Woman's Hour - Lisa Jewell, Baby Babble, Bluebella rugby ad, Genre Fiction - Romance/Romantasy

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

It’s 25 year since the New York Times’ best-selling author Lisa Jewell published her first novel, Ralph’s Party. Since then she’s written another twenty-one novels, and more recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs and the award winning None of This is True. She joins Krupa Padhy to discuss her latest work – Breaking the Dark – which is a Jessica Jones Marvel crime novel, exploring the world of the private detective and former superhero. Over the summer Woman’s Hour is looking at ‘genre fiction’. Today we start the series with the ever-popular genre of romance and its new sub-genre, romantasy. Lindsey Kelk published her first romance novel I Heart New York in 2009. Her new novel Love Story is just that, as well as being an interrogation of the very concept of romantic fiction. Sarah A. Parker’s romantasy novel When the Moon Hatched went from an independently published TikTok sensation to Sunday Times bestseller. Both authors join Krupa to discuss the stigma and success of the romance genre.A video of a 19 month old baby babbling has gone viral after people noticed she had a Scouse accent. The video, which shows baby Orla chatting away to her Mum’s friend, has been viewed more than 20 million times. To explain what’s going on when babies and very young children are learning language, and how can they have an accent before they can properly speak, Krupa is joined by Professor Julian Pine, Professor of Psychology at the University of Liverpool.A recent advertising campaign for Bluebella the underwear brand, features three of the GB women's rugby team members in the brand’s lingerie, on a rugby pitch. The campaign has had a mixed response. Krupa discusses with rugby journalist, Victoria Rush, and Sarah Bellew, head of communications for Women in Sport a charity that tackles gender inequality in sport.More than 150 pages of court transcripts from a 2006 grand jury criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein were released to the public on Monday. A judge in Florida ordered the release of the documents which had been kept secret for nearly two decades. They included first hand testimony from teenage victims as young as 14. To discuss the significance of this Krupa speaks to Emma Long, Head of American Studies at the University of East Anglia Presented by Krupa Padhy Producer: Louise Corley

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupa Bhatti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, thank you for being with us. We are in the company of some fine writers this morning, helping us escape into their world of fiction, something many of us will welcome at the moment. The number one New York Times and Sunday Times author Lisa Jewell will join us. She is channeling her inner superheroine for her latest novel. It's a

Marvel crime story called Breaking the Dark, which if you are a Marvel fan, features the private investigator Jessica Jones. If crime isn't your thing, how about romance or fantasy? Or maybe a blend of both, known as romantasy. Some estimates put the sales of this genre at £27 million in the last year alone here in the UK. On TikTok, the hashtag romantasy has clocked up almost 765 million views. The writers Lindsay Kelk and Sarah A Parker will talk us through this growing trend and I'm confident that many of you will have seen the Scouse baby video that went viral over a week ago with tens of millions of views on various social media platforms from TikTok to Instagram. If you haven't seen it, especially if you need a bit of cheering up,

there is a high chance that this will make you smile. In the video, we see baby Orla debating with her mum's friend about why she doesn't need to go to bed just yet, all in a very convincing Scouse accent, but there are no words as such. We're going to speak to a language expert about how little ones pick up language and accents. We would love for you to share your early memories of the babies in your life babbling.

It might be an accent, a first word, a conversation. Maybe you had an innovative way of talking to your baby. You can text the programme. That number is 84844. On social media, we are at BBC Women's Hour. You can email us through our website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. All of our terms and conditions can be found over on our website. Plus, a judge in Florida has ordered the surprise release of graphic transcripts from the state's 2006 prosecution of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Emma Long, head of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, explains the significance of this. Do stay with us for that. But first, you may have seen a recent advertising campaign for Blue Bella, the underway brand. It features three of the GB women's rugby team players in the brand's lingerie items such as lacy bras, teddies and knickers on a rugby pitch in South London. It's a campaign that has had a mixed response to say the least and I'm joined now by rugby journalist Victoria Rush and Sarah Bellew, head of communications for women in sport which is a charity that tackles gender equality in sport. Welcome to you both.

Hi, great to be here. Sarah, let's start with you. What was your reaction when you saw this campaign? Well, I think the first thing to mention is that this absolutely isn't about the wonderful, incredible, powerful athletes at the center of this campaign initially and as a rugby player myself I was shocked to see these these incredibly powerful women in very sexualized underwear practicing line outs on a rugby pitch we are at a point now with women's sport and over the last few years we've seen the progression with the line asses

and the red rosesoses in particular. And we need to be celebrating these women for what they can do on the pitch and not what they look like. And it did feel like a backward step. And as someone who's grown up, you know, seeing girls and women

very much objectified in sport, you know, remember the grid girls, remember the women in boxing. And it felt like we were back there again. Victoria, where do you stand? I stand, well, I stand at the, it's a little bit chaotic, the response, in my opinion. I understand how people can see that they might jump to it being aggressive. But from my perspective, we've been asking for

models to represent real women for such a long time that now that they finally do we seem to have had um a negative reaction to that we're finally seeing women that we've been asking to have on the front of campaigns for such a long time they're there they're they're athletes they are strong they are powerful they do something that as a rugby player myself as well, we both play the sport and we're now seeing them as as as models. Whereas a couple of years ago, there were brands who were using models to model rugby kits. So we've kind of gone the exact opposite and somehow I've ended up in this. This can't be done. We've done it the wrong way when actually we've been given what we've been asking for. So I have a little bit of a negative reaction to using the context of girls and enticing girls into sport through the use of lingerie. But if you take that piece, that

