An evening with Frances Quinn and Joanna Glenn

Chapter 34 Presents

16 Jul 07:00 PM

Until 16 Jul, 08:30 PM 1h 30m

An evening with Frances Quinn and Joanna Glenn

Chapter 34 32-34 Brunswick Road, Shoreham By Sea, West Susssex, BN435WJ

Join us at Chapter 34 for a special evening celebrating two brilