ShortBookandScribes #BlogTour #QandA and #BookReview – The Secret Photographs by Jacquie Bloese
It’s my stop on the blog tour for The Secret Photographs by Jacquie Bloese which is published by Hodder and available in paperback, eBook and audiobook.
I’m pleased to be sharing a Q&A with Jacquie today along with my thoughts on the book. My thanks to Graeme Williams for asking me to be a part of the tour and the publishers for the review copy. I loved the book so much that I immediately purchased a copy of Jacquie’s first book, The French House.
Discover the spellbinding portrait of two women determined to find their freedom – perfect for fans of Sarah Waters, The Doll Factory and The Essex Serpent.
England, 1895: In the bustling seaside town of Brighton, photography is all the rage. Ellen Harper assists her twin brother running one of the city’s seafront studios, where fashionable ladies and gentlemen pose in their finery to have their likeness captured forever in a silver frame.
But behind the façade of a respectable business, the siblings have something to hide. After the studio closes for the day, secret photographs are taken in the back room. There is money to be made from this underground trade, but if exposed to the light of day, these photographs would destroy them…
When newly married Clementine comes to sit for a portrait, Ellen learns she is looking for a lady’s companion. Longing for a life of her own choosing and freedom from the deals her brother has made, Ellen accepts the post. The new position transports her to a sweeping white-fronted townhouse on one of Brighton’s most prestigious crescents, full of every luxury imaginable.
But Clementine’s gilded world hides as much darkness as Ellen hoped to escape… What will happen when the secrets Ellen has left behind finally catch up to her?
Don’t miss this richly atmospheric and gripping historical fiction shining a light on the role of women in a world dominated by men.
with Jacquie Bloese
1. Where did the idea come from for The Secret Photographs? I’m really intrigued by the Victorian portrait photographers, respectable on the surface but actually earning more from illicit photography.
It came from some initial research I did on a man called Linley Sambourne, who was lead cartoonist for Punch magazine, a satirical magazine that was very popular in Victorian England. As well as a talented artist, he was also a keen amateur photographer and had a makeshift dark room in the attic of his Kensington home. He was a flamboyant type and used to rope his wife and children into posing for photographs that he could then use as a basis for his sketches. So far, so respectable. But Mr Sambourne’s interest in photography extended to photographing nude models, either at the Camera Club in Chelsea, or at undisclosed locations across London. And even more intriguingly, it seems that his devoted wife Marion had some inkling of what was going on. One of her diary entries reads: Lin, off early to lunch in town – believe secret photography as usual!!
Sambourne was a man of means and wasn’t selling or distributing his secret photographs, but it sparked an idea. We often think of the Victorians as prudish, but human nature doesn’t change – and there was a brisk trade in under-the-counter photography, particularly in cities. I got to thinking – what if a struggling photographer was on his – or her – uppers – and was looking for a way to keep the bailiffs from the door? And what if that photographer had a sister who helped procure the young women for the secret photographs that kept the business afloat, in the belief that she was helping them, saving them from far worse fates? After that, it didn’t take long for a story to form…
2. The book is set in Brighton. Why did you choose this setting and how important is a sense of place in your books?
Setting is very important to me as a writer – it provides atmosphere which in turn provokes feeling in both the reader and the writer. I’d just moved from London to Brighton in those dark pandemic days, when all there was to do was walk! I’d had the idea for The Secret Photographs already, and as I started to explore the city, I couldn’t think of a better setting for it than Brighton – well heeled in parts, but run down in others, the grimy twittens and gleaming stuccoed crescents, packed with secrets.
3. Both The Secret Photographs and your first book, The French House, are works of historical fiction. What draws you to write in this genre?
I love immersing myself in different periods in history and imagining what it might have been like to live through the German Occupation on Guernsey, as both an islander and a member of the Occupying Forces – or live life as an unmarried woman in Victorian England, with few resources, like Ellen in The Secret Photographs,. Contemporary life doesn’t hold quite the same allure!
4. What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book? How did you research Victorian photography and did you find out anything that surprised you?
I’m pretty rigorous. I love first person accounts and diaries – they are research gold and can really spark ideas for plotting. When I was writing The Secret Photographs, I did a lot of online research and plundered the archives of the British Library and Bishopsgate Museum in London. In ‘Stories from Scotland Yard’ written by an Inspector Brennan, I discovered that there was a scandal at a ‘top public school’ in the 1880s, where certain boys had been purchasing erotic photographs by mail order – they were smuggled into the school as “Art Supplies”!
