Episode 116: Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The London Séance Society
Sarah Penner is the author of the New York Times bestseller and breakout debut success, The Last Apothecary.
Her new novel, The London Séance Society, tells the tale of two daring women in 1870s London who hunt for truth and justice in the perilous art of conjuring the dead.
Sarah shares how it felt to live the dream of becoming a break-out success with her debut and leaving her day job, along with the generosity of those in the book industry.
She chats about the commonality in her two novels being eerie and atmospheric in tone and the immersive value of creating a fictional journey into the past for a reader.
Plus, the inspiration behind both her novels, her research process, and the joy of showing women who are skilled yet subversive in nature as characters. A chance to showcase the bold and brave women who have always been there in history.
Books Mentioned:
The Last Apothecary by Sarah Penner (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Chateau by Jaclyn Goldis (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon and bookshop.org affiliate programs, which means Lainey or Ashley get a tiny commission if you buy something after clicking through from link on this website.
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Ashley Hasty
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for joining me to kick off the latest season on the best of women's fiction podcast. We are thrilled that you are our inaugural guest.
Sarah Penner
Thanks so much, Ashley. I'm thrilled to be here.
Ashley Hasty
Well, it's been really fun to watch your writing career take off, I remember getting the pitch from your publicist about your debut novel and being intrigued by the premise and then watching it just explode into a best seller allowing you to focus on writing full time. And in many ways, your journey is every author's dream. So I'm curious, what has this journey been like for you?
Sarah Penner
Thank you, first of all, for saying that. That's very much how I feel. You know, I think most people know by now that I have a background in finance, I worked in the corporate world for 13 years, and I wrote the last apothecary, which was my debut. During that time, I would wake up at five in the morning and right before I had to log into my day job. And then when the last apothecary came out in March of 2021, it immediately was clear to me to my team, that the book was going to just be a knockout success. And my publisher bought my second book that same week, which is the London seance society, which we'll talk about more. And then it was just so much more than that, because not only was it published, but it was an instant New York Times bestseller, and I was able to then support myself financially with my writing and not my day job. So the journey has been very humbling. It has been an incredible source of gratitude. For me probably the coolest part, you know, people ask, what is the most amazing thing? Was it hitting the list? Or what is it whether it's readers, booksellers, librarians, what have you, is so much richer and bigger than I ever fathoms. And I've met people through this experience that I never would have met otherwise. And that's been the best part. It's just the people, the industry is so much kinder than I would have expected to. And before being published, you sort of think of the publishing industry in this big black box, and everyone is inaccessible. But that's not the case at all, people are really very warm.
Ashley Hasty
Well, you are also very generous sharing your experience and advice on social media, I've noticed you often talk about the importance of work life balance. One piece of advice do you think is most important for writers working towards publication or who are newly published,
Sarah Penner
You're exactly right, I regularly tell people what my priorities are. And in order, there's four of them mental health, number one, physical health number two, my marriage number three, and my work is number four. And the reason why I have defined those in that order, and I share them with everybody is because I think it's important for people to know that if you're not in a good place, mentally and emotionally, and if your body is not in a good place, you can't give to anything you can't give to your relationships you can't give to your work. So you have to have that balance. And I had lunch with a writer yesterday, and we were talking about some of her struggles with that. And I told her, I reminded her you get one chance at this life and work should never ever dominate that. And, you know, if someone was given 30 days to live, if I was given 30 days to live, I can promise you, I would not be writing, I would not even be thinking about writing, I would set that aside and go live my life. We all don't know if we have 30 days, or if we have one day or if we have a year. And so we should be living our lives in that way anyways, and always choosing to spend time with your family over work or what have you. So my advice would be defining your priorities, and then really trying to live by them, like I have mine posted up on my refrigerator, so that I can remind myself that you know, if I'm having a day where I'm feeling overwhelmed that I know I need to get my word count in for the day, maybe I just say you know what, I'm gonna skip a day, and I'm gonna go do some meditation and go to a yoga class. And I'll just come back to it tomorrow. Because those words that I write, if I'm feeling stressed or imbalanced, are not going to be great words anyways. So I think just knowing where your priorities lie, and really living by them is a hugely important thing. And it doesn't just apply to writing really, anybody who's working needs to, I think make sure they're prioritizing themselves. First,
Ashley Hasty
you mentioned that you had a corporate job in finance, but writing was a childhood dream. How did you get here through finance? Why go into finance? What was interesting about that, and then why leave to pursue this full time.
