Good Housekeeping x Hodder New Voices

Join Good Housekeeping’s Books Editor and Consumer Director, Joanne Finney in conversation with Hodder’s rising stars Jessica George, Vanessa Chan and Kaliane Bradley at our 2023 day festival, Women’s Prize LIVE, on the 13th of June. These trailblazing authors have had huge success with their debut novels even before the books have been published: from internationally acclaimed publications to a 21-way film and TV auction for rights. Spend a day with the Women’s Prize this summer for a chance to delve into the mind of these brilliant authors plus an extra special chance to go away with samples of each of their hotly anticipated books!

Kaliane Bradley

Kaliane Bradley is an Anglo-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, Somesuch Stories, The Willowherb Review, Electric Literature, Catapult and Extra Teeth, among others. Her dance and theatre reviews have appeared in the Observer, Time Out and The Stage. Her essay ‘The Wishing Dance’ was published in Gifts of Gravity and Light (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021). She was the winner of the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize.

The Ministry of Time

In the near-future, a civil servant starts working as a ‘bridge’ – a liaison, helpmeet and housemate – in an experimental project that brings expatriates from the past into the twenty-first century. Her assigned expat is Commander Graham Gore (R.N. c.1809- c.1847), a Victorian polar explorer who in a different version of the past was a member of the doomed Franklin expedition of 1845. During a long, sultry summer – as the shadows around them grow long and dangerous – their relationship turns from the strictly professional into something more; and as uneasy
truths begin to emerge, they are forced to face the reality of the project that brought them together.

Can love triumph over the imperialist structures and histories that shape them?

Vanessa Chan

Vanessa Chan was born and raised in Malaysia. Her short fiction has received accolades and publication in places such as Electric Lit, Kenyon Review and more. About the novel she says, “This is a story about a family on the brink, about the things that women are allowed and not allowed to want, about carrying a legacy of colonialism in the body, and about the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake. But this is also a story about love, wonder, and kindness, even in the direst of circumstances.

The Storm We Made

Breaking new ground in a part of Southeast Asian history that is rarely represented in fiction, The Storm We Made opens in 1930s British Malaya, as discontented housewife Cecily is beckoned into a life of espionage by a charismatic Japanese spy. But when Cecily becomes entrenched in his ideology, and ultimately his domestic life, she helps to usher in a new and even more brutal era of Japanese colonisation. Cecily is forced to reckon with these choices and the secrets they create when, a decade later, in the thick of World War II, the shocking repercussions of that decision come to haunt her community – and her family. Told from four unforgettable perspectives – Cecily’s and each of her three children, Jujube, Abel, and Jasmin – The Storm We Made spans years of pain and triumph, unflinchingly illuminating an underexplored part of Second World War and colonial history.

Jessica George

Jessica George was born and raised in London to Ghanaian parents and studied English Literature at the University of Sheffield. After working at a literary agency and a theatre, she landed a job in the editorial department of a publishing house. She now lives in North London with an incontrovertible sweet tooth and the knowledge that she can consume half a cake by herself if left to her own devices. Maame is her debut novel.

Jessica George (c) Suki Dhanda

Maame

Maddie Wright is on the fringes of a new era of her life. After spending the entirety of her life being told what to do and who she is, as Maame to her Ghanian parents, a second mother to her younger siblings, the primary carer for her father, who suffers from Parkinson’s and the one who keeps the peace – and the secrets. It is now time for her to make herself anew as she finally gets a chance to leave home. But as she thrusts herself into professional womanhood, tragedy strikes and she is forced to face the risks – and rewards – of putting her heart on the line.

Joanne Finney

Joanne Finney has been a journalist for over 20 years and Books Editor of Good Housekeeping since 2011. She has been a judge on a number of literary prizes, including the Costa Book Awards and the British Book Awards, and has interviewed many of today’s biggest selling authors, from Anne Tyler to David Nicholls, both for print and at live events. She can be found at @JoFinneyBooks on Twitter and @JoFinnney77 on Instagram.

Be sure to book your tickets for Women’s Prize LIVE on the 13th of June where you can catch Joanne, Kaliane, Jessica and Vanessa in conversation as well as other not-to-be-missed events with speakers like Naomi Alderman and Elizabeth Gilbert! Book here.