sentence of this campaign away, what you have is athletes as models, which I think is fantastic. Sarah, you made reference to some past examples there. And I wonder whether there is a generational divide on this. Well, I think Victoria said it very eloquently there. I think that the problematic part of this campaign is not seeing the diversity of powerful women in advertising. We absolutely do need to see a huge array of diversity of skin colour and body types in our advertising campaigns. The fundamental

problem with this campaign is that this was linked very much to inspiring teenage girls into sport. And we know from our research, we're seeing 1.3 million teenage girls dropping out of sport. And these are girls that once loved sport. And, you know, this really, really matters. You know, sport gives girls resilience, leadership skills, teamwork, skills that are so pivotal, not just within sport, but for their wider lives and for those girls being able to achieve it in all areas of their lives. And when you come back to rugby and team sport, you know, we're also seeing 22% fewer girls than boys playing team sport. And it comes back to how girls are stereotyped. And from the moment they are born, girls are told what you look like matters more than what you do. And this is

fundamentally the issue. They're surrounded by messages that they need to be a good girl, they need to be pretty. You know, it's not about taking risks. We tell girls all the time to be careful. So this is about, you know, by putting women in sexualized underwear in sport, you know, we're not suddenly going to, you know, stop the plug and stop so many girls leaving sport. This is about understanding what we need to do within society to change, to value girls in sport as much as we do with our boys. And we need to stop telling them that what they look like matters we've already seen so many problems when it comes to kit and kit that is designed for women's bodies so this is

fundamentally the issue I think if this campaign had been done away from a rugby pitch in a studio where you know there wasn't that they weren't in outdoor spaces where we know also that women feel so vulnerable and so exposed, especially when they're playing sport. I think this would have been less of an issue. And yes, we do need to see that. But, you know, this is a hark back to times that have passed where we always saw with women being objectified and sexualised within sport.

And we do need to move away from that. Victoria, I've heard people say this is an example of looking sexy and being strong. That combination of sexy and strong is what I've seen some people share on social media in support of this. What do you say to them um i think just just going back to what's been said that's it's not necessarily what you look like is more important than what you do i think at this point these women play for team gb what they do is first and foremost the important part of this and then how they feel and how they want to represent themselves is what's come because of that. So this campaign, from my perspective, is actually the other way around. They're celebrated because

they are so good at what they do. They are the best in the country. They are going to the Olympics this summer. They've then chosen to be part of this campaign. It's not like Blue Bella is a partner of GB7s. These women have made this decision to be ambassadors off of their own back. So I think that, in essence, is what we're actually looking at here. We can pull things apart to the nth degree, but talking about the creative, I do agree. There are some question marks around maybe how well the photography could have been done and the creative of the campaign leaning into some of the stats around women and girls could also be looked at but we're nitpicking at this point whereas a lot of this outcry has come from looking at whether

women are being sexualized these athletes have made this decision off their own back to show that their strength is as important as how comfortable they feel in their bodies and that's what that's what we're debating here we're telling these athletes you can go and do and be the best of what you do but we still get to decide how you dress your body in public and now that kind of that's where this has become when it never needed to go this far yes there are definitely questions there will always be questions when women wear lingerie in public in this setting. But I think we've taken it too far. They are phenomenal athletes. If they want to do this campaign, which has been their personal choice, then they get to do it.

I think that key word is choice. Blue Bella has sent us this statement. They say, we have been running the Strong is Beautiful campaign for nine years with the aim to celebrate and normalise strong female bodies that are traditionally ignored by the lingerie industry. Underwear campaigns that feature male sports stars are a cultural norm. We recognise that there are different perspectives and we believe that this is an important conversation for us all to be engaged in. We are incredibly proud of the athletes we have featured. Our intention is always to empower women. Sarah, I know that you've also spoken to Blue Bella. I have, and we had a really positive conversation.

They did use Women in Sport statistics alongside this campaign. Our statistics are often publicly available. We do a huge amount of research as a charity I think the issue when it does come to brands using our statistics is they must understand the why behind those numbers and in this case fundamentally I think there was a disconnect between using the reason you know the number of girls dropping out of sport and not really understanding the why as I've just mentioned but I just wanted to pick up on what Victoria said about choice. And I think it is important that as women,

we absolutely do have choice in what we wear. And we're not here to gatekeep what women wear. But we've also got to remember there's still a huge amount of misogyny that these women are exposed to within sport, especially male-dom dominated sports like rugby. And we must safeguard the athletes at the centre of this. You know, we know from from from the research that we do in the sports that we work with, that high profile athletes and commentators and women that work in sport in coaching roles, for example, are exposed to so much hatred online.

