Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke with Caro Claire Burke

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

This week's book guest is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke.Sara and Cariad are joined by international best selling author Caro Claire Burke herself.In this episode they discuss mirrors, Christians, botox, TikTok, feminism and dingos.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke is available hereFollow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclubProduced by Naomi Parnell Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, Amy Gledhill here. And Harriet Kemsley. From the Single Ladies in Your Area podcast. And we've got some exciting news. We've sorted your Valentine's Day plans again, as we're doing a special live recording of the podcast on Valentine's Day. A.K.A. Saturday the 14th of February. Yes, we've got a lovely venue.

It's at the Underbelly Boulevard in Soho, London. And we're on late at 9.15pm. So if you have a terrible date booked in, you can go to that, and then join us after for a debrief. Oh, I mean, I'm excited. We had so much fun at the last Valentine's Day show. Yes, and we both absolutely overshared. Will we do it again?

You'll have to come along and find out. Okay, yes, yes, we will. So that's Saturday, 14th of February at Underbelly Boulevard, and you can get tickets at plosive.com. I'm Sarah Pascoe. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read.

We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club. Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but it doesn't like wine or nibbles.

Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions. Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us.

We like reading with you. This week, Our book guest is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. What's it about? A tradwife Instagram influencer is sent back to the 1800s to discover how life really was in the past. What qualifies it for the Weird Days book club? Well, living your life like it's the olden days is very weird. In this episode, we discuss mirrors, Christians, Botox, TikTok, feminism and dingoes. And joining us this week is Caro herself. Caro is the co-host of the excellent podcast, Diabolical Lies, and yesterday is her debut novel.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Carrow Claire Buck. You were just saying to Carrow that she has a window at foils. Yes, you've got a window at foils. I was there on Wednesday and I saw it on the way out. It's wonderful, but you haven't seen it. I think it's worth going to have a look. So you're here on your UK tour of your debut novel,

which has had an incredible success. You hit the New York Times bestsellers list at first week. Yeah, and Sunday Times as well, didn't you? Yeah. And Sunday Times. That is, I would say, a global success. It's crazy, truly. You can now say...

International, yeah. International success. International bestseller, it's true. They are rapidly trying to reprint the copies so that you can have them in the friends to give me some legitimacy. Give it back, give me what we want to stop it with international bestseller.

Of course, because it's very rare for books to have that big land moment these days. Everybody wants that. But for a book to be able to do that is incredible. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I haven't processed it at all.

So it gave me like a decade. Yeah. It'll be an odd nostalgic memory one day. Yeah, my husband has taken to comforting me by saying, you don't always have to experience things as they're happening to you. You can experience it decades from now when you think about it. I think that's right. I think some things are so big. How an evolution would a body ever be prepared to absorb that information that people in other countries are reading your book? Oh, I mean, I didn't even, I never even imagine that I would sell a book in another country,

let alone that I would be, I mean, it's truly beyond my wildest conception of my own career. and I definitely don't feel like I have gotten to the point of understanding that yet. But I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying being here with you guys. That's the main thing. You don't have to process the moment, but you try and enjoy the moment. Yeah. Because otherwise you get to 10 years and you're like, I didn't even have a good time. If your inner critic is trying to balance it out. It has to say some quite extremely bad things to you.

Yeah, that's why I think you try and enjoy it if you can. We always say, I'm an international best seller. Yeah, but you're a stupid bitch. Seriously, I mean, honestly, I've been listening to Lena Dunham's memoir. No, no, no. We were connecting on this earlier. I feel exactly the same way. I am a stupid bitch.

No, I've been listening to Lena Dunham's memoir kind of on repeat because I will never compare myself to her, but her experience with girls. There have been some comparisons where it's like all of a sudden you go from just being like a person to having such a big moment with your debut. And God damn, am I grateful for that memoir? It's been so fun to listen to. Well, there are very few people that will be able to understand it. So there's no one to complain to about success. Exactly. And I think it's less that, it's less that anything is bad so much that is just truly difficult to process.

Like you're just kind of, you know, watching it as it happens. But it's fun to see the book out there. Yes. Yeah. So the book is yesteryear. Would you mind telling us just what's the book? I think we're going to the book too quickly. I need four plays.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Carrie, I don't know. Get to know each other. Well, because I want to talk about the podcast. Oh, okay. Is that okay? I do want to talk about the podcast. So I was going to do that and then into the book.

Right. Let's do this. Let's just say what the book is about because it is a book podcast era. So we just, let's get carried to say what it's about. Sure. Right. So that people can be like, oh, so they've got that mulling in their heads. Okay.

And then we'll go back to the podcast. Right. Okay. Yesterday is about a woman named Natalie Heller Mill, who basically becomes famous by selling this pioneer fantasy online to millions of followers until one day she wakes up, basically living in the time period that she has been fetishizing. So she's in the 1800s and she kind of has to figure out how to return to modernity essentially. So there are two different

threads between the present and the past and they kind of interweave until you get to the end. You've done that before and it was beautiful. Thank you so much. So before you wrote the book, the way we came across you. Because I think Carriad, you introduced me. I did introduce you to you guys. You guys know about the podcast. So Carriot sent me diabolical lies and she said, You were talking about Botox. This is why I wanted to start with this. Your work here is done as book interviewers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We did it. What's it about? Anyway, the conversation that you and Katie had on Diabolical Lise about Botox is really huge for us. We're older than you. We've never had Botox. We're the few people who've never had Botox in our industry. And also, now I think if we went, I think if we went, they'd go, it's too late. All the bad stuff's happens.

All of the preventative thing we could have done for you at 32. They're like all the opportunity that you've been denied. Don't worry about that. Waste of time. You just have a really old frozen face. And also all our peers are like, thank you because you are making me look younger. We are doing a service to all those other people. Don't you love doing like the social justice thing where you mean something to other people?

