New story, new title

There are many pinch-me points in a story’s journey: when you type the very first word and, better still, The End. When another human being first reads your draft (a nail-biter). When the text is set and looks like proper book pages (jubilation alert!).

And of course, the title. It’s always quite a process, with suggestions flying back and forth between my editor, agent and myself, down to the tiniest tweak (Definite or indefinite article? Singular or Plural?), until the very best version emerges. And suddenly it’s up on Amazon for all to see, a name. It reminds me a bit of when my babies were born. One moment you leave Chelsea Westminster Hospital with a small, indeterminate bundle, next thing you’re in the Registry Office down on the King’s Road, and Bundle Baby Scott becomes a ‘Sam’, or a ‘Jacob’. And all of a sudden there they are: proper, bona fide parts of human society.

Same for a book, really. As a manuscript, it’s dog-eared and haphazardly bundled together, usually thriftily printed on the stacks of old paper I found in my dad’s office, with diagrams of bugs and spiders on the back (my dad was a biologist). As such, Untitled Scott Book 4 has no real form yet, it’s still a bit in flux, a transitional thing. And then the title comes along and turns it into a proper, bona fide part of the book world.

Meet Agnes

And there’s another curious parallel as well. Enter my heroine, Agnes. Agnes is brilliantly clever and has one dream: she wants to become a surgeon. As an illegitimate East End orphan, however, she lacks the means and the respectable family to get her there. And in 1950s London, when women are not supposed to be career women but at home, producing babies, clean laundry and supper at a steady clip, a good name and a bit of money are vital for one’s independence.

Then, in a dark moment — as these moments inevitably are in novels — Agnes does something desperate. She steals someone else’s name. As ‘Isobel’ — a respectable girl from a good family — she starts work at a big London hospital. She does well, undaunted by blood and guts and bullying male doctors (that’s the kind of girl she is: a survivor, willing to claw her way forward, but kind and so funny as well — I know you’ll love her!). But of course her dark deed soon catches up with her, until she is forced to choose: the stolen life she always dreamt of, or the real one she was meant to lead…

So, it’s all coming together in a neat, tidy package: Agnes and the challenges of her new, respectable name, and Untitled Scott Book 4 with its perfect and (insert fanfare here) new title! I’m thrilled to introduce to you:

The Life I Stole

The story of love and hope, courage and darkness, and one tenacious young woman doctor, coming your way on September 14.