What can you expect from Carmella Lowkis' "Spitting Gold?" A twisty plot, spine-chilling seances, compelling female characters, and more.
What was your inspiration behind your most recent book?
“Spitting Gold” was heavily influenced by two of my favourite historical fiction authors, Sarah Waters and Emma Donoghue, who both write brilliantly twisty, dramatic plots with lesbian characters. Once I’d run out of their books to read, I thought I’d have a go at writing my own to fill the gap. I chose the setting of nineteenth-century Paris due to my love of the musical “Les Misérables,” which I must now have seen live over thirty times! With its gorgeous, spooky architecture and history of violent revolution, it seemed like the perfect backdrop for a gothic mystery.
What does Reading Rainbow mean to you?
Discovering stories where I can see both myself and my circle of LGBTQ+ friends, family and loved ones reflected back in the pages. It’s that ever-important knowledge that we’re not alone – there are so many other people out there who share our experiences, all around the world and throughout history.
Why do you feel representation of a variety of people is so important when it comes to writing books?
There are so many answers I could give to this question, but I will try to narrow it down to a few reasons:
- Because the real world contains a massive variety of people, and it would be a strange omission not to acknowledge that in fiction
- Because everyone deserves to read about characters and experiences that feel true to their lives
- Because everyone also deserves to read about characters and experiences that take them completely outside what they know
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
“Spitting Gold” is my first novel – a gothic mystery about two con-artist sisters set in Paris, 1866. After years without contact, Baroness Sylvie Devereux receives a visit from her younger sister, Charlotte, who is determined to persuade her back into their old act as spirit mediums. Charlotte hopes to defraud a family of reclusive aristocrats by taking advantage of their belief in a poltergeist. However, when the sisters witness inexplicable events themselves, they have to confront the possibility that another force really could be at work…
I started writing what would one day become “Spitting Gold” for a creative writing assignment at university. The project was supposed to stop at 10,000 words, but the more I worked on the story, the larger it grew, until I just knew that I needed to expand it into a full-length novel.
What can fans expect from your book?
A twisty plot, spine-chilling seances, compelling female characters and – of course – a tantalising sapphic romance.
What's up next for you in the bookish world?
I have a second book in the works at the moment – another sapphic romance, this time set in the 1920s in a cursed English country house.
Check out the book here.