They aren't enough flags about it. I need badges. Once someone saw me on television and wrote me an email to say that it was a really good example for their daughter that there were unlikable women in the public eye. Oh my God. And honestly, it was such a nice message. They really meant it like, you just don't care. You're welcome. I came across diabolical lies

like really weird someone on Instagram shared it and you're very good at finding good things I'm a good truffle pig and I was like what's this and then I started listening and I was like oh my God and obviously the way that you guys talk

and what you talk about your intelligence oh thank you but just the speed and the not holding back on topics I was like you're happy to have some unlikable woman in the public

guy no no I think you're such incredible communicators and so you spread out And the thing with something like Botox is it's not like, oh, two things can be true at the same time or it's complicated, it's more than that. The detail, the whole swathe of winning and losing

at the same time no matter what you do. But just hearing two women have a really nuanced, intelligent conversation about stuff that is often like, well, either you do it in your vein or you don't and you're ugly. Sure. Oh, how nice to have a conversation which is bigger than that? Also where feminism sits now. There are choices that you make that feel like you're criticizing other women

or if you do want to say that something is unfeminist, you have to, it feels like you're then in enmity with women who made those choices. Yes. That's what I love is that you can, that you saw the whole picture. And I thought, this is what young women, this is the world that young women are growing up in now. We were very excited and we started listening to the really car. It seems a lot. We love the podcast so much.

Yeah, I also haven't gotten Botox as we all can notice. We can all do our forehead. Yeah, I was looking at your book press stuff thinking that you had because you looked so beautiful and everything. I was like, oh my God, she's just. done it because the books are. That's four points. Okay. She was like, do you think she has?

She's looking so good. Oh my God. She's looking so gorgeous and like a new one baby. Because she's so, she's going, well, I'm best. I'm like, maybe she's so, wow, you guys forgiving me even though I did. No, we don't dislike people. We have nothing against people. But I understand that.

But I do, I will say like, I do feel a certain pressure to hold on to that in a way that I think is productive for me. Like, I think it's kind of a good thing for me to have said that aloud because I do kind of feel like, well, I do stand by those principles. And I think that if I didn't say that out loud, I would probably be more comfortable doing it. And I will say, I don't know if you guys have had this experience, but when you have to be looking at more pictures of yourself all the time, oh my God, it's not even, not just Botox, but like I'm five months pregnant. And so having to do, you don't have to congratulate me. It's not a big deal. But in the

weirdos exclusive. Oh my God. Bombshell. Bombshell, bombshell. But just in the context, of like I have to look at myself with my changing body and just having to, again, I'm sure you guys have experienced this, but like it's not that hard. It's not as hard to avoid that pressure when you're just living your life. But when you start to see like high-deaf pictures of yourself, I can understand why deeply famous people become neurotic about it. Yeah. But this does link very closely to your book because there are normal people who, because of how they use social media and put pictures and videos of themselves up, they do then have that amount of scrutiny. Whether you I've got 300. I know someone in my family wants to be an influencer and they have a very

small amount of followers, but the amount they posts is aspirational. People think it's about vanity. And actually, I just think it makes you so deeply insecure. Oh, nothing makes you feel worse. And what you're holding with your phone is a camera that will show you at the most disgusting angles that no one, I mean, we look at ourselves in ponds millions of years ago. Yeah, the chin, the underneath, all of these things. You use. have seen and then you might post the lovely one, but you saw the rest. You know what's there. So of course it does make you hyperfixated and you have to either cut it off and you just don't look and it's always for other people. And also as you say, like in our fields, what you can

reassure yourself all the time is not an actress, not a model, never said to the world, I'm offering you my looks. Right. I never promised this to you. This is not my currency. I'm offering you something else. But we've said that so many times. Like you go into a place which has a ginormous television and you see people you know in high deaf and you know that they're beautiful and suddenly everything is up close. So there's no judgment about people doing it because yeah, that is your life. It's insane, but we have been sent insane. That is a rational reaction to the world, I think. I mean, just hearing you say people used to look at themselves in ponds, my brain immediately went, do I think I'd be able to pull that off for the rest of the other than that?

Because you're right. I think I would look way better in a pond than in an iPhone reflection. So I'm like, how possible can I get a bird bath and look at myself? Vintage mirrors, guys. Vintage mirrors make everybody look good. You're like, I love life.

The mirror was invented. They always said like there's no good mirrors in nature. So we would never have known what we look like, really. We'd have felt, we'd have, you know, like mid-cycle confidence. We'd have just had these days. I'm like, I'm the best-looking person in the tribe. I'm perfect. would have corrected us ever.

But you know that also is a cleanliness thing that until you get electric light, people's houses were dirty. And then when you get electric light, you see the corners. And you're like, oh my God, our corners are just, before that, who cares? You can't see it in candlelight what it looks like. This is a revelation for me because two floors of my house don't have electricity at the moment. And I'm so relaxed. And you're so chill.

I can't hoover up there. Domestic labor is no longer necessary. Because once you get that, then, of course, you have to invent the fucking Hoover. Okay. Because you need to clean it. It's a scaiour from 1800s. I do believe in the conspiracy theory that Apple makes, um, their cameras make you look like shit so that you can buy into all their products.

I totally believe that. I like I truly, I mean, especially when I hear the stories about meta essentially designing their products to make young women feel like shit, it is not out of the realm to me that all these companies would be like, all right, how can we all work together to make people feel awful? Every nose must be 0.5% bigger. You're just like, oh, it just looks different. Because of the billions of that industry, and I think the proof is the fact that the most powerful men in the world are so deeply insecure.

You're Donald Trump's, your Elon Musk's, what's Brian Johnson, the biohacker. They're all looks-knacking. It's happening to men now. It looks maxing, spending all that money, so desperate, thinking they can trick it. It's like, ah, you got it too now. Men are not immune to the aesthetic push. But I feel like we have neatly come back to the book. It's so great because we're setting up the world.

But now everyone knows what it's about. Your journey into getting this published. Sure. Because I listened to the episode that you and Katie did about you. last night. Oh. I haven't listened to that. We could have skipped this.

You could have just talked about me. But we're going to talk about some book stuff. And then I want to come back to your journey to this huge success that you're having. And then we'll get back to your pregnancy. Yeah, absolutely. I love it. How much were you aware, this is a bit linked probably to the same thing, of trad wife culture before you started writing.

Like when did you start thinking? I know you've talked on the pod about Ballerina Farm stuff. But when was the first time you got that Instagram moment where you're like, what is that woman doing? What is this? Yeah, so it was in the winter of 2024. And it all happened in a very truncated period. Like, it's kind of funny. I mean, I understand why. Like, I wrote a book about it, but I was only really interested in Tradwives for like a five-month period. And then I wrote a novel and then, of course, now I talk about it. But I downloaded TikTok kind of on a whim just because I was bored and I didn't want to be writing at the time. And none of my friends were on it.

