Please join us for a Q&A with Kate Storey, author of The Forgotten Book Club and The Memory Library. The discussion opens on Thursday, January 8, and runs through Saturday, January 10. Hope to see you there!
Please join me in welcoming author Kate Story to our BookBrowse Community Forum.
Kate is the author of two novels that we discussed recently in our Online Book Club: The Memory Library, and, just last month, The Forgotten Book Club. Her new book, The Last Page Cafe, will be published in England in March and will appear in the US later in the year.
Please use this space to ask Kate questions about her work. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
Kate, thanks for being here! Please tell our group a little about yourself.
Hi Kim. I’m delighted to be here! Thanks to you and this vibrant community for choosing to discuss my books.
I’m originally from Yorkshire, in the north of the UK, and now live in the London suburbs with my family. I studied English at university then went on to become a senior school teacher. After that I opened an after-school Drama Academy.
When I had my children, I did a creative writing course to keep my mind from turning to jelly, and that’s when I first thought seriously about writing for publication.
I’m now very fortunate to write under 3 names in 3 genres for 3 publishers: uplifting book club reads under the name Kate Storey (as you know), psychological thrillers as Naomi Williams, and family drama as Lisa Timoney.
I’m very much looking forward to answering your questions over the next few days!
So great to have you here! I’d like to talk about The Forgotten Book Club first, since it’s the novel our group read most recently. Where did you get the inspiration for the plot?
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I first had the idea during the pandemic lockdowns, when I saw silent book clubs advertised on social media. I used to be in a book club, but time was short and I found it hard to force myself to read the chosen book if it wasn’t one I really connected with. I loved the idea of reading communally, but without the pressure of a timetable or a book I didn’t enjoy.
Around the same time, my daughter was going through the diagnosis process for ADHD. Despite having once been a teacher, I wasn’t aware of how the inattentive subtype presented. I thought that a low pressure book club would be much more inclusive and easier to engage with for people with different needs, and so I combined these two elements in the book.
I love the way you incorporate serious issues into these books. I see now where the ADHD subplot arose from, but what about the other issues you write about? You also addressed depression and grief in The Forgotten Book Club, and in The Memory Library you spoke to aging and dementia. I especially enjoyed the way you covered mother-daughter relationships and familial responsibility in The Memory Library.
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Both The Forgotten Book Club and The Memory Library feature cast of quirky supporting characters. How did you develop them? Were any based on people you know? Did a favorite emerge as you were writing?
Also, the Kate Storey books mention several other authors’ titles throughout the plot. How do you decide which books your characters are reading? I really enjoyed the Book Club kit for The Forgotten Book Club, especially the list of books. We had a good discussion about who read what.
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I think grief is a sadly universal experience, and one many people can relate to, although we all respond to it differently. I think it’s true that it’s the price we pay for loving someone.
The mother-daughter relationship is one that I come back to again and again in my writing. I am an adopted person, but have never met my birth family. I have my adoptive mother, a step mother, a mother-in-law and I’m mum to my own two girls, so you can see why that’s an interesting topic for me and one that I want to continue to explore.
I am also very interested in the way we view our parents. When do we start to perceive them as individuals rather than just our parents? Ever? My sisters and I revert to childish ways whenever we’re back in the family home together, I know that for sure!
The dementia storyline grew from a close family member being diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 52. It’s been very much on my mind since then.
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I adore writing the quirky supporting characters! I never base a character on someone I know, because that would be limiting. The characterisation has to serve the story. That said, I definitely use traits and behaviours of people I know as a starting point.
I particularly love Nathan in The Memory Library. Many young people I know are in touch with their emotions and more assertive of their boundaries than people my age. I think we can learn a lot from them.
Crush, in The Forgotten Book Club, was great fun to write. At first I wasn’t sure of her name, but when I came to the end of the book, I couldn’t imagine her being called anything else.
Choosing which books to include is AGONY! I’ve always been a big reader, and it’s so hard to select which to include and which to leave out. In the end, the one which best fits the point the character wants to make in the story is the one I go with.
I try to ensure there’s a mix of classics and more modern titles, but I’ll only include a book that I know and love.
Thankfully there are more Kate Storey books to come, so I’ll be able to squeeze more of my favourite reads into those.
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… and let’s not forget the cats! LOL. (For those looking forward to The Last Page Cafe, there’s a cat in that one, too!).
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I think it’s interesting that you’re such a broad reader, especially of more recent titles. When do you find the time?
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Hadron Collider is still my favourite (don’t tell Earnest/Eric)
There’s a cat called Tybalt in The Last Page Cafe and he’s lawless! I do love a feline fiend.
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Most of my reading time is taken up with reading proofs for upcoming titles. Since I write in 3 genres, I get asked to quote on books in all 3 too, which is wonderful but pretty time consuming.
Anything I want to read that’s already out, I listen to on audiobook. I’m obsessed! Audiobooks make everything more enjoyable from exercising to driving to cooking. I listen to at least one a week.
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Speaking of The Last Page Cafe, the title refers to a book club that the café’s owner hosts. She insists that before they choose a book to read together, they all read the last page first to decide if it’s worth their time. Where did this idea come from? Do you do that yourself?
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… and since I’m asking, where did you hear about a memory library? I was unfamiliar with the concept but I love the idea.
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I don’t read the last page first, but I know people who do. In the people I know, it seems to be an anxiety response. They need to know what’s coming in order to feel safe, so that’s why I attributed it to Erin in the book. She relies on predictability and routine to manage her anxiety about the future, but she’s allowed it to rule her life. I loved writing her and the whole cast of the book group. It’s another varied and quirky gang and I hope readers enjoy meeting them all!
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The idea came from me complaining to my editor about buying a birthday card. One of my books was on offer at 99p, and I told her I’d rather give someone a book with 80K words than pay £3.50 for a piece of card with 4 words in it.
She said she’d rather have a book that was chosen especially for her, and from there the idea of a mother dedicating a library of books to her absent daughter grew.
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