Sarah Penner
I'm a pretty pragmatic person. And although I take a lot of risks in my life, there are certain things particularly around money and jobs that I'm fairly conservative. And so I knew in college, I didn't want to live out this idea of like a struggling artist. I've always loved writing, as you said since childhood, and I thought about going into journalism or I thought about maybe I should go pursue an MFA or something kind of in the creative arts. But I just kept coming back to this concern that like, what if it doesn't pay off literally, I feel like I should make my creative interests, something that I do in my spare time, but not rely on them for financial freedom. So I went with finance, because interestingly, I've always loved math, and I'm pretty decent at math, I am very analytical and left brained in that way. So I love spreadsheets. I love data. I love organization. I went with a finance degree, and had really some amazing opportunities in that corporate workforce experience. I mean, interestingly, the reason why I even went to London where my first two books are set was because my old Corporation had an office in London just steps away from where the Lost apothecary takes place. So in some ways, I realized now that my corporate experience and some of the things that have happened in my writing life have always been inextricably intertwined. And so I can look back now and say, I'm so glad I got a finance degree. I'm so glad that I did that corporate world. But to answer your question directly, when I was in the finance world, I would come home a lot of nights and just say, Gosh, I feel like I've been doing math and numbers and spreadsheets all day, I need some sort of creative outlet, cross stitch or knitting. But sometimes I would write I would write like little short stories, and then eventually, I enrolled in a creative writing class. And after I had a few of those classes beneath my belt, and I've read a few books on how to write, which there are plenty of them that I can recommend as well. If anyone wants ideas. After a few of a few of those, I decided I'm gonna actually try and start writing a book. So that's what I did. I just kind of found a way to weave in the creative pursuits with my full time job.
Ashley Hasty
Well, of course, I want to talk to you about your sophomore novel, The London Seance society.
Sarah Penner
So the London Seance Society takes place in high Victorian London 1873 When ghosts and mediums and seances and spiritualists were all the rage, so the Victorians were obsessed with anything related to the occult. So I love that setting. To start with, I love that eerie atmospheric setting. And I decided that I wanted my main character in my story to be this woman named bottling and bottling is known worldwide for her ability to conjure the spirits of murder victims in order to ascertain the identity of the people who killed them. And one day she gets a knock at her door from a young woman named Linda who recently lost her younger sister in kind of mysterious circumstances that the police weren't really willing to investigate. And Linda doesn't believe in ghosts. She's very science minded, very logic driven, but she's desperate to figure out what happened to her little sister. So she puts her doubts aside and asks Vaseline to help train her in the art of seance so that she can hopefully conjure the spirit of her little sister to determine what happens. So that's kind of the opening to the story. The two women traveled to London Lynas kind of learning as an apprentice under modeling, but they find themselves intertwined with this almost secret exclusive men's club known as the seance society. This organization also claims to have seances and do kind of paranormal work. But the the two women in my story, Linda and Vaudeline, as they work with this organization, they begin to suspect they're not merely out to solve a crime but perhaps entangled in one themselves. So lots of cliffhangers lots of twists. Anybody who loved the spooky atmospheric nature of the last apothecary will find that exact same thing in this book as well. The last third of the book is a very intense seance that takes place in this really dark candlelit cellar. And my goal during that seance is to take everything the reader thought that they knew throughout the book and flip it on its head. And so there's a lot of surprises and twists in the story.
Ashley Hasty
This novel and your debut novel are both set in the past 18th and 19th centuries, what draws you to write in the historical fiction genre?
Sarah Penner
You know, I tend to romanticize the past, and I think a lot of readers of historical fiction, which I am, do as well, I remember one of the and I used to read her stories about the Berlin sisters or what have you, and just kind of find myself picturing these castles in these beautiful ornate rooms and these huge spreads that these people would put out on tables and all these little secret hallways and these old buildings. And the reality is History is full of a lot of inconvenience as well, that we as readers and authors don't tend to spend much time on but there was a lot of illness. There were insects everywhere. You know, people didn't live very long and women didn't have a lot of Freedom and choices. But my point is that in writing historical fiction, I kind of like to, I kind of do romanticize it. Like, I think we tend as authors to skip over some of those things that we know our readers don't really want to think about or worry about. And just help immerse our readers in what we have learned and researched about that particular era and location and give them that sensory experience that is inaccessible to us because it took place at a time when we aren't living fiction in so many ways. If, if I could describe it, it's meant to be immersive. And there's nothing more fun than creating an immersive experience for a reader. It's truly just imagination because they can't go to that place in time and relive it so we get to just create it as as authors for them.