It was like, I don't know. I feel like I'm a little bit older than the goal demographic. And so I just started kind of like engaging with it and I was immediately served this tradwife content and I started posting videos and kind of like backpedaled my way into the conversation of just saying I don't really know why I care about this so much why is this so um aesthetic to me why am I obsessed with this like why do I want a honeybee oven this is not this is not my what's a honeybee oven oh it's like a really old a really old oven like an auger I think it's like an auger like old school in And then they have some of the ones that are made of stone. No, no, no, there is one that's shaped like a hive.

And I kind of like certain stuff. Like, I've lived on the road with my husband. Like, we've done kind of hippie stuff. But I never wanted that. And so I just kind of got into that conversation. And so I was doing so many TikToks about it that I basically became like a pseudo expert on it, which is just a horrifying statement of where we are with our internet culture. I had like a, I remember one day I told my husband, I was like, yeah, I have an interview with NPR New Zealand.

And he was like, why? Like, you have no credibility. But anyways, that was where the idea for yesterday came. I think I was just stewing in it for a few months. And then I wrote the novel. And was there, like you said, there was something in you that was like, oh, that looks nice. Yeah.

Yeah. I find really stressful about it because you're like, oh, I like that apron. The house does look nice with those apples piled up. Yeah. You don't like this. No, no. So I'm going to compare it to something. Yeah.

Do you remember when 50 shades of grey came out? Yes. And everyone was like mad for it. All the women. Mad for 15. 50 shades of grey. And our friend Vanessa said, it's,

the sexual fantasy is not being in control. Women have too much to do. The idea of being tied up and someone else is going to clean up afterwards. And being safe. Yeah.

Is what's attractive. Yeah. That's what's relaxing about it. And I think there must be an element to that about the tradwife of the ultra rebellion. Oh yeah, you don't have to think about it. Yeah.

The uncomfortable, just the amount of stuff. Yeah. That's the thing is you can. The pressure and the ego. exhaustion. Yeah, you can see the shininess of it. Or health. I'm going to take this away from you. And it is

wrapped up in a weird wellness that this is like purer, better, cleaner and therefore better for you and therefore morally right. Like, it's serving you this kind of like yum, yum, apple pie. It'll be all right if you do this. And the majority of us are on public transport feeding like completely toxic and hung over. And I do think it's something very interesting American about it because

obviously we don't, you know, our 1800s are not pioneers. No, no. You guys had a tough 1800s. We had a tough 1800s. So you can't really fetish it in the same way. You guys did not have a fun. Not like us. We had a really fun 1800s.

Well, to be fair, we were the ones sending everyone. Right, right, right. You're prisoners. It's linked. But it's like, yeah, we don't have that fantasy of like wide open spaces and you can make your own, you know, get out on your own journey. And it reminds me of, um, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Because you know there's the pioneer game that she plays, which I played in my English primary school, this pioneer game.

Oh, what's it called? Oregon Trail. Oregon Trail. Yeah, because I mean, we talked about it and I was like, why was I fucking playing Oregon Trail in London? But you get your little horses and you have to make sure you have this. You don't want anyone to die of cholera or whatever. And it's like, but it's obviously, it's a very, it's wrapped up in the American dream of like, whatever you do, you just got to go out, survive, grow and you can build anything you want. I've seen child wife stuff online.

Yeah. So I haven't ever. It doesn't get served to you. Yeah. That's not getting served to you. Not loads, but I think because I do, I do love a hack. Sure. Like a hack, you know, like, oh, how to do this cleaning thing easy.

How to make your butter from scratch? It's a gateway. How to clean this thing eco and then how to make butter from scratch. How to make sure your husband makes all your decisions. Like before you know it, you're just like, quick out. You're like, oh, I guess it would be easy if he was in charge of the account. I get a lot. All my serving is.

It's like how to lose weight with children's toys. Nice. How to do Pilates with a truck. The algorithm always knows. Yeah, I get no exercise. Mine's all. Eat some protein, you're weak cow. I get no exercise.

But yeah, I can see that trad-wise thing. Also, we're not on TikTok. We're talking about Instagram. Yeah, I'm too afraid. No, the same thing. Yeah, I can't. It's, TikTok, I will say, is a different beast. And I'm not on it right now.

I'm locked out of it. Thank God. But it is, it moves at a pace that is like light speed. But I mean, all the same stuff, filters over to Instagram. I feel like a granny that's waiting for her kids to come back and tell her. So I'm on Instagram and young people come back with their TikToks and like, oh, it sounds lovely. But I didn't have to go and catch them in the wild. Yeah, all those young people are just eating tidepods, though, so they can't come back to tell you what's going. My husband's on

it a lot. So what I've got is I'm watching the child going, no, I'm closing the doors. I'm closing the doors. I'm not going to try and keep up. Yeah. I'm going to go backwards. I bought a typewriter last year. Yeah, we've been talking about it. I'm going to learn to stay a great wife, but no one's going to know, maybe. But it's not, that's the thing that's interesting for Englishness. It's not trad wife so much for us. And also it is about the role. So trad wives are always heterosexual, are they?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, you can. And the religious element. Oh, my God. And the religious elements. Well, I mean, I don't think, I don't think a trad wife is real. So I just want to say that first and foremost. Like, it's a term, interestingly enough, that was coined by incels.

Like, so it's like a term that they made up to be like, women suck now, what we need are trad wives. So it's like, I don't think that every person... It's like to aspire to. Exactly, exactly. I don't think that a stay-at-home mom is a trad wife necessarily. Or maybe a stay-at-home mom can be religious. But maybe she would fall under that.

But like, I do think it's important to note that it's a term that was just made up by men to describe women who have no option. Oh, and also hypothetical women that they wanted who didn't want them anyway. Exactly. It's like a term that is defined by resentment. I don't know any women who call themselves tradwile. Great. You know what I mean? That's a really important distinction.

So I was assuming that was women going, I'm rebelling from other kinds of performance. I mean, they might have tried to reclaim it. And I'm sure some women will do it online for clout. But like, it's not a term that women came up with. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? That that's what we have now is like a personality trend rather than like mini skirts are in.

It's like tradwiser in. And then you get these accounts. And especially what you think you're doing with this book, you do get a lot of family accounts. They're like mom accounts. You know, where the kids are online and the brand is the family. That horrible court case with the woman abusing the children. Ruby Frankie. Ruby Frankie.

