MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS is set in 1936. What made you choose that time period?
Originally, I was thinking of setting this book just after WWII, but I changed my mind because I love the glamour of the 1930s so much. I love the music of that era, which felt important since Lena is a jazz singer. Of course, I also really enjoy reading stories set in that period, Amor Towles’ RULES OF CIVILITY, for example. When I started writing the novel, back in 2019, I was also interested in how world politics back then could be compared to what’s been happening more recently.
I like mysteries set on ships or other settings in which the characters are kind of stuck in one place. What made you choose a ship for your setting – specifically the Queen Mary?
MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS started off as a short story about a jazz singer who witnesses a murder and then has to leave London. At the end of that story, she is on her way to board a ship to New York, but everyone who read it was more interested in what was going to happen to her on the ship than what had taken place earlier! When I thought about it I was interested to find out too, and I chose the Queen Mary because she’s such an icon. The fastest ship of that time, the most luxurious and glamorous. Everyone who was anyone sailed on her, but she had a dark side as well, with gambling and prostitution common onboard. I felt as though murder would fit right in! There was also the opportunity to include some wider issues that are important to me. A ship like the Queen Mary was literally segregated into the different classes of passenger. You weren’t supposed to mix, and I found that interesting, especially since I talk about race a little bit in the book.
What do you like most about writing mystery and suspense? Do you determine who the guilty party is at the beginning of the writing process, or does it reveal itself as you progress with the story?
I like a mystery because, as I’m not really a plotter, I have the excitement of uncovering information as I’m writing. In my first novel, THIS LOVELY CITY, I always knew the culprit and their reasons. With MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS, I thought I knew who the murderer was, but then another character came forward with a more compelling motive!
Your female protagonist sounds very complex and realistically flawed (exactly the type I prefer). In general, do you prefer writing characters like that, with complicated lives?
I’m not interested in perfect characters. How boring! I write characters who feel real, who make mistakes and who might have a few regrets but are trying to get on with things. The idea for Lena came from thinking about how we often idolize people up we see up on a stage, or in a magazine. We think that just because someone has a talent for something that they must have everything figured out, and I wanted to show that the truth is very different.
Does Lena Aldridge try to play the part of amateur sleuth? Or is she just trying to navigate through the danger in MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS?
Essentially, Lena is just trying to get through the hours until she reaches New York, when she thinks she’ll be safe. She does do a small amount of sleuthing, but it’s mostly because she feels so helpless by that point. Doing something is a distraction from worrying that someone’s going to kill her. I tried to think what I would do in her situation. In an ideal world, I love to imagine I’d be a Miss Marple or a Nancy Drew, putting together the pieces and solving the mystery. Realistically though, I know I’d be absolutely useless, sticking my head in the sand and pretending that everything was fine.
Will this be the first book in a series?
Yes! Lena will be appearing in at least one more novel which I’m very excited about.
What types of books do you like to read? Favorite authors or titles?
I love historical fiction – Sarah Waters is a favorite and FINGERSMITH is a work of genius as far as I’m concerned. Colson Whitehead’s THE NICKEL BOYS was a real heartbreaker and one of my favorites ever books. I’m a fan of a chunky fantasy novel as well and at the moment I’m working my way through Sarah J. Maas’s THRONE OF GLASS series.
What are you currently working on?
I’ve just written a terrible first draft of the next novel featuring Lena. I’m looking forward to ripping it apart and making it better!
MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS by Louise Hare
London, 1936. Lena Aldridge is wondering if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn’t worked out. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just dumped her.
But Lena has always had a complicated life, one shrouded in mystery as a mixed-race girl passing for white in a city unforgiving of her true racial heritage. She has nothing to look forward to—until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York.
After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better, and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. But when a fellow passenger is killed in a strikingly familiar way, Lena realizes that her greatest performance won’t be for an audience, but for her life.
Multicultural Historical | Mystery Historical [Berkley, On Sale: July 5, 2022, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593439258 / eISBN: 9780593439265]
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About Louise Hare
Louise Hare is a London-based author. Her debut novel, This Lovely City, was published in the UK to wide acclaim, and was a Between the Covers Book Club Pick on BBC Two. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of London.
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