And we cannot expose our athletes and put them in those in those vulnerable positions they must have more support around them whether that be from the governing bodies and wider support and be able to make make choices with very sound advice and support and not leave them open and vulnerable and And of course, there's also the issue of how much we're paying female athletes and how much choice they have in that in terms of being able to supplement the income that they receive. So I think those are the two things. And that's what makes it different to male athletes that we've seen, the likes of David Beckham modelling underwear, for example. They are not exposed to the levels of misogyny and hatred

online, especially that women are. I know that both of you have and do still play rugby. Victoria, I wonder what kind of an impact, not necessarily a campaign like this, but having a campaign with visible high profile female rugby players, how important that would have been to you oh yeah look i think regardless of the positive and negative commentary around it this campaign has put women's rugby in the center of the media at the moment and whether you like it or not that isn't necessarily a bad thing we have an opportunity opportunity to show Team GB's women's rugby team who are going to the Olympics, bearing in mind the men's GB team are not going to the Olympics,

on national news right now. So I think it's phenomenal either way. And look, we can debate it all day long. But for me, the fact that I can see these strong women in the mainstream media is phenomenal. Because when I went to the gym as a 16, 17 year old, I didn't feel welcome there because strong to the boys around me wasn't what I was supposed to be. So for me, this is phenomenal in that respect and always goes back to the reason that No Woman, No Try was made. The reason that I Am Enough was a campaign four years ago. That's what this is all about it's putting

women's rugby at the forefront of the media and making sure people know that we should be allowed to be in the media to do the things that we love to do without scrutiny. Brilliant thank you so much Victoria Rush there and Sarah Bellew from Women in Sport thank you both for your time a really insightful conversation and of course we wish the team all the very best, that Great Britain women's rugby team. Right, next on to a story that so many of you have been sharing on social media. We are talking about a video of 19-month-old baby Orla. She's chatting away in a scouse accent to her mum's friend who is struggling to get her to go to bed. In the video, we see Orla.

She waits for her turn to speak. She makes a very strong case as to why she doesn't need to go to bed very politely with fitting facial expressions and all without the use of words. This video has been shared online. It's now had tens of millions of views. Let's take a listen. Why don't you ever want to go to sleep?

I've got energy. You've got energy? I've got your bottle, I've got your teddy, and then you started kicking off. I changed your bum. I know, but I thought that's what you wanted to do. I know, but we've had a nice day together and then you're kicking off now. But why?

Yeah. Oh, goodness, that still makes me laugh. So the question so many of you are asking, what's going on when babies have an accident before they can properly speak? I'm joined by Julian Pine. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Liverpool, and his research focuses on how children learn to talk. Welcome, Julian.

Hi. Hi. Look, before we get on to the mechanics of this, just tell me, did this video make you smile as much as it has others? Oh, yes, definitely. this just tell me did this video make you smile as much as it has others oh yes definitely I mean it's just so funny seeing that this child you know knows exactly what she wants to say but it's babbling away it's the confidence it's the confidence that struck me yeah I mean there's clearly an interaction going on as you say they. They're taking turns. They're talking about something that they're both sort of focused on. And even though there aren't any words coming from the child,

there's a real interaction going on, and that's the crucial thing, really. So talk us through what is actually going on here. This little girl, she can't speak, but she's got the accent before she's got the words. Well, basically what the child is doing is picking up on the sound patterns around her. She's practising and exploring the sound patterns that she hears around her, getting ready to produce real words. And because those sound patterns are scouse, you know, the characteristic rising intonation at the end of the sentences and so on,

she sounds scouse. But yeah, there's an awful lot going on before the child produces real words and the child probably understands a lot of what the caregiver is saying to her even though she's not able to produce real words herself. Well, I was going to say it sounds though she's not able to produce real words herself. Well, I was going to say it sounds like she's understanding everything. There is a full understanding of what is going on there. Yeah, I mean, we know that children from sort of eight to nine months of age already understand some of the words of their language,

words like spoon and milk and bottle. All I hear is 19 months old. You know, she will understand a lot of what's being said to her. But there's a big gap between being able to understand and being able to produce. And babbling sort of fills that gap to some degree. I mean, it's something where, you know, the child is using the sound patterns, practising the sound patterns,

learning how to produce English, in this case, Scouse English. And that's what's going on. And we also know that babbling tends to predict when first words are going to come. So children who babble a lot early tend to learn words early. I do want to put this message to you that's come through to

us about accents. Our daughter was born in the US. She moved to New Zealand at two where she started speaking, sounding like a New Yorker. We're not from New York. We moved to the UK when she turned seven at 12. She now sounds British. Accents are fascinating. Do babies always pick up on how their parents or caregivers speak? I think they will tend to pick up on how the caregiver, particularly the person who cares for them most, speaks. But it's also very flexible in the sense that they're going to pick up on the accents around them as they change and they move around. I mean, my son moved back to Liverpool when he was 11 and has a Scouse accent, but he didn't have one before he got there. Yeah. I noticed a few people on the various

comments under all his videos saying, I love the way this friend, this auntie figure is talking to the child. She's not using a baby voice. She's using an adult voice. How important is that? It's important that she's talking to the child. One of the things that's really good about this is how natural it is, how she talks to the child as if she's having an adult conversation with the child. But actually she is showing many of the features of baby talk

or child-directed speech, as we call it. So a lot of intonation patterns and so on are patterns that are associated with talking to children. And actually the use of those patterns is useful and helpful to the child. So the idea that she's not using baby talk, I mean, baby talk is actually a useful thing to do. And that's basically why people do it. What about if more than one language is spoken in the household?

Well, obviously, the child will learn whatever language is spoken around them. So, you know, they will pick up on the sound patterns of uh different uh parents they will often learn both languages if if they're exposed to both languages you know again that's that's a positive thing um they will typically be able to differentiate between the two languages and use them appropriately though you often get some some mixing but again that's that that's that's not a bad thing yeah so yeah i mean babies will pick up on what is around them and the important thing is is to keep talking to them really um i wonder whether you can give us a few tips for parents of babies of carers of babies you know what are the best things parents can do to support their babies with language development well i mean talking just talking to them is the main thing but there are

also more subtle things i mean one of the things about babble that we know is that if you actually babble back to your child when when your child babbles to you that encourages them to babble more and i actually do some work with the bbc's tiny happy people initiative which produces a lot of videos giving tips to parents and one of the things that parents really like is that advice to to babble back to your baby because it's something which when they do it they find that it actually works and it works immediately pretty much you know the children become more more babbly more talkative if you talk back to them in their babble i want to put this to you from suzanne who says i have a boy girl twins we live in the south of england and i have a northern accent my son would say bath with a or bath with a northern flat A and my daughter would sound southern.

What struck me most was that my son rarely seems to be listening to me. I wonder, Julian, are there some accents that dominate more than others? I think there may be accents which, you know, are particularly distinctive and therefore it's easier to notice them, you know, in the case of a child babbling like this. And there are others where it's less obvious what, you know, what the difference is between one accent and another. But so in that sense, they may be more dominant. But I think essentially children are going to pick up on whatever accent is around them really. Julian Pine from the University of Liverpool, thank you for sharing your expertise with us. It won't be hard to find that video if you do want to take a look, just search for it.

It is absolutely everywhere. Baby Orla giving us her view, her take on why she should not go to bed, a very convincing one as well. If you want to share your thoughts on this, your stories of your baby babbling to any point you can, that number is 84844 to send us a text or pop us a note at BBC Woman's Hour over on social media. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

Available now. Media. Next, it is 25 years since the New York Times bestselling author, Lisa Jewell, published her first novel, Ralph's Party. Since then, she has written another 21 novels and more recently, a number of dark psychological thrillers, including Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs and the award-winning None of This Is True. Her latest work Breaking the Dark is a Jessica Jones Marvel crime novel and she joins me now here in the studio. Welcome. Thank you for having me. This is a very new genre for you. How did you feel when you were approached to write this by Marvel?

Utterly, utterly perplexed, bamboozled, confused, shocked. Very much the first question that popped into my head was, why me? I'm not a Marvel aficionado. I'm not even really a Marvel fan. And it just seemed extremely unexpected, but also completely thrilling. Yeah, a challenge. Marvel is huge.

It's one of the biggest pop cultural canons in the world. I mean, it's just gigantic. And to be asked to be a part of it. And it's not just a new genre for me, but it's actually a new genre full stop. Yeah. Full length crime novels written about Marvel characters. It's never been done before. Yeah.

And I was invited to write the very first one. So Jessica Jones. Yeah. Was there a pressure on you to satisfy your loyal readers and also kind of target and engage this new group of readers? Absolutely. And that was the hardest thing. I gave myself five months to write this book. I thought it was going to be quite fun and it sort of was fun but it ended up taking me 14 months and the reason why it took me so long to write is because of trying to strike that balance and I kept going too far I'd been briefed to write at least a jewel novel that Lisa Jewell readers would love but I kept going to Marvel because I think I had this sort of like subconscious little nagging kind of reminder tick tick ticking in my head saying don't forget

the marvel fans don't forget the marvel fans and that's not my that's not my area of expertise and i kept getting it so horribly wrong so i stripped it all back in the end i thought what do my readers like what do i love writing about and i don't like writing about underground laboratories full of mad scientists i don't like writing about sci-fi. I like writing about creepy people and weird people and strange families and odd houses and unsettling communities. And so that's what I did. I just brought it all back to the sorts of things that I love writing about, but in this Marvel context. I mentioned Jessica Jones, a private investigator, a retired superhero. Tell us more about her. Oh my goodness, I love Jessica Jones

so much. And that was kind of the main reason why I said yes to this very, very unexpected proposal, because I was familiar with her character from the Netflix shows that had run. So I already knew I loved her from the shows. And then in order to write the book, I read the entirety of her comic book series that came out in the early 2000s called Alias. And she is just such a brilliant character. She's a she's a failed superhero. The reason why she's not superhero anymore is because she had a terribly traumatic experience. So she's suffering from PTSD.

She's got an alcohol problem. She's got a man problem. She's got a self-esteem problem. She's kind of broken. She's struggling to get through every day. She's rough. She's she's she's got a man problem she's got a self-esteem problem she's kind of broken she's struggling to get through every day uh she's rough she's she's she's ready she's really really funny she's very dry and there was just I was just just yeah blown away by the opportunity to really get into her in a way that nobody had ever been able to get into her before you know to write narrative prose about her I don't want want to give away the plot but can you give us a bit of an outline as to what kind of a story we're looking

at? Yeah in case people are slightly put off by the idea of me writing in the Marvel genre it is I'm going to call it more of a Black Mirror type of storyline it's not sci-fi I had to pull it back from that because it wasn't working for me and I know it wouldn't have worked for the readers and it's really about dark technology in the way that the Black Mirror stories are about dark technology and it's all set in the world of beauty influencers and it's about these teenagers who spent the summer these American teenagers who spent the summer in Essex with their British father and they've come back and they're abnormally perfect. Their skin is perfect. They're not looking at their phones and their mother is incredibly worried that something terrible happened to them while they were in the UK for their summer holidays. And so she asked Jessica Jones to go to Essex. So I get to send my American superhero

to Essex to uncover what happened while they were there. And then the plot unfolds. Let's hear a reading from the book. Yes, okay. So this is from early on in the book. It's just a little bit about, it gives you a little bit of a feel for Jessica and how she feels about her superpowers

that she feels so tainted by. The cat has run down two flights of the fire escape and now sits on a narrow stone ledge that joins Jessica's building to the flat roof of the next building along. On either side of the stone ledge is oblivion. Jessica sticks her head through the window and assesses the situation. If the cat doesn't want to die it needs to jump back onto the fire escape but the cat is too scared to work this out for itself and sits in stasis. Jessica sighs it's too early for this. All she has is Cheerios and coffee to work with, but she cannot tell Julius that she has let his cat die.