You always know the court case is better than me. It's the true crime podcast. Yeah, you've got to watch the Ruby Frankie documentary. I think I find it too horrific. But that's what sort of... What would happen? For people like me who don't know. I think she got eight kids.

She's got lots and lots of children. And they were online. It was Christian, amazing mum. But very strict parenting. She had a YouTube channel called eight passengers. Okay. So it was six children then. So it was her and her partner.

And they've both now been charged with child abuse. One of the children escaped, like a nine-year-old boy. What? What? And been tied up with tape in a cellar, like horrific. Yeah. And people loved her. Like, she was, it's like millions and millions of YouTube videos and sharing everything.

But this is it, isn't it when you make a family a brand? Like, families are fucked up anyway without you branding them. Yeah. Because families are people and people don't behave, you know? Like they move as electrons and do what they like. You can't control them. You sure can try, though. You can try.

And filming children is so creepy. It isn't something they can consent to. Yeah. I think it should be illegal. Yeah. I feel pretty strongly that it should be illegal. I thought it's really interesting what you deal with in the books. It should be illegal.

It's just such an easy thing to do. It's crazy to me. My kids watch Vlad and Nikki, who these two Eastern European children who live between Dubai and L.A. How? Where do they find them? Who are you children watching it? Someone gave them an iPad, okay?

Yeah, but what channel is? YouTube. It's YouTube. Oh, I find YouTube. My husband is obsessed with how much money these kids make or the families make because you can't believe the sets and the budgets. Have we like nothing from Judy Garland? Like we know. We know if a child is making shithloads of money.

Someone is dragging up the child. So there's extra characters. There's all these people. They all have Instagrams, these children. I'm talking about seven or eight year olds and it's slime gungge, will it float, pretending, like fast food, making fast food into socks. They're two-hour episodes, so they must film constantly. What adult now would ever say, gosh, I wish that my childhood had been filmed and put on line.

One of the moms is in it, and she's mouthing the kids' lines, and they do it in six different languages, because they have it on YouTube for other countries, and then some of them adopt. Wow. You know what I think about, and I think this is even true for people who aren't famous, and this is, like, the closest I will get to, like, a hot take about parenting, because people are so finicky about all of it, is that it's so funny that, like, you would not. never share a naked or an unclothed picture of a person over 18. You could get sued. But I see pictures of young children that I don't know. And it's not even by famous people. And I'm like, and I think these people would think, well, I'm not famous, but I'm like,

but you don't know me. And I can see a picture of your kid that's naked. And it's so weird to me. It's so weird. And I also feel like it's almost adorable that you don't know how horrible, not only the internet, but humanity is. Right. And not even getting to the worst parts of it, but even just the idea of a person and having their right to personhood and having them, like they will one day be adults and everything is online. And we made a bigger deal about teenagers having solo cups in their hands 10 years ago than we do now with like actual toddlers running around naked. It's just, I don't know, it's something that I always think about when I'm online.

But I think this is the problem with the parents. I know this was getting to the end of this, but parents who grew up without the internet who then have. had Facebook and what you do is you share family photos and not understanding that that whole thing has gone and has done. Because I don't think those children will post pictures of their children. No, and Jen Zed, like that's the thing is like it's completely not posting stuff. You do post nothing. Like my younger cousin's like post nothing. They're like so embarrassing to post anything. Then like if they do, it's like the shoulder of their friend and then there's one emoji and that's it. And it's like you, yeah, it's now it's like you guess what I'm telling you. It's like a picture of like a trash can and a candy wrapper or something. Trash can L-O-L-L-24.

And you're like, yeah, there's like, the whole thing is like, I will not. Whereas our generation, hey, here's a picture of five pictures of me doing a thing. Let me expect you what it is. Also, it's diary entries. It makes you cringe so much. Like, just feel a bit like this today and just need a hug. I don't want to say who it was, but someone was really mean to me today at work. They think we're cringe because we are.

We are. We're overshared everything. So they've gone the other way. They share nothing. And everything's very coded and, you know, they've made, they realize that parents can see. So it's like, how can. I send a message to my friends. Right.

Or you were at that party, so you know what that shoulder means, but no one else does. They might have secret social sites that they haven't told us about. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Because we just, you know, people our age keep getting on there and ruining it. Well, it's like, you know, you can have an app that. They have a secret one. They think we're on Snapchat. Yeah.

But, yeah, we're really here. Snapchat is the devil. Snapchat freaks me out. I don't even go on Snapchat anymore. I was on Snapchat when it first appeared. There was a moment. I don't think anyone's on it in England there. Well, no, I think some people are.

You think not us. Yeah, yeah. They're not us, Sarah. It's not in our world. But yeah, people are using it to send rude messages to each other. No, we are in heavy mum's category where we're just voice note people. Nice. This is all you do.

I love the sweet anonymity of a voicemail. It's all the best bits of a phone call. Yeah, yeah. Just me talking. We're just listening at all. Natalie has put her kids online. And what I loved as well that you did, which is that the book is amazing. I don't think we've got there.

because they've been talking so much. It's a page turner. It's such a page turner. Because it has elements of, obviously, a thriller, a crime thriller. And a mystery in terms of what is going to happen to this woman. Is she going to go back to her family? Do we even want her to go back to her family? But I love the moment with the kids when her oldest one, Clementine, is, she's a tween, isn't she?

And we have this moment, which, again, not spoiler, where she says, I don't want to be filmed. And there was a lovely line when Natalie was like, okay, honey, you just have to say, say me that. I always tell you, just tell me if you don't want to be filmed. And Natalie thinks, I've never said that before. Right. And you were like, the boundaries that are being set as things happen, because it's everything so new. So like a parent having to be like, I haven't really negotiated with you filming because who the fuck films their kids? This is a new wild west. And children have to learn that they're capable of negotiating. That's a learned skill that takes time. So I think a lot of these parents and these influencers have like a decade

plus of a head start with these kids before they even learn that they have the agency if they do to say no. My kids already 9 and 6 will not have their photo taken. No. Like straight away and I'm like, I have to be like, this is just for me.

Just a send for grandma's, for grandma has we got here okay? Just a smiley one guys, just for grandma. I do not consent. Yeah. They are so aggressive about it. I'm like, how did he influence the women? But you also have them in the world. Your children are in, I would assume, your children are in the world interacting. These children are not. Like as far as I understand with all of these famous families, these kids are cloistered away. They're usually homeschooled or they're at like a very,

very religious school. So they don't have access to other people saying this kind of stuff. Like your kids have access to learning about agency. And that's what, again, this family in the book, she has these two nannies who are not online. No one knows she has the nannies. And the farm is run. And there are lots of workers that are employees. Because running the farm that no one sees. Right. And this older girl is obviously at the cusp of realizing and she uses the phrase, Tradwife. Yeah.

