Lucy Foley on wellness, misogyny in publishing and writing The Midnight Feast
It's not summer without a page-turning thriller. One so gripping in pace, full of twists and turns, that six hours go by without having looked up from your sun-lounger. And with over 5.5 million copies of her books sold worldwide, Lucy Foley knows a thing or two about enthralling an audience with a spine-tingling novel.
Though she kicked off her writing career with a series of historical novels, Lucy changed genres in 2019 and published her first thriller novel The Hunting Party. Since, she's released three more novels including The Guest List which landed on the New York Times list of the Best Thrillers in 2020.
Her latest release is The Midnight Feast, set at the opening weekend of a new country estate hotel The Manor, in Dorset. Against the backdrop of the wellness and hedonistic retreat lies an ancient woodland full of both secrets and a past can't stay buried forever. Something or someone is set come back to haunt The Manor owner Francesca. The question is, who will survive this midsummer weekend under the blistering sun?
We caught up with Lucy to discuss going behind the gloss of the wellness industry, misogyny in the publishing industry, and how she actually manages to incorporate all those twists and turns.
Cosmo UK: Where did the idea for The Midnight Feast come from?
Lucy Foley: The first inspiration was a hotel opening near to my parents' [house] in the countryside. We were really excited about it, but there was this kind of vitriol that stirred up in the local rural community. That was one of the first germs, and I pitched it to my agent as 'Soho Farmhouse meets The Wicker Man'.
So, was the hotel in the book based on a real location?
It's absolutely a mash up. I wanted it set on the cliffs, I wanted the coastal setting. But I also wanted this ancient woodland behind it, and to have all this weird stuff going on in the trees. I wanted it to be the West Country, but I didn't want it to be too specifically anywhere in the West Country, because I wanted to absorb all the of local legends and folklore, and then almost forget it all and come up with my own legends and place.
What research did you do for the novel?
I did lots of travelling down to the West Country. Not so much exploring the folklore side, but there was some necessity in staying in hotels. Most of my [writing] is sitting in my tracksuit at my messy desk, so that was wonderful. I wanted the hotel to feel like a character in itself and somewhere a reader would really want to go and stay.
With the folklore [research,] I was reading from Thomas Hardy onwards, and I had this wonderful folklore anthology. I was watching films like The Wicker Man, The Blood On Satan's Claw and obviously Midsommar. There's a wonderful zine Weird Walk. I feel they're on the forefront of this folklore revival, so I read a lot of that, and did some weird walks myself.
I live in Sussex now and there are lots of Pagan sites near me, like Chanctonbury Ring, which apparently, if you walk around it in the wrong direction three times, you summon the devil.
Did any particular women inspire the character of Francesca?
She [Francesca] was such a funny one, because she was so worryingly easy to write. Obviously we can point to like Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss, who have their own wellness adjacent lines. In a way she's [Francesca,] sort of like a British version of that modern wellness thing, but a much more evil version.
But I have to make this point really clearly, I'm all for anything that makes you feel better. I had a chronic pain condition for three years, probably longer, and things like acupuncture and Reiki were really helpful while I was looking for a cure. What gets my goat up is the cynical monetised wellness that someone like Francesca is into. It [the book] was about setting up this monetised wellness versus the ancient rural, free, Pagan sort of spirituality.
But I also felt for her in a way because everyone should have the opportunity to reinvent themselves and she's done some terrible stuff in the past. And to what extent should you be able to do that? What if you did something terrible and unforgivable in your past? Should you be allowed to [reinvent yourself]? So that's the question at the heart of the book I suppose. I probably didn't even realise I was asking [that] when I started writing it.
Without giving spoilers, there's a thread in the novel that unpicks the perception of women, and how often under estimated we are...
I found that's a thread that unites certainly The Paris Apartment and The Midnight Feast, but I wasn't necessarily aware it was something I was actively exploring when I started writing, but there is always the feminist thread throughout my writing.
I don't know if it's something to do with having become a mother recently. And this idea of, "how will my children see me when they grew up?' Will I just be 'mum' to them? Or will I an identity outside that?" It does sort of throw your self-identification into turmoil.
We've got several mothers in the book. Bella is thinking about what sort of mother she's going to be to her daughter. She feels that there's something in the past that she needs to make right before she can be the most authentic version of herself, and the mother, she wants to be.
And Eddie's mother, he very much sees her as just in her dressing gown making Horlicks. But there's more that meets the eye.
You've spoken recently about your husband being a fan of literature written by women, which often feels like an anomaly. Do you think there's still a lot of misogyny in publishing? And if so, why?
Absolutely. I think it is bizarre that as a woman, I will read men and women, and I would say, it's probably like a true 50/50 split. And it just seems nuts that a lot has come out recently about the fact that men just don't read women.
I think possibly, publishers have a bit to answer for that. There are books that are clearly explicitly packaged in a sort of female way.
We've even had talks about my covers, with my husband saying, "Well, you know, that cover they sent through, I wouldn't pick that up as a man, I'd be embarrassed to read it on the tube". That's his test.
And yet, women, both readers and writers, make up such a large percentage of the book industry...
I wrote three historical novels before [moving into thrillers] and I wrote them for anyone. And I was inspired by writers like William Boyd and Sebastian Faulkner, and I was gobsmacked when they were packaged in a very female way.
Since moving into the crime and thriller, it's much more democratic and I have noticed a lot more men read my books, which is great.
Your characters go through a lot in your novels. Do you ever feel protective over them and want to hold back in how they're treated?
So one of my favourite characters to write was Francesca, but probably my other favourite is Eddie. And he goes through a real journey and there were times in which I pulled back from doing things that I knew I needed to do to make it a better book. So I almost had to write a softer version first, and then kind of lean into it.
I want my characters to go on a journey in the book. I want them to be changed by events, I want this metamorphosis to happen. And that can sometimes be quite stressful for them.
There's so many twists and turns in your novels, do you plan them out before you begin writing?
I really wish I did. I've sat at events with other authors before and they've gone through their beautiful spreadsheets and the year they spend plotting out the book before they even pick up the pen.
I've tried that, but I just can't do it, the book basically doesn't feel alive to me until I start writing. So I like to say I sort of plot, as I go along.
I have some big set piece things in my head that I know I want to work in there. And, I had a couple of twists from the outset, but some of the ones that really excited me in this book came to me in the writing process.
What can you tell us about the upcoming TV adaptation of The Midnight Feast?
It's being adapted for TV, as a limited series, which is perfect for this because it's got a slightly wider canvas. And I really want them to be able to go into the village, as it were, and explore that wider cast.
I'm gonna be in the writing room, which is really exciting. And also, there's so much that hasn't made it into the final book because you have to sometimes have to make brutal decisions about what's actually going to make it into that 90,000 words that gets published. So hopefully [with the TV show] they can add to a deeper understanding of character or place.
Do you have a dream cast in mind?
I love hearing people's fan casts and I've had a lot of people say Paul Mescal for Eddie, or Harris Dickinson from Triangle of Sadness.
You're the queen of thrillers, but would you ever move away from writing in the genre?
I mean, never say never. I wrote three historical novels first, and I loved writing those. I read really widely. I just love great story and really strong characterisation. So, watch this space maybe romantasy or something more literary.
As we head into warmer months, what's on your summer reading list?
I've just started Kiley Reid's Come and Get It and also The End of Summer by Charlotte Philby.
What book instantly makes you feel like summer?
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan. I think she wrote it when she was 18 and the character is about 16. It's this summer in the South of France and she's [the main character] spending all this time just lying in the sun and kissing this boy on the beach. It's got a thriller esque twist in it too.
The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley is out now
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