So she allows a sickening transfusion to occur, the blood, the water, the mucus in her body. It makes her want to gag as she stands out on the windowsill, high above the streets below. But she swallows it down, crouches slightly, her eyes shut hard. But the clouds split apart and the rain falls hard and quick and the cat changes its stance, sashays back towards Jessica's building, its tail a spiky brush of panic and fury, jumps onto the fire escape and then straight into Jessica's building, its tail, a spiky brush of panic and fury, jumps onto the fire escape and then straight into Jessica's arms. Thank you very much, Lisa. A bit of a taste there. We do hear

about Jessica there, but let's talk about the other strong female characters in the book because she's not alone. No, it is very much a book of, yes, I think it is very much a book about strong female characters. So we have the malign beauty influencer called Polly, and she's furiously ambitious, lethally so. And we've also got Jessica's client, who is the mother of the twins, who've come back from the UK, changed, and she's called Amber Randall, and she's a single mother. She's very, very wealthy, but she's also got a lot of issues that she's dealing with. And so there's a kind of combination.

Oh, and there's also another character called Ophelia. There is. Who is, I don't want to say too much about Ophelia because then we're going into spoilers. So yeah, it's kind of a four-header of these four extraordinary women. Some of them are bad, some of them are good, some of them are broken,

but they're all incredibly strong characters. Well well staying with that theme of strong women you come from a family of strong women how much does that work into your stories and how do you know about my my strong women in my family yes i'm one of three girls um and we're extraordinarily close-knit and we bring each other up in the world. And yeah, I think being one of three girls, I went to girls' schools, didn't really kind of have much to do with men or boys in most of my early life. So I do think that definitely informs the sort of my desire to write about female characters and those bonds and those relationships. You are a mother now and you raise as a central theme in the book the subject of

social media, filters. How concerned are you about these matters? It's I'm on a small granular personal level I am not because my daughters both have quite high self-esteem but they do spend an hour every day contouring their faces to make themselves as they say to catfish themselves yeah um and which I find bizarre you know I was a commitment I was a teenager in the 80s it was just like a little bit of heather shimmer lipstick from blusher in the wrong place blusher in the wrong place back comb my hair and I was good to go so the idea that my children devote so much of their precious free time to making themselves look perfect um and then obviously photographing themselves and sharing images of themselves on social media using filters and and it just gives this incredibly um unrealistic

expectation of what people are supposed to look like. And that's what worries me is we'll get to a point where we don't remember what people are supposed to look like. And it doesn't just apply to young people. You know, women of my age as well, we're not allowed to look old. We've all got to look like Nicole Kidman and, you know, be perpetually young. So there are some really much bigger issues about this idea that we've all got to look perfect all the time. Staying with social media, I did read that one of the real wives of Beverly Hills was instrumental in bumping up your book sales. There are some positives. What happened?

Yes. So going from malign influencers to like, yay, you changed my life around brilliant influencers. Yes, it was one of the Beverly Hills housewives. And at the beginning of COVID, she to her 3 million followers on Instagram, posted a picture of her holding up one of my backlist books, actually an older book of mine saying, let's do a COVID book club. And this is going to be the first book. And it was called Then She Was Gone. And this was a book that had been in and out of the charts already four years earlier. And as a result of that, it then moved over onto BookTok. BookTok is an extraordinary thing for writers. And it went viral.

And it's suddenly this old book of mine was number one in the New York Times bestsellers. It spent the entire year of 2020 in the top 15. Incredible. And absolutely changed everything for me. So yeah, good influencer. Another one that's been of great success is, and none of this is true,

the novel's been bought by Netflix. How exciting. Well, the funny thing about that, the sort of slightly meta ironic thing about that is that the book is actually about a Netflix documentary and I'd used the branding for Netflix throughout the book when I was referring to the documentary that's in the fictional documentary that's inside the book. And I thought when I delivered this to my publishers, they'd say, you can't use Netflix.

You'll have to change it and use some fictional name. But they didn't. So it's gone out into the world as a branded Netflix documentary inside my novel. And now Netflix have bought the novel and they're going to make a Netflix movie about a fictional Netflix documentary. So the whole thing is going... You're on and out. Brilliant. It's slightly mind-blowing and meta, but yes, it's actually really fun. Before we move on to our next chat, which I would love to get your thoughts on, we are going to be talking about genre fiction.