And then Natalie realizes someone's getting to the outside world. Like, how does she even know that? So I thought it was very, it's a very important point in Natalie's life, right? Like she's been holding onto everything very well, but it's starting to slip through her fingers. Like it's successful. She's buried everything. I mean, because we meet her earlier and we see her journey into this, and we see her sort of posting online before she's successful. before it's all very sort of well composed and intentional.

We see that she's full of rage and misunderstanding. She's sort of hooked up with the wrong man and has to make the best of it. And it's the burying of I'm unhappy and this isn't right. And I can fake it and I can work my way through it and how I'm perceived is more important. And that's really universal. Yeah. And I think too like the claustrophobia of feeling like you can't undo anything. I think a lot of us feel like we can or as hard as it is like divorce is an unbelievably difficult thing to move through, but it's an option for a lot of women.

But when it's not an option, even in your own head, or when not having children is not even an option to consider. I think that that, I mean, that was a headspace that I was in while I was working on this book. And it was so easy for me to suddenly feel so constricted and to just feel like even, again, even if you don't want to get to, the fact that that is never an option. is such a different mental framework than I think one that anyone in this room would be living in. But that's interesting because that is how a woman would have felt in the early 1800s. So she does have that in common. Totally. But what she doesn't have in common is all like access to electricity and the internet.

But that, yeah, that female position of being stuck is something that is connecting her. And that is true if you don't have your own money. Yeah. You are trapped if your partner pays for a mortgage. If you have a child of a partner who is. the breadwinner and you don't have your own money. And it's true in lots of communities and places in the world still. So I do think it's a really important discussion in feminism that that was why autonomy is so underlined everywhere because it's such a position of privilege to have a choice

to get away from things that don't serve you. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I've done, I've gone down so many different rabbit holes, both for this novel and for when I was just looking into child wives before. And something I learned that I think is so fascinating is that financial abuse is one element of abuse that we have almost no data on. Because women don't report it and you can't really access that information. Like even domestic violence, you can kind of literally have a paper trail. But financial abuse is so embedded, not just in these communities, but in like, you know, even in secular communities, that we really don't have numbers to even begin to understand how many women do not have access to their own money. Because again, it's like a type of, it's a type of

liberation that I think even women who know you shouldn't hit me, some of those women I think aren't necessarily aware of or like bullish on talking about the fact that they should have their own money. So I find that, I found that so interesting that we just like don't even have the data. Yeah. And isn't it something like in in cases domestic abuse, there's always financial abuse? I think the assumption that is always control. Yeah. Control. Yeah. Because if you monitor what someone is spending, you essentially know what they are doing at all times and you limit every single one of their choices

from what they're eating and what they're wearing. And I think it's quite often as well a first stage in a coercive relationship is this is the easiest thing to do is cut you off from the world. Yeah, it's my account. If you have your own money, then it's easier you can just leave. Not that it's easy, but like think of there. I think there are so many stats about how it takes so many times. to try and leave, but if you have the money, then you can get to a hotel room. And then maybe

you go back, but like having that space, I think is critical. And yeah, I think there is an assumption that it's almost, you know, hand in hand, that if someone's suffering domestic violence at length, then they're probably suffering financial abuse. And it's interesting because Natalie is like sort of the brains behind this partnership, like her husband is. I really liked the character. I love Caleb. He's such a, like, idiot. But like, in very, very believable. But, And again, I really loved how she falls in love with him. You can see why it seems like a good idea at the time. And then it's like, again, she got like a magnifying mirror and then she actually sees him.

And it's like, yeah, you've been looking in a vintage mirror babes. Like this is not. Looking at a pun. Yeah. So it would be very, I think it's very, we don't culturally have a thing in Britain about sort of like waiting to be married to have sex for the first time. Well, some Christian, some Christian, British Christian. But you guys don't have the same Christian poll as America. No, so Australia is a bit more like America.

Was it? Yeah. That's why yesterday is going gangbusters in Australia. Is it? And I didn't know why at first. And then someone was like, babe, that's America. Yes. Oh, it's a former British colony.

Welcome to how we fucked up the world. Are you going to go to Australia? I don't know. Fourth Estate, do you want to pay me to go to Australia? We'll see. We'll see if they want to do it. Yeah, I can see it. Well, we just have a very different history with Christianity.

But I also think that there are lots of. Christians that also are slightly more flexible on some of those things. Because waiting until you're married to find out for your sexually compatible someone. Because that's why I think I don't like Caleb. But I also know, I know like a handful of people our age who did not have sex so they got married. Really? Yeah. In the Christian.

For religious reasons? Yeah. Christians. I wasn't saying they ended up having. Oh, right. Yeah. It's not the same. Yeah. I don't think. Because there's a platform in America where it's. Oh, I mean, we're trying to bring back teen births in America. So I mean, we can get into that.

You say we, you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my long game for the year is bringing back to this. Yeah, I definitely have friends who brought up Christian and didn't, you know, all. And how did it go? Well, and lots of them are still married. Okay, there you go. But there's often like, you meet someone and they'll say, oh, we got married at 21.

You're like, 21. I know. And they're like, we're Christian. And then you're like, oh, right, right, right. You need to have sex. Like, of course you had to get married. Also, you've been with your husband since you were 18. So you might as well.

Just stop. And thanks to God, we're still together. So Sarah, don't knock it. Yeah, but you know, we didn't get married at 21 because, yeah, we were. Why, we're discussing? I don't want to discuss this. I mean, I got married at 26 and I feel like a child bride in retrospect. I'm like, when I have friends who get married at 31, I'm like, why are you rushing into this?

And I have like such a happy marriage, but it does seem. How did you meet your husband? We actually kind of were on parallel paths for a long time. We went to the same high school in college and he was cooler than me. And so he didn't. Well, but you sounds like you were cooler than me faster because you started dating earlier. But I got the last laugh. So now we're married.

And you've got very tall husband. Is that right? Yeah, he's six and six. Six. Six. Six. Six. Yeah, six.

Nice. Sexy. Sexy. Look at us. Let's see. Yes. Look at us. You can't have it all right.

Yeah, but we've discussed it. The tall feminists get very angry with me because I'm five at three. Oh, I would be angry with you. I could have taken a short man for the team, but I didn't want to. Do you wear heels lot or do you not care? No, I'm flat. So I can't be asked. So yeah, I feel bad.

But my tall friend was like, it's not fair that you took a tall man down. It's a little bit disrespectful, but this game is not about, you know, equity. And we have to allow the tall men choice. Sure. You know, they have autonomy as well. I was just love that scene in a rom-com. Like, no, I do think you are the one, but I can't because she's taller than me. It's her turn.

That's what the sisterhood has come to now. But you didn't like Caleb. I just kind of like, I didn't like him. I think he made my skin crawl. Oh, yeah, that's unbelievable. I just thought he was so stupid. No, I guess, look, I had sympathy for him in time. of like where he came in his siblings,

but there's something about people who don't try to have strength of character. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's weak. Yeah, that's what I mean. And so, so I found him so frustrating. Yeah,

he is. We are all so flawed. And if someone is trying to be better, you go absolutely, absolutely, I guess it's hard. I think I found, he didn't ever seem to be trying.

Well, that's, that's one of the things that, I mean, listen, I don't go into the review. I don't go to good reads. But I do know that they're one of the qualms or the,

the challenges people have had with this book is that, and this isn't a spoiler, I don't think, but like the goal of this book is not for characters to improve. And that's like one of the most common threats in contemporary literature is that you kind of have this pact that you're going to have a character who changes over time and learns a lesson. And that's not the compact that you have with this other.

That's quite interesting because we were talking about flesh before and David Salloy. And that's a character that doesn't improve as well. And I wonder if because things are so, hard in the world. There is something about positivity in art. Oh, sure. We want to laugh at sitcoms where people are doing their best and we want to read stories where it gives you hope at the end, even if terrible things happen. But we also, we are grown up so we can take it. That isn't the world. Also, like, terrible things have always been happening. Like, Charles Dickens

wasn't exactly writing during a time period where it was like, we're all good. I do think at the moment, I do think at the moment people are like, I can't take another thing. Please distract me. Yeah. Yeah. And so sometimes they're like, I feel a bit agitated. I was expecting. Oh, totally. I mean, in the publishing industry, I don't even know if this is tea or not, but like, you can't publish a book that has a sad ending. Well, they'll stop here. Yeah, it's like not even an option. I don't know if you watched just like that, the Sex and the City remake. Yeah, great. Because I felt like that's what they were saying about her dealings with publishing because she's told twice to change an ending to make it positive. Oh, yeah. And I've experienced that and I've witnessed it with friends. Like, it's just you have to end it on something that resists.

resembles hope or optimism or something. And so you saw my attempt at that in this novel. Yeah. But yeah, I think what I like, I guess you're right, Caleb is a worm. But I like. He's a sweet worm though at the beginning. Yeah, but I also like, there's something very sitcomy and funny to me of like this weak man coming up to Natalie with his stupid suggestions.

And Natalie, because we know she is so, everything is so repressed, having to be like, what a great idea. And because I didn't like that, because Natalie was, you know, bad. I was also like, yeah, bitch, how are you going to deal with it? You made your bed. So I kind of enjoyed that she had got herself into this mess and that Caleb was making it work. I kind of enjoyed Natalie having to sit in like, you know, this terrible mess that she was in. And if Caleb had been better or nicer or changed, she would, I don't know. I was like, yeah, tough shit girl.

Right. Do you think he was a good dad? No. Terrible dad. No. I think they're both terrible parents. Yeah. Yeah, really terrible.

Because there's that as well. It's like a man. and doing what he's told, but there are these other people that they have created who are half them. So if you can't do it for yourself, do it for your children. So I think that's what I think is so serious about weakness

is that you then become an adult who is responsible for other people. So you think we should kill all the weak people. I'm with you, I'm with you. I think it's important, Sarah, needs to be said. You powerfries me terribly. No, no, she's in... Clip it.

Clip it. I think too this is something else that I spend a lot of time thinking about that there are a lot of terrible parents in the world like it is only and if you want to get into the history of it all it's only very recent that we have decided

to view children as like sentimental like it was that was not a thing it's very children's centric parenting is like 20 years old very recent we did not go out with children's centric parenting even the idea that parents should spend time with their like it's all just very new and I think a lot of it is positive Like I hope that I will spend time with my children. But I think it is a third rail that I notice a lot in the arts that we just like really, really have a hard time engaging with especially bad woman parents.

Like the idea, I mean, I don't know if you guys followed Secret Lives of Mormon wives. But like it's a reality show in the U.S. I've heard of it. And I know you talk about it. Okay. Yeah. I can't bring myself to watch it. It does.

Really simple summary. A famous reality star who is a Mormon in the U.S. has been under fire for domestic violence charges with her children. And I've just been watching it really thinking about how we really cannot conceive of the idea of women being violent to kids, even though it's actually very common. It's really not that uncommon. And also in terms of it's horrible. And actually, it's really horrible once you have a baby because. Oh, I'm sure. Your brain serves you the worst of everything that could happen.

Right. And all of a sudden, actually, I don't know if you felt this as well, you're in tune with all of this. You're holding the most vulnerable thing. And you're aware of what other people do have done. and what has happened. And actually you do understand it all of a sudden. And it's really a massive thing to absorb. And the fact that you can't say that they can't do anything.

Even like a child crying and being ignored is so heartbreaking that someone doesn't come to comfort them. But also the fact that it's their caregiver. And all of the stats, that is who they are. That's who they're vulnerable to. If there are crimes, it's committed by their parents. Yeah. And if they do diet, it's their parents. Completely.

And it's obviously in the name of like people wanting things that are lighter. People have never really want, you don't, no one ever wants to sit with terrible things. But I do find it interesting that there are periods of time, I feel like where art shifts towards and away more of those third rail topics. And I do think we're in a time period where we have shifted very far away from that. Australia would interest you. So, Dingo ate my baby. Oh yeah. The most famous, you know, this.

It's a film. They did a film. They did an ongoing court case still. But the film is someone's at a dingo at their baby? Oh, it's a really famous film with like Meryl Street. I cannot, Carol. Oh, please. I'm going to walk down to take.

I'm going to skip my event. It's so huge. It's so huge. This was a big thing in the 80s. So a couple, really just couple camping, their baby disappears. And then there were dingoes around where they were camping. And the mother screamed. The mother says she saw dingo take her baby.

