1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE LIBRARY THIEF
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A bookbinder’s daughter solves a mysterious death in the late 1890s.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
There is always someone I love from the places I write about.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely. We would get our hair braided together.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Audacious. Canny. Vengeful.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
My primary school is on the same road where transgender icon Stella Boulton was born.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Totally done… Most of the time.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Korean fried chicken.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
In an alcove of my living room, next to a walnut bureau where I still handwrite my letters and postcards, I have an L-shaped white desk with a monitor in the middle and a laptop on either side for different purposes. On the wall I have pictures of Grace Jones, Muhammad Ali, Emma Hamilton, and a photograph of myself wearing matronly nightwear in the nursery sandbox. There’s also a painting – ‘Knave’ by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye which is direct inspiration for my next novel. Oh, and so many different colored post-its that are fluttering when the windows are open.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Brit Bennett.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
My agent called me when I was on the sofa with my ex-boyfriend in Berlin. She had laryngitis so I had to leave the room to hear her properly on loudspeaker from the quiet of the apartment corridor. He came and hugged me when he heard me squeal and then start crying. It was delightfully dramatic.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
African American women’s literary fiction, mainly of The South.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
It’s a tie. The First Wives’ Club & The English Patient.
15--What is your favorite season?
Summer.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I’m not allowed to say at this time of the day. Let’s just say… not alone.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I’m really enjoying Shogun on FX and reading Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
In a restaurant? French. At home? Jamaican.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I have three cinemas I jump between depending on the vibes of the film I need to see.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
A novel telling the tale of a young black trans girl from North London whose triumphant journey takes her down a path of sexual scandal, substance abuse and a mission to prove the Jamaican family legend that she is a descendant of Admiral Horatio Nelson.
A strikingly original and absorbing mystery about a white-passing bookbinder in Victorian England and the secrets lurking on the estate where we she works, for fans of Fingersmith and The Confessions of Frannie Langton
The library is under lock and key. But its secrets can't be contained.
1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence's father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame—and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester.
Intercepting her father's latest commission, Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of secrets—but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife.
Then one night, the library is broken into. Strangely, all the priceless tomes remain untouched. Florence is puzzled, until she discovers a half-burned book in the fireplace. She realizes with horror that someone has found and set fire to the secret diary of Lord Belfield's wife–which may hold the clue to her fate…
Evocative, arresting and tightly plotted, The Library Thief is at once a propulsive Gothic mystery and a striking exploration of race, gender and self-discovery in Victorian England.
Literature and Fiction Literary [Hanover Square Press, On Sale: May 7, 2024, Mass Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781335909695 / eISBN: 9780369749765]
KUCHENGA SHENJÉ is a writer, journalist and speaker with work on many media platforms, including gal-dem, British Vogue and Netflix. She has contributed short stories and essays to several anthologies, most notably It’s Not OK to Feel Blue (and Other Lies), Who’s Loving You and Loud Black Girls. Owing to a lifelong obsession with books and the written word, Kuchenga studied creative writing at the Open University. Her work is focused on the perils of loving, being loved and women living out loud throughout the ages. The Library Thief is the ultimate marriage of her passions for history, mystery and rebels. She currently resides in Manchester, where she is determined to continue living a life worth writing about.
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