All of your novels are individual. We've got romantic comedy, we've got fiction, crime, psychological thrillers now marvel was this intentional on your part or has your style grown and developed over the years yeah that's precisely what's happened I started off in fact the first book I sat down to write when I was in my 20s back in the late 90s it was meant to be a thriller I started off writing a thriller and then just because of the way my the headspace I was in the world I was living in zeitgeist the 90s being in love being young it ended up being a romantic comedy um and it did really really well in 1999 and so I couldn't jump straight from writing a

well-loved romantic comedy into the dark stuff so I've just done it really gradually like baby steps hoping like looking over my shoulders anybody noticed yet yeah um so with each book I've just done it really gradually, like baby steps, hoping, like looking over my shoulder. Has anybody noticed yet? Yeah. So with each book, I've just kind of shifted a little bit further down the path to the point that I'm at now where... A Marvel crime author. A Marvel crime author. Yes. Killer of characters. Yes.

Writer of darkness. All of the above. Lisa Jewell, the author of Breaking the Dark. Thank you. And we will get your thoughts on our next conversation as well because a recent survey revealed that women read more than men with 12 percent of women saying that they read 12 or more books in the that they read rather 12 or more books in the three months running to march this year that is a figure that is double the share of men who said they did the same over the summer we're going to look at genre fiction, the women who write it

and the women who read it. Today, we are starting the series with the ever popular genre of romance and its new sub-genre, romance. And two writers join me now to talk through this all. They are Lindsay Kelk, who published her first romance novel, I Heart New York, in 2009 and has sold over two million books since. Her novel Love Story is just that, as well as being an interrogation of the very concept of romantic fiction. And Sarah A. Parker's romantic novel is called When the Moon Hatched, and it went from an independently published TikTok sensation to a Sunday Times bestseller. Welcome to you both.

Hello. Thank you. Lindsay, I'll start with you. Romance means different things to different people. How do you define romantic fiction and when did you start engaging with it? Kind of similar to Lisa actually. I grew up, I mean I was a voracious reader growing up but I was an absolute monstrous snob. I was a huge literary, not that I'm calling Lisa a snob, but I never thought I would write romance. I never thought I'd write rom-coms. I was that English lit student that was like,

I'm going to be the next Donna Tartt. You know, that's where we were in the early 2000s. That's really what I thought I was going to do. And then I was working in publishing, trying all kinds of things and sat down, was at a place in my life where I was just pretty unhappy in my job really unhappy in my relationship and I wrote this anywhere but here fantasy which ended up being I heart New York no one was more shocked than I was that was the book that came out of me but it was just such a joy to write that that's where I ended up naturally.

So I'm still not quite sure how it happened. The life journey took you there. Absolutely, yeah. And I think that's true of a lot of writers. It's just the book that comes out of you in the moment is the book to write. Let's talk about romantasy with Sarah. This new sub-genre on the romance block,

what is it and why is it so popular right now? I see romanticy as being a sub-genre of fantasy, but it is this strong, empowered sub-genre where we get to follow a main romantic couple and their relationship is very integral to the plot of the overall story. And I feel like the reason it has grown such strength, especially in the past sort of five years, is because Bookstagram, is because TikTok, BookTok actually, has just given it so much strength. It has allowed us as readers to come together, to find a collaborative

loud voice and to share our love for this, for this drama together. And yeah, I think it's just honestly going to get louder and louder. And I love that. And your book, When the Moon Hatched, is a romance. Why did it appeal to you to write in this style, to write a story in this sub-genre? Well, I first actually started reading fantasy when I was younger. I was a huge fantasy reader, voracious. It wasn't until I had kids and I started coming into my womanhood that I discovered romanticism. And it allowed me to, I guess, explore myself in a private way and, you know, tucked away in my own home and just really, I guess, discover who I am. And I just found so much power in that. I loved reading about these strong female characters

who, you know, battle these massive wars or, you know, or even just smaller problems that we all sort of face. I loved being able to see myself in these different characters. I loved reading about characters who were starting off in their journey and still had a lot of growth to do. And I feel like I just, I found myself there. I found my people in the drama as well. And, you know, so I feel like when I actually sat down to write my own stories, I write what I love to read always and forever and I love reading romantic I love I love getting caught up in an epic love tale that's in a completely different world that is so far removed from our own and there's so much there's so much excitement there and so much passion there

yeah um Lindsay I mean we can clearly hear Sarah's passion there for her romanticism. Your passion for romance. You've written this new novel, Love Story. And you talked about the kind of snobbish reaction that you felt yourself and from others. In this case, how have people reacted? I mean, the book is out today. So it's very early reactions so far. Thank you. But yeah, it's been amazing.

To Sarah's point, it's just such a passionate fandom. And speaking to when I was a terrible, terrible literary snob before, it was so much internalised misogyny, honestly. It was because I was told that romance novels... And so is there a stigma? Absolutely, 100%. It is getting, it's been beaten to death by the day, by the BookTok, mostly community,

and the Bookstagram community. But it's lessening. But back in 2009, when I published my first book, I was taken aside, not even quietly, but by people I knew, by people I loved, saying, oh my God, I can't believe you wrote this kind of book. And I internalized it for so long. And I would make the joke before someone else could, you know, like, oh, I know I'm writing one of those books. That it just,

it's really hard. You're living this dream that you've always wanted to be an author. And then suddenly people just want to take it away from you. And it doesn't make sense. So I feel like finally, after 15 years of being a published author, I just decided it was time to address it in a book itself and embrace it. Exactly. So Love Story ended up being a celebration of romance novels, of romance readers and romance writers, because there are still a lot of women who are writing under pseudonyms, because they are afraid of people's reaction to what they do interesting wild Lisa a good point to bring you back in because your early novels were romance or chiclet as it was known as I was listening to Lindsay talk I was just thinking