They didn't believe her. And then they found the bloody clothes and some bones. and then years later they found out that she went to prison. And then she was overturned. And now they think she is guilty again. There's this whole thing. But they have, their two biggest serial killers are both women who they think killed all their babies

and kept having children and killing. Australia. The film is called A Cry in the Dark and it's Mel Streep and Sam Neal. When I was a kid, that was like, that was the biggest thing when we were children. It was such a big film that this film came out about it. People were shouting it in the playground, a dingo. Yeah.

Is there a documentary as well? Lots. Yeah. What do you guys think? Do you think that she did it? Well, the film kind of portrayed, I remember from watching the film, like, you're kind of left like no one knows. But it's about a perfectly seeming woman having that in her.

So it's the most fascinating thing. Sure. Because it is about the performance of motherhood and then our biggest terror. Yeah, we just, I mean, I think we just like to think, we all like to pretend that there are crazy people and then there are us. And that there is a very stark line between those boundaries. But don't you think it's also having had a mother? and mother has to be safe

and I think it's that little bit of worry that she is our biggest enemy rather than a place of nurturing and safety I think it's that that it's also feeding on does that mean that my mother could have done that to me or could at any point Have you read any Doris Lessing as well? I feel like you would love some Doris Lessing

so she's a big British writer but she like left her kid she was forced to so Doris Lessing she won the Nobel Prize for Literature It's like the last daughter Elena Fratee yeah Oh yes yes yes So Doris Lessing was in South Africa she wanted to divorce

and the husband wouldn't let her take her children and she wanted to be a writer and she needed to be free. Hell yeah. So she left and she had another child and people couldn't understand. Her whole biography is always tainted.

Yeah, how could she ever barricized herself? So she won the Nobel Prize and still the story is. I think she did have a complicated relationship with the child that she kept. Yes. She certainly didn't sound like someone's super nurturing.

Yeah. I think you would find that really interesting. Oh, the other person we thought of when we read this, we didn't know if you'd read Octave. A. Butler. Kindred. You know what's so funny is that a lot of people have mentioned Kindred with the premise, which I understand.

But I don't think the books are that similar. And I also would never, ever, as a self-preserving white woman who loves Octavia Butler's books, would never compare myself to her. But I think that, yeah, it wasn't that we thought they were similar. And I hadn't picked up on it. We've done the book for the podcast. And Cadillette said, it's so. Is it sort of sitting alongside something because you take a modern woman. The timeline thing, I guess, of like modern versus American past.

If I could ever do like a spoilers episode on yesterday, because I can't talk about why they're different too much without getting into spoilers. But like, I do think I've thought about this quite a bit that the way that Octavia Butler used time travel and the way that I used time travel really speak to the differences between whiteness and blackness. And again, I don't like I don't want to talk about it too much without getting into. spoilers, but like, I think that Butler so brilliantly was talking about the black experience with how time travel functioned in her novel. And this book is so much about whiteness. And so time travel functions in such a different way. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're good, I feel like they're good accompaniments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, people should read Kindred with any book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a visceralness to both of them. Your character, when she's in the

olden times, gets badly injured and has no anaesthetic and is sewn up by a child. And then we go, exactly. And Octavia E. Butler, when she's, I mean, one of her characters loses an arm. Yeah, it's really weird. And it's that same, the brutality of pain being written through. It reminds me of like, yeah, you know, however much you want to, I do an improvised Jane Austen show. Oh my God, I love it. Called ostentatious.

And like, obviously, you know, I spent a lot of time in 1814. and the romanticism of that and then just being reminded of like, oh no, no, no, no, fucking horrific. And I also have a nine-year-old daughter and the idea of her sewing up any piece of my skin was like, oh, God. I mean, we didn't have anesthesia until, like, I think, the 1870s.

Yeah, yeah. And even then, it was administered very roughly. It was so dangerous. Julia had it when she gave birth, and that's why she named her daughter, Anastasia, because it was the first time she had it. So that would have been, like, 18 or something. And she basically had.

Later than that. Later than that, is it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Did she not die in 1806? No, no, no. Yeah. I think it was like the 1870s. I'm researching that for an episode on childbirth. Yeah. She basically was the one who gave women credit for choosing like to abstain from pain during childbirth because before it was like you have to feel it. Yeah. God wanted you to. I want to ask you, where is the worst time period you could be sent back to? I mean, isn't there There is some comedian who does a bit where it's like, you know you're a white man if you would go back in time?

Yes, yeah. I mean, none? I don't, 1990. I'd love to go to like Lilith Fair, but like besides that. No, you couldn't pay me to go back in time. I feel like I would get my head chopped off immediately. Or it's like you could only do it if you were very, very wealthy.

People imagine themselves never as a peasant in that time. They imagine themselves as like, unfair mode. was wealthy. That's why I like doing ostentatious because it's like I get to be a rich white woman in 1814. Sure. And didn't she still walk into a lake with rocks in her pockets? Virginia Woolf, sorry.

That's the other tortured literary woman. Jane died penniless. It was very sad at age of 44 with her sister because no one had married her and she had no money and her brother wouldn't support her anymore. So yeah, she did not have a happy time. Virginia Woolf was on her period and she tried exactly insane the month before when she was on her period and failed the first time. Wow.

Brutal. I'm on that happy note. I'm sure this is what you talked about before HART Before HART Exactly Don't Don't don't

Because there'll be people In a generation's time When they've sorted I can't wait Women used to have to like Bear back this I can't wait to tell my daughter Like oh my god

You know what we And her being like Oh I don't think it'll be solved In a generation We just found endometrios Oh my god Come on AI has to do something Maybe if we tell Apple

I promise I'll buy more stuff If you sort out It makes me feel ugly? They're going to use AI for you to like generate three-headed chickens to send to your friends. It's not going to help women's, women's help. Any other book things?

Well, I was going to ask about, oh yeah. Oh, let's all about Anne Hathaway. Sure. Okay, quickly. What'd be quickly? No, as in time wise. Yeah. Not like Rush.

Just like. Anne Hathaway was involved quite early in the process, but she has bought the rights to a book and this making a movie to play the central character herself. Yeah. That's pretty big. Yeah, it's crazy. So at what's point did that happen? right right as I sold the book. I had the book auction and then we went to film auction.

