Annie Garthwaite’s debut novel was published by Viking UK on 29 July. In those early weeks it was named a ‘pick of the month’ by The Times and Sunday Times. It’s the book Annie has wanted to write for 40 years and more. But, on three occasions, she almost gave up…
Mum taught me to read, long before school, gifting me with a love of story, and in fact, of history. She was a great devourer of historical fiction you see, and I ate happily from the same table. We worked our way through everything from Catherine Cookson to Anya Seton.
The fascination continued at school. It was The Wars of the Roses for ‘A’ Level and my head was alight with the drama of it. If you ask who was the stand out figure for me, then, I’d have to say Richard III. By the time I left school the idea of one day writing a novel about him was fixed.
When I graduated from University, my idea was to work in publishing and write alongside. A symbiotic career, I thought. But the work was all consuming and the pay very poor. I was slaving in pubs at night and bookshops at weekends to make ends meet. No time for writing. So, I made myself a promise; I’d put writing aside for now, go into business proper and make a decent living. But, I determined, at age 55 I’d give up the day job. I’d write.
By the 1990’s, when I was in my thirties, my allegiance had switched from Richard to his mother, Cecily. I was heading up European communications for an American multinational’ learning first-hand how women exercise power in male dominated environments. Cecily, who wielded high political power in the ultimate male bearpit of 15th century England, was an inspiring role model.
Not long after, I set up my own company, which I ran for 20 years. My ‘write at 55’ plan was on track. Then, nine years out from that milestone date, a combination of the financial crash and a fraudulent financial advisor wiped out my pension savings and left me deep in debt. It looked like early retirement – and a 2nd career as a writer – were out of the question. I’d be working till I dropped. But by then, perhaps, I’d imbibed a bit of Cecily’s resilient spirit. “Don’t worry,” a friend said. “There’ll be light at the end of this tunnel.” Only if I switch the bloody thing on myself, I thought. So, I redoubled my efforts, worked harder, took no holidays, abolished weekends and, when not working, pursued compensation, justice, redress.
The finances recovered. Just. And, in 2017, aged 55, I stopped work and signed up for a creative writing MA at Warwick. I gave myself two years to bring Cecily to the page.
I’d kept my writing hand in all through my working life, with various courses and writing groups. But in those last few difficult years, with my nose fixed to the grindstone, I’d had to put it aside. So, in the summer before the MA started, I found myself more than a little rusty. Panicking, I took myself off on a short writing course at Arvon. It was ‘Kick start your Writing,’ something like that. Hell, I needed a kickstart!
By midweek it wasn’t going well. I was on the verge of calling Warwick and telling them I couldn’t come because I’d forgotten how to write. I confessed my fears to the tutor – the very wonderful author, Chris Cleave. I’d taken some sketchy chapters of Cecily along with me, written a decade or more earlier. He looked at me sternly and waved them in my face. ‘If you could write this then, you can write this now,’ he said. ‘You’re just out of practice. You’re just stale.’ Ultimately his advice was simple. Buckle down and write. It’ll be rubbish at first. It’ll be painful. But it will come.
He was right on all counts. It was rubbish, it was painful, but it did, indeed, come. I completed the novel in the two years allotted and, within six months of that, signed a deal with Viking (Penguin). The rest, as they say, is history.
I could have given up at any of three junctures. At 22, when I set writing aside to make a living. In my forties, when financial disaster struck. At 55 when self-doubt threatened my resolve. But I didn’t. In the end, the urge to write this fabulous woman’s story won out over all. I may not be much else, but I’m determined. And in that, I think, Cecily and I are very alike.
Anne Garthwaite grew up in a working-class community in the north-east of England. She studied English at the University of Wales before embarking on a thirty-year international business career. In 2017 she returned to her first love, books, and set out to write the story of a woman she had always felt drawn to: Cecily Neville. This became her debut novel, CECILY. Find out more about Annie Garthwaite and CECILY at www.anniegarthwaite.com
Follow Annie on: Twitter @anniegarthwaite / Instagram @anniegarthwaite / Facebook @anniegarthwaitewriter
ABOUT CECILY
‘Rebellion?’
The word is a spark. They can start a fire with it, or smother it in their fingertips.
She chooses to start a fire.
You are born high, but marry a traitor’s son. You bear him twelve children, carry his cause and bury his past.
You play the game, against enemies who wish you ashes. Slowly, you rise.
You are Cecily.
But when the king who governs you proves unfit, what then?
Loyalty or treason – death may follow both. The board is set. Time to make your first move.
Told through the eyes of its greatest unknown protagonist, this astonishing debut plunges you into the closed bedchambers and bloody battlefields of the first days of the Wars of the Roses, a war as women fight it.
