1–What is the title of your latest release?
2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Two women’s lives become fatefully entwined when an evacuee ship carrying British children to Canada during WW2 is torpedoed in the Atlantic. Alice King finds herself in a lifeboat with other survivors while, in London, Lily Nicholls desperately awaits news of her children. Inspired by true events, The Last Lifeboat is a very different story of WW2, a story of human courage and endurance, and I’m so excited for readers to turn the first page!
3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
History decided the setting when I read about an evacuee ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the middle of the Atlantic, and a lifeboat of survivors was lost at sea for eight days. Much of my story is set in a lifeboat in the Atlantic.
4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely. I would love to spend time with both Alice and Lily. They are both strong intriguing women, with fascinating stories to tell.
5–What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Alice: Uncertain, brave, humble.
Lily: Resilient, loving, determined.
6–What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I was already familiar with Operation Pied Piper, a mass evacuation campaign at the start of WW2 where children were sent to the countryside from Britain’s towns and cities, but I didn’t know about the “seavacuees”. Children being sent to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica was a very different evacuee story. I was keen to explore how parents made the impossible decision to send their children so far away, and what happened to those evacuated children.
7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I am a terrible first drafter and constantly go back to edit early pages when I should be getting on with writing the rest of the book. Somehow, it always gets done!
8–What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
White bread, toasted, with real Irish butter (Hi, Kerrygold!) It’s such a simple pleasure, but it’s soooo good!
9–Describe your writing space/office!
A mess! I tidy up and de-clutter after each book is delivered, but most of the time I am surrounded by research books, notebooks, pages of notes, coffee cups and to do lists. I’m so lucky to have my own writing space. It really deserves to be treated better!
10–Who is an author you admire?
I honestly admire anyone who can create something from a blank page and keep chipping away until they have a book written.
11–Is there a book that changed your life?
The Girl Who Came Home (my debut novel about Titanic) was my first published novel and changed my working and family life in a wonderful way. That was the moment my determination to be a published writer became reality. Being a writer is my second career, and ten years on from publishing my first book, I am still so happy that this is my crazy wonderful job!
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.
“The call” was actually an email from my agent, with the subject title “Offer!” An editor at HarperCollins wanted to publish The Girl Who Came Home. What followed was a crazy few weeks which culminated in a very exciting auction for my first two books, The Girl Who Came Home (which I’d initially self-published) and A Memory of Violets (a full manuscript which existed only on my laptop at the time). There were so many years of rejection and disappointment on the way to that ‘Yes’ and it meant the absolute world to me. I had a glass of champagne and sobbed!
13–What’s your favorite genre to read?
Historical fiction – surprise! – and book club fiction, but a great book will grab me whatever the genre. My good friend, Catherine Ryan Howard, writes brilliant thrillers so I’ve become a fan, even though they terrify me!
14–What’s your favorite movie?
I absolutely love Jojo Rabbit. It’s such a perfect balance of humor, heartbreak, and hope. Amazing storytelling and acting.
15–What is your favorite season?
Fall (or autumn as I call it). There’s something so beautiful about the colors and the crisp air. It feels invigorating to me and always inspires me to start something new.
16–How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
With my family and fish and chips by the sea.
17–What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I absolutely loved the Paramount+ Yellowstone origin story, 1883. It stole my heart and broke my heart, and I am still thinking about it months after watching it.
18–What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Thai or Mexican. Give me all the spice!
19–What do you do when you have free time?
I like to bake as a way of relaxing, and then eat my baking as a way of relaxing even more! I also love a good walk by the sea to blow away the cobwebs. And, of course, I read.
20–What can readers expect from you next?
I am SO excited about my next novel! I can’t say too much yet, but I can share that it takes place during the dust bowl era of the 1930s and will be my first novel set entirely in the USA. Driven by an intriguing female character and her estranged niece, the story explores themes of self-discovery, finding hope within adversity, and how far we will go to protect those we love. It was pitched to my editor as “a story you already know; a woman you don’t”, and I cannot wait to share more detail in the coming months!
THE LAST LIFEBOAT by Hazel Gaynor
Inspired by a remarkable true story, a young teacher evacuates children to safety across perilous waters, in a moving and triumphant new novel from New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor.
1940, Kent: Alice King is not brave or daring—she’s happiest finding adventure through the safe pages of books. But times of war demand courage, and as the threat of German invasion looms, a plane crash near her home awakens a strength in Alice she’d long forgotten. Determined to do her part, she finds a role perfectly suited to her experience as a schoolteacher—to help evacuate Britain’s children overseas.
1940, London: Lily Nichols once dreamed of using her mathematical talents for more than tabulating the cost of groceries, but life, and love, charted her a different course. With two lively children and a loving husband, Lily’s humble home is her world, until war tears everything asunder. With her husband gone and bombs raining down, Lily is faced with an impossible choice: keep her son and daughter close, knowing she may not be able to protect them, or enroll them in a risky evacuation scheme, where safety awaits so very far away.
When a Nazi U-boat torpedoes the S. S. Carlisle carrying a ship of children to Canada, a single lifeboat is left adrift in the storm-tossed Atlantic. Alice and Lily, strangers to each other—one on land, the other at sea—will quickly become one another’s very best hope as their lives are fatefully entwined.
Women’s Fiction Historical [Berkley, On Sale: June 13, 2023, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593440315 / eISBN: 9780593440322]
Buy THE LAST LIFEBOAT: Amazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Powell’s Books | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Ripped Bodice | Love’s Sweet Arrow | Walmart.com | Target.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Hazel Gaynor
Hazel Gaynor is an award-winning, New York Times, USA Today, Irish Times and international bestselling author. Originally from Yorkshire, England, Hazel now lives in Ireland with her husband and two children.
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