chiclet chiclet chiclet that was that was the stick that I was beaten with for those who don't know we're talking about the chick lit meaning. Yes. Well, it's short for literature for chicks, I guess. I don't know. Term is no longer used. I think it's not. I really don't think it is. But it lingered on for so long. And even when I started writing really dark fiction and had moved away from it completely, I was still being asked to talk about being a chick lit author. It took me so long to get and I hated that um that expression and so did everybody all my contemporaries at the time who were writing romantic comedies and romantic fiction back in the noughties hated it as well I started in the mid 90s with Bridget Jones yeah it got

coined at some point whoever coined that phrase deserves a special place in heaven. And it took me so long to get out under the shadow of that because it was never used in a positive way. It was never used as a way of saying this is a brilliant genre full of amazingly well-crafted books that everybody should read. It was always used in a negative way to bring down women's work. Yeah. Sarah, who reads Romanticite? Not just women? No, absolutely not just women. I feel like this genre as a whole is just growing exponentially every single day. And again, that does go back to social media and the voice that we as Romanticy readers are growing.

I've got plenty of readers who are males. I think that as the stigma is getting broken down, more and more readers are finding that, just like we've just been talking about, that just because it's got a romantic subplot doesn't mean that it's not a fantastic story with a fantastic world and a beautiful plot going on. So, yeah, I find that it's just growing and growing. I don't think that we should colour it inside a box and go, it's just these people that are reading it.

I feel like there is, you know, there's young adult romance where you can read, you know, without the spice. You can read adult romance where you get the spice on page. You can read dark romance, romanticism where, you know, it might push those boundaries a little bit more. There is absolutely something for everybody in the stroma. And I feel like that is the absolute most beautiful thing. You know, it doesn't matter what your tastes are. There are tropes that are going to suit your enjoyment. And you might find that you like some of the things that you

you know never thought possible you mentioned uh spice there let's talk about spice what is spice in the context of romanticism so there is fade to black where you get this build up this angsty build up between the characters but then you get to the point where that's about to happen and you get a full stop and a next chapter. Then there is, of course, spice on page where you're actually reading about that happening. Yes, exactly. And, yeah, so everyone's got different tastes. So, you know, there's usually on BookTok there is a spice level.

So it's one chili pepper, two chili peppers, three chili peppers. So most books fall under a category of one of these, which is, I think, very cool. And it's a very ingenuity way of, you know, of labelling stories so that people know what they're picking up. What to expect. Absolutely. Lindsay, how important is spice to romance novels these days? I mean, it's very important in, as Sarah says, choosing the book that you want to read. And I think one of the most beautiful things about romance and romance is there is everything. There is something for everyone.

To write it off as one bulk, you know, just homogenous mass of romance would be crazy. I traditionally had written more what would be called a closed door romance. So you know, you'll see some romantic build up, but then you wouldn't see necessarily a graphic sex scene on the page. As time has gone by, again, it's getting comfortable with the idea of it myself as well, because I was like, Oh, I could never write that. What will people think? But actually, who cares what people think? If it's relevant to the story to me then it absolutely belongs on the page it's like in a movie if it belongs in the story it belongs on the screen um and it is once again just another stick used to beat the genre that there's people running around going oh it's just smut it's just filth they just want to read filth

they're like no it's it's part of the story or if it's just there because it's something someone wants to read what's wrong with that as well absolutely not yeah exactly it's not like it's part of the story or if it's just there because it's something someone wants to read what's wrong with that as well absolutely not yeah exactly it's not like it's not happening people come on um is there in romanticism should there always be a happy ending oh this is the the big debate how important is that happy ending look i feel like everyone's got their own uh wildly different opinion on this. I personally, I like to know that I'm working towards a happily ever after. I like to know that I'm investing my heartbeats in something that is going to feel good at the end.

But in saying that, I mean, I've also read romanticies that haven't had a happy ever after. They've had an ever after in a different way. And I've been okay with that too so I look I hate to talk for the general public and say that this is how it should be because every story is different and every story deserves to be told but personally I really do love a happily ever after. We are talking about genres over the next few weeks and Lisa I do want to get to your take your favorite genre that you enjoy reading, is there one? I very much read in my own genre. I love domestic noir.

I love domestic thrillers. I love psychological thrillers. I don't read a lot of like hard crime, you know, true, not true crime, like police procedural crime. But yeah, I read very much in my own genre. I love all my contemporaries. So not always a happily ever after ending. No, I like an ending that makes you feel really uncomfortable and like you don't want to quite turn the light off just yet.

On that note, we shall leave it there. Lisa Jewell, thank you. Also, my thanks to Lindsay Kelk here with me in the studio. Good luck with the new novel, Love Story. And Sarah A. Parker, her new novel is When the Moon Hatched. Very good to have you with us. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. Thank you. On Monday, a judge in Florida ordered the surprise release of nearly 200 pages of graphic court transcripts for the state's 2006 prosecution of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The documents had

been kept secret for nearly two decades. They included first-hand accounts from teenage victims as young as 14. It was a probe that ended with the millionaire financier receiving a legal slap on the wrist and to that the judge said that the state's leniency in the case has been the subject of much anger and has at times diminished the public's perception of the criminal justice system. In 2019, Epstein took his own life in a Manhattan jail whilst awaiting trial over federal sex trafficking charges that were later brought. Joining me now to explain the significance of this is Emma Long, Head of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. Welcome,

Emma. Why has the judge released these documents now? So there are a couple of explanations for why they're being released now. One is there's been a very long campaign since 2008, 2009, to find out what happened in this investigation and why Epstein effectively got away with it, or how people felt that he got away with it in that earlier investigation with this very light sentence. And so this has been rumbling on, particularly in Florida and among victims and some of those involved in the case for a very long time. The more recent element was a campaign by the Palm Beach Post and Miami Herald, the local newspapers to the area, they sued for access to these records, which under Florida law normally are kept sealed and private.