5. And related to that, do you plot your books meticulously before you start or wing it and see how it comes together?
I have an idea of how the novel starts and ends and a sense of how and why the tension rises. My books are character led so it’s all about the different characters’ journeys and the changes they undergo. I’m wary of overplanning – things change as you write, so it’s best to keep an open mind, but I’ve never been brave enough to completely wing it!
6. If you weren’t a writer what do you think you would be doing now?
The editorial job in English Language Teaching publishing which I’m still doing! I used to teach English in Turkey and Spain which led to my first role in educational publishing many years ago. I’m lucky to have found a career which both pays the bills and is varied and full of interesting people. In the current climate, very few writers can survive on the income from novels alone.
7. Tell me about your writing day. Where do you write and do you have a daily routine?
On the days when I’m writing, I tend to write at home, either in bed or in my office in the morning, then at my local library in the afternoon, for a change of scene. I find it really helpful to move from place to place; otherwise it can start to feel like a slog!
8. Do you have time to read yourself and if so what kind of books do you enjoy?
Yes, I love reading and make time for it, although not as much as I should! This year, I’ve been reading a lot of novels, published by Persephone Books, who reprint twentieth century fiction, mostly from women writers who would otherwise have been forgotten. I can recommend Fidelity by Susan Glaspell, written in 1915. It’s set in small town Iowa and is about the fall out after a woman runs away with a married man. Nuanced and way ahead of its time.
9. Do you have any interesting writing quirks?
Very occasionally I re-read my own books. Never with intent, I just get drawn in. Subconsciously, I think I’m trying to tell myself that I did it once, twice … and will do again!
10. Is there a book three on the horizon and if so, can you tell me a little about it?
My third book is called Black Feather and is set during the First World War, against the backdrop of the British silent film industry. It tells the story of Flora, a young, working-class woman, whose drive for recognition leads to a lead role in a Home Front propaganda film and the start of the fame she thinks she wants. But as the war worsens, the shadow side of Flora’s success becomes clear, causing her to question who she is, what she wants, and the emotional cost of her dreams.
Thank you, Jacquie. I enjoyed learning more about your inspiration and research. Black Feather sounds fascinating and I bet there’s some really interesting research involved. I look forward to reading it.
It’s very rare indeed that I start a new book, especially one by an author unknown to me, and feel really confident that I will love it, but that’s what happened for me within two pages (comprising the prologue) of The Secret Photographs. I could only hope that the splendour and richness of the prose would continue throughout the rest of the book and I was not at all disappointed. This is a very special book indeed.
Set in Brighton in 1895, this is the story of Ellen Harper and her twin brother, Reynald who is striving to be a respectable photographer with Ellen as his able assistant. But there’s a darker side to their business and when the golden hour comes their enterprise takes on a clandestine air as the siblings take erotic photos of women to make extra, much-needed, money. Before I started reading, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to find Ellen a sympathetic character and how dark the story would be, but I liked her and the way her character developed throughout. It’s a bid for respectability and the meeting of Ellen’s world with that of Clementine, a wealthy and newly married woman, that makes Ellen realise what is really possible and what she’s capable of achieving, but there’s always a sense that implosion of Ellen’s ordered life is just around the corner.
If the books of Elizabeth Macneal and Sarah Waters had a love child then The Secret Photographs would be the result. The depth of emotion, the vivid descriptions and the luscious characterisations made it such an immersive read, one I wanted to savour. I found myself longing to pick it up and longing for it never to end. It’s heady and intoxicating, full of atmosphere which transported me to late Victorian England, beautifully written and researched, and quite frankly magnificent. One of my favourite books of the year.
My Reading Corner – guest post: Five things you didn’t know about Victorian ‘secret’ photography
Swirl and Thread – extract from the prologue
Linda’s Book Bag – Five Brighton locations which inspired The Secret Photographs
Jacquie Bloese is a writer of historical book group fiction, originally from the Channel Island of Guernsey. She draws her inspiration from atmospheric locations with intriguing histories, and people – both real and imaginary – whose stories are calling out to be told.
Her first novel The French House, set during the German Occupation of Guernsey in the second World War, was a Richard and Judy Winter 2022 book club pick, and a finalist in the Mslexia Novel Award. Her second novel The Golden Hour is inspired by the seaside town of Brighton, where Jacquie currently lives, and tells the stories of three women from different classes who become caught up in the underground world of erotic photography in 1890s Victorian England.
Jacquie began her professional life teaching English, in Turkey and Spain, before returning to the UK to work in ELT publishing for a number of publishers, including Scholastic, Oxford University Press and Penguin Random House. She now works freelance as an educational consultant, writer and editor.
In her spare time, Jacquie loves reading, walking, socialising, travel, theatre, cinema and daydreaming!