Ashley Hasty
I saw a commonality between your two books being about mysterious women from the past doing secretive things and you describe it as kind of eerie and atmospheric, which is I like that description as well.
Sarah Penner
I like strong women who are experts in their fields. And with the last apothecary we had nella who was this very adept apothecary that disguised poisons in the in the tinctures that she sold to her clients. And then in the Lennon sands society, we have Vitalina, who is known worldwide for her skill in the art of seance. So there's something about going back to your question about why right in the historical era, knowing how many freedoms women did not use to have, there's something really appealing to me about setting a woman in a man's world and kind of giving her a skill or a capability that just intrinsically helped set her above the men, her peers that are men so I love that I love showing women who are kind of subversive in nature, like the reality is, even though we talk a lot about feminism and kind of present day language, this idea of bold and brave women who worked against society, they've always existed, they just in large part have had their their work erased or not given much attention to, but subversive and kind of defiant women have always existed. And so I love creating those characters, and particularly with the London seance society. In Victorian London I learned this through my research that spiritualists and mediums that was one of the only professions in which women were more highly respected than men, men were considered to mentally closed off to allow spirits to kind of enter their mind or their body. Whereas women we're considered to be empathetic enough and sensitive enough to allow that to happen. So crowds in which are events I'm sorry, in which women's spiritualists were leading these seances perfectly fitting for my story.
Ashley Hasty
My favorite part of the writing process is research and you talk a bit about traveling for research when writing on your social media, but I would love to hear more. So what is your research process for these two novels?
Sarah Penner
Research is a fine balance, it would be very possible to spend years researching a book and accumulating a list of 20 3040 books. But the reality is two things. First of all, at some point, you have to write the book, like unless you want to be a historian. And then you don't have to write the book. And you can just go do all the research you want. My goal is eventually to write a book and tell a story and sell that book to readers. The other thing that I have to remind myself is readers only want to know, kind of the structural information that you can fill in with research, but they then they just want your story. And that's all fiction, I would say probably one out of 20 pieces of information that I find, or research or discover actually makes it into the book, the context is helpful as an author to tell the story. But readers are there for the characters, the conflict, the things that are at stake or might be lost. That's what they're there for. They're not there to know the exact fabric of a couch or the exact type of wine that someone might have had at a dinner party. A little bit of that is interesting, but you don't want to overdo it. And so you have to be really careful. Like I try and start my research with these broad historical sources. So like my shelf is full of like Georgian London, Victorian London, so I kind of ground myself in the era, then I start to draft up the story. And then only as I'm going through the story, if I have specific open items from a research perspective, like, you know, how long would it take a horse carriage to get 50 miles or something like that, then I'll just put brackets in the manuscript and come back to it later. But research is a fine balance and it's a sticky point for authors because many of us love what we're researching. So we could just spend all day doing it. But at some point, you've got to start writing.
Ashley Hasty
And you mentioned that there was a lot of research you did that didn't make it into the novels, was there a piece of research some factor story that you wanted to include, but it didn't fit the story or had to be cut for one reason or another.
Sarah Penner
From a research perspective, I had so much fun looking at all of these different Victorian superstitions and customs, around the death around death and dying and funerals and all of that. And I was able to incorporate a lot of that in and in fact, at the back of the book, there's a list of traditional Victorian traditions surrounding death and dying, you know, seances and that type of thing. So I was able to work a lot of that in but I think a better answer to your question, something that I kind of cleaned up during the revision process, you know, The London Seance Society, the book kind of opens up and the reader is immediately made aware of two deaths that need to be solved. And so it's in that way, a bit of a who done it, we have a small cast of characters over the course of the story, there's less than, like six or eight characters who repeatedly come up. So if we have two deaths, and a small cast of characters, and the reader can trust that I'm not going to just throw in a random character at the end, who did everything, the thing I had to be careful about through the revision process and kind of remove some stuff and clean up some stuff was making sure I didn't give away my guilty party too soon, my editor and my agent really helped with that, because they of course, knew who did it, and they knew how the crime would eventually be solved. So they helped me kind of sift through some of this person's language and voice and ensure that I wasn't giving away too much to the reader too soon. And I also worked in some red herrings to kind of throw the reader off the track.