And that resulted in Governor Ron DeSantis back in February this year passing a law which very specifically allowed for the release of these particular grand jury investigations. And yesterday was the day that the law sort of came into effect and allowed for those to be released. And the judge released them on the first day that was possible. How significant is this? I mean, in the larger scheme of things, I think probably not very. This is a very particular case that raised very particular feelings about the extent of Epstein's case and the themes that it touches on in criminal justice issues about the treatment of victims of sexual assault and victims of rape and sex trafficking and the way that they are often disregarded in criminal justice investigations. What the transcripts are doing

is really bringing that to light. So it could potentially be the start of a much bigger discussion about how these kinds of cases are dealt with both in the United States, in Florida specifically, in the United States generally, and potentially worldwide. I think it would be helpful for you to explain the charges specifically, all the cases that was being investigated, sorry, back in 2006, because these are very different to these sex trafficking charges brought against Epstein in 2019. Sort of. I mean, this was sort of the early stages of it. So actually what the transcripts appear to be showing is that investigators were actually aware that some of this was going on, some produce the evidence that has been collected as

part of the investigation and a group of usually 24 local citizens decide whether there's enough evidence to charge somebody. But the prosecutors in this case only called two of what they knew were more than two victims and the questioning of those victims seem to be about undermining their credibility in ways that we've often heard about when we talk about victims of sexual abuse and the reporting of these kinds of cases. Trying to undermine them to make them seem guilty of crime, that almost they chose to put themselves in this position and therefore somehow they were less victims of this. So these things are revealing elements of that in these cases and that the kinds of charges that Epstein was eventually sort of arrested for in 2018 were familiar to investigators in Florida over a decade earlier.

And I think this is part of what the outrage about this case has been, is that had he not been treated leniently, had this gone to a sort of full investigation and a full trial, there's more than a decade in which he would not have been able to hurt and abuse more girls. You mentioned the victims there. Have we heard from them since these transcripts were released? As far as I can tell, we haven't. But I think it's really

interesting that when DeSantis signed the law into effect in February, three of Epstein's victims were there at the signing, which may not necessarily speak to every victim in this case, but I think it's a sign that many people, many involved in this case, felt that they hadn't been treated fairly back in 2008, 2009, and that this was an opportunity for their voice, their side of the story to be fully heard. Yeah. I do want to bring this statement in from an Associated Press article. So various media articles are quoting this.

Associated Press, they approached the chief prosecutor in the Epstein case, Barry Krishna, on Monday. They didn't get a response. But the current Palm Beach County State Attorney, Dave Arenberg, who was not involved in the investigation, said in a statement that he is glad that the records have been released. He said he had not yet read the transcripts. They could not comment on whether Krishna should have pursued a tougher prosecution of Epstein. Looking ahead, how might this change outcomes, transparency of future cases? That's hard to say. I mean, you would like to think that this case was so high profile and involved so many people and that now we have a lot more evidence that it would start a fairly strong discussion about the way in which these cases are looked at or investigated or tried,

the way in which victims are questioned and the way that they are treated as you go through the system. But we've been here before. The US has been here before with discussions about the way in which victims of sexual crimes are treated in the system. There's been, there'll be a brief discussion, outrage about a particular case, and then it sort of, small changes might be made, and then it sort of disappears off the agenda as other things are coming. So while I think we can hope that it might start a discussion that people might learn from, this history tells us that actually it may not be that easy. Of course, this is just a Florida state outcome.

Other states will be watching closely. Yes, they will. And most states use grand jury systems. Most of them keep those investigations secret for various reasons, which include the fact that actually if a grand jury doesn't bring charges, then under innocent till proven guilty, you know, there's no right for that information to be made public. But yes, I think the scrutiny that will come of the Florida Investigative Service and the prosecutorial service on this will, I think, make other states perhaps sit up a little bit more and look a little

bit closely about what they do on just in case a case like this comes up and they're the ones under scrutiny next time. Absolutely. Emma Long, Head of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. Thank you for your expertise on that story for us. Plenty more on our website. That is it from Thursday's Woman's Hour. We are not here tomorrow due to extended news coverage, but do join me for weekend Woman's Hour on Saturday at 4pm. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour

over at BBC Sounds. From BBC Radio 4, this is Communicating with me, Ros Atkins. This is the podcast where I talk to some of the best communicators, like legendary magazine editor Tina Brown, the Olympic athlete and broadcaster Michael Johnson, to find out why good communication really matters and how best to do it. Have you ever walked out of a meeting and

thought, why didn't I make the impact that I'd intended to? Or perhaps you put down the phone to the bank without getting the answer you wanted. We all have dozens of interactions every day, and this series will provide you with practical advice for communicating effectively during them. Communicating with Roz Atkins. Listen and subscribe on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.