I wrote a full draft. You have to. There's no there's no sending a partial or a pitch when you're selling fiction until you've sold a few books and then you can get a little bit looser. So yeah, I wrote a whole draft and the plot you have here is basically the plot that I had, but it was just worse. And so yeah, I went to book auction in the spring of 2024 and then as soon as that ended the next day, we rolled into the film auction. So it was, it was, it was, crazy. That is, I mean, there's so few people at that level who get that story. And I just want to say, because I think it's so important that, because some people listening will want to make things. They'll want to be. And this has been a 10-year journey for you. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ten plus. Yeah. Because it's always sold as an overnight success. I went on TikTok and then I wrote a book. Totally. It always sounds like the pretty thing. But no, yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm very lucky that I sold this book and now I was able to sell it for enough money that I can now write full time. But if you amortize that over the 10 years I wrote for free,

like it is really, I don't know a single writer or person in the arts. I mean, I'm sure you guys can speak to this. I don't know a single artist who has been an over-in-aid. Like, it's a fiction. It's a total fiction. And you posted on Instagram or your- did you see? Yeah. I don't believe that had such a response. That was nuts. I think it's important to demystify them and people to know that being told no doesn't mean your shit and it doesn't mean it won't ever happen. It just means they've said no. And so the continuing its story, the, take what's useful to you. Tell about when you did your college. I did a college. I auditioned for five years. Oh, I would love to see you. I don't have

it anymore. But what I knew at the time was that the rejection was important because I wasn't going to give up. Right. And so I did feel like there would be, I guess I was imagining an Oscars speech where I got out my collage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because when I saw your face about rejection. You were three-sided poster war. Guys, let's go through full names of everyone who didn't want this. A quick little assembly before we moved on to the next Oscar. They're playing the music. Ignore the music.

You've got a collage. When I saw your post of rejection, I thought of your collage. We've talked about this on the show a lot. Sarah took that as like, well, I'm kind of carry on. I took every rejection letter as, well, there you go. They've told you. Right. It's a final decision.

Yeah, I was like, they know what they're doing. They're experts. And so I can see why it resonates with people. Because to see your success and see your journey for people like me, who get very quick to give up. And it's generous to be sure. Yeah, it's like, oh, fuck, this person is, this person, because that's how I felt knowing Sarah.

She was like, it's not, it doesn't mean we can't carry on. What you should also do, not you, but the proverbially you who's listening to this podcast is you've got to start collecting your stories. Like Greta Gerwig has, she was rejected from every film school in New York with screenwriting. Taunahasi Coates has talked about this where he basically wrote for like 15 years. And then he only started to really receive a claim in his mid to late 30s. And he just said, I was the only one who didn't give up. So all of a sudden I was the person who had accumulated the most skill.

Because I do think a lot of art is just putting in the miles. There's talent a little bit, but a lot of it is just not quitting and just continuing to get better out. And those gatekeepers and those rejectors aren't saying you're not good enough. They're just saying no to that thing in that moment. Totally. But it's really important. I do think it's generous to share those things. Oh, thank you.

Because it would be really easy to enjoy the mythology of I'm amazing and now everyone knows my name. Thank God you've realized. Well, luckily a decade of rejection creates a debilitating complex in your head where you'll never feel that way. That's what they won! So the film, without halfway, are you writing it? No, thank God. I'm an executive producer. So I can read the scripts and I've been in close contact with the screenwriter and she's brilliant.

But I got very good advice when I was selling it that I didn't want to be a screenwriter. I wanted to be a novelist and I was like, good point. And so are you writing another novel now? Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to ask anything more. I'm just really great. And you're having a baby.

I'm having a baby. How many of you guys have? I have two boys. Catherine Ryan, who's a Canadian comedian who lives in London. She's very famous here. And she says, boy children is how God punishes feminists. I do find it helpful sometimes to have a girl.

Because I do sometimes see the shit I let him get away with it. I do sometimes think it's quite helpful to be like, oh, I just told her off for that. And I'm not telling, okay, yeah. Okay, good. I'm just obsessed with. two little men going, it's the mothers. The mothers have done this to us. Just obsessed with them. When does the film come out? Do we know? The film? No, I don't know when

it comes out. I believe, what can I say publicly, that they're moving quickly. They're moving quickly. Well, of course, because now it's a global bestseller. I know. It's sure. I have to say, I definitely felt, I mean, they've been so enthusiastic and passionate the whole time, but you do kind of have the feeling where you're like, it's not a flop. I mean at any point with the film industry, people can, I mean, people shelved products after they've been filmed. So I have never, I still don't believe it's real. So I kind of look at it out of the corner of my eye. But yeah, it's awesome. And there, I mean, Anne is brilliant. She's at now. I like that. I like that. I'm allowed to call her Annie. Thank you very much. But no, no, no. She's just, she's brilliant. And I never thought I would have someone like that interested in my novel. So I'm excited to see what they do. do with it. Yeah, so exciting. It'll be a fun movie. Very exciting. And best of that, best of that the rest of the book, promotion. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on. And if you haven't read the book, go and read the book. And if you haven't listened to the podcast, Diabolical Lies,

going to listen to the podcast. And everyone I've ever recommended it to it to, too, is then just becomes obsessed. Can I tell you what happens? If you recommend someone diabolical lies, you'll be in a room with them, three months time, and they'll be like, have you heard of diabolical lies? It's happened to me. Carrie Pritchard McLean sent it back to me. The nerve. I've had it twice now. Someone recommended it. I'm like, I am the one that told you about that and they are telling a room for the women as if yeah but it becomes so personal to people they can't remember oh that's so nice like they don't remember the bit where another woman said it they're just like oh they they're my friends yeah twice now a woman's been like have you

heard of it i'm like i fucking whatsap to you this episode and i was like have you heard of this no i don't really like podcasts oh i really think this one would be good for you so so funny you deserve all the credit thank you and i will always remember that any british person moving forward i'll be like i know who recommends it was it, Carriad. She was a listener. Actually, do you know what? I can't remember the woman that shared it on Instagram. There you go. There you go. It was you. It was you.

It was me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. Yesterday is out now. Carriads and I have books still available. They've not been pulped yet. No, you can buy Where Did She Go? My Kids' Book About Grief.

You can buy Sarah's book Weirdo, her debut fiction. You can find out more about our books. We've got coming up. at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club on Instagram. And please join us on Patreon for some more weird and wonderful stuff. It's a great way to support the show. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.