myriad conflicts – her family’s expectations, society’s expectations, and her own dreams for her future. The bookshop came to me next – and with it came William. I think I poured a lot of my own hopes and fears about being a writer into William (although he deals with rejection somewhat differently to me!), and it was quite cathartic to write the story of another struggling writer. As odd as it is to say (considering he came from my imagination) – it made me feel slightly less lonely!
I’ve always been fascinated by history, so I wasn’t surprised with how quickly I fell in love with York. I was lucky enough to travel there quite a bit for work a number of years ago, and often I’d have dinner by myself and then go for a wander around the streets just in awe of how much history had been lived in that same city. I could tread the path of Kings and Vikings, Victorians and Romans – it’s a city that’s just steeped in history, there are so many layers of it, so many different eras. When it came to writing The Lamplighter’s Bookshop I couldn’t travel to York, so I had to rely heavily on pictures from trips, archival maps, and extensive research. I would “walk” the streets using online maps, and compare them to maps from that century - noting where what’s now housing would have been a factory, for example. Luckily there is a lot you can dig into from the end of the 1800s – and the Directories from that period were particularly helpful. Most of the rival bookshops mentioned in the novel were real businesses operating in York in 1899!
I’ve worked at Mojang Studios – the creator of Minecraft – for almost four years now and I just love it. Minecraft and Mojang put a lot of emphasis on the joy of creativity and being creative, and the game itself lets you express your imagination in thousands of ways. I was an avid player of Minecraft before I joined the team as a writer – and working there I get to write every day, which I love!
Balancing a full-time job and writing a novel is definitely tricky, but it can be done! My writing routine is very much set-up so that no matter what I’m tackling at work that day, I’ve already set aside time to get my writing done, and hit my word count goal. I wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning, and tend to write until 7 or 7.30am, before getting ready for work. You’d be surprised how much you can achieve in two hours!
What’s next! Well, I’ve written a second novel, The Memory Binder, which is set to publish in 2026. It’s a brand new story with new characters, although it’s set in the same time period, the turn of the twentieth century. I’m also working on a third novel – which I think I might set in London. I grew up in London’s suburbs, so it’ll be nice to “go home” in a sense – although of course London has changed dramatically since the 1800’s!
Only one! Gosh what a hard choice. I think my most recent could-not-stop-turning-the-page read was The Book of Witching by C.J. Cooke – about an enthralling mystery that spans from the Orkney witch trials of 1594 into the modern day. I really love dual-timeline fiction as I get my dose of historical fiction alongside modern fiction in a great 2for1 kind of deal!
I loved drama and theatre studies when I was at school – and once performed in an all-female production of Macbeth at the Bloomsbury theatre while I was taking my A-levels!