Ashley Hasty
Well everyone knows that authors have the best book recommendations so I'm curious what you're reading right now, what books you think we shouldn't miss?
Sarah Penner
As authors, we get a lot of opportunities to read books that haven't come out yet a few that are coming out that I can mention, one of them is called The Golden spoon by Jessa. Maxwell, I believe that comes out mid June. And for anybody who likes the Great British Bake Off with a little bit of a murder mystery. That's exactly the way I would describe this book. Each of the chapters are themed with kind of like a different, baked good, and then clues to the mystery. And it's it's what I would classify as a cozy mystery. So a very fun weekend read, particularly if you're a baker or a home cook. A book that I finished just yesterday and actually just submitted the blurb for yesterday is called The Chateau, by Jaclyn Goldis. I can't remember the publication date on that, but it's later this year. And it's for best friends who go to a chateau in the French countryside. And the grandmother of one of them who owns the Chateau is found murdered. The whole story, again, is kind of a who done it. But it takes place amongst these beautiful lavender fields in these lemon groves. And there's so much rich sensory detail we've done with the suspense. So that's a really good story. And then the last one I'll say is The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman that comes out in a few months, Michelle and I share literary agents. And if we have any music lovers, they have to check this one out particularly pianists or people who are into music theory. It's a essentially a middle age crisis story about a woman who's very skilled at piano. And she's kind of trying to just redefine her Indian, which is why the book is called The Second Ending. Some things have happened to her the book opens she's very dissatisfied with her life. And so we see her utilize her own skill and ingenuity to kind of carve out a fresh path for the second part of her life.
Ashley Hasty
I've mentioned your social media several times during this interview, because I think you're such a great follow. So I want to share how people can find you where you give us your website, and where you hang out on social media.
Sarah Penner
Most frequently. I'm on Instagram all the time. So @sarah_penner_author, I'm not hard to find on there. My website is Sarahpenner.com. So Sarah has an H and then Penner.com. I also do have accounts on Twitter and Facebook. I'm not quite as regular on those. And then of course, I'm on Goodreads, you can follow me on Amazon. I love interacting with people on Instagram. So anyone is definitely welcome to say hello there.
Ashley Hasty
Yes, that's where I follow you. And I'd highly recommend everyone follow because you're so forthcoming about your process. Like I said that work life balance is really inspiring for writers. Thank you. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to talk about that we haven't covered yet?
Sarah Penner
You know, I don't think so. I would just encourage your listeners or your viewers to just keep reading, keep trying to read outside of the genres that you normally would read in that's something I'm challenging myself to do as well. I think that that exposes our brains to new concepts, new ideas, new ways of writing and Reading. And I would of course always say just keep supporting your local libraries and shop indie as opposed to some of the big online retailers because small, locally owned independent bookstores are more important now than ever.
Ashley Hasty
Is there anything you can tell us about what you're working on right now?
Sarah Penner
Oh, yes. So I'm really excited about my third book. It's under contract and due at the end of this year, so I'll be working on it all year. It is set along the Amalfi coast line in Italy without giving away too much. There are some mysterious shipwrecks, a coven of witches, a present day scuba diver who starts investigating one of the shipwrecks and a lot of weird occurrences going on in the region. So it's my most ambitious project yet, it's going to be probably about 25% longer than either of my other two books. I remain intimidated by it to this day, but my agent tells me that's a good thing and that I need to embrace being scared. And I know the book is going to be amazing when it's done. I'm trying to kind of show my chops a little bit and stretch my wings. You know, I my first two books took place in London, this book takes place in this gorgeous Italian coastline. I'm doing a lot different with this book, but I'm really excited about it.
Ashley Hasty
It sounds like that eerie atmospheric genre that we've loved from you. Yeah. Two books. We'll continue with the fun. Yes, absolutely. Well, Sarah, it was such a pleasure chatting with you today. I am so happy that we've gotten a chance to talk in person. We've done a few online things nothing face to face.
Sarah Penner
That's right, yes, well thank you so much Ashley for having me on. This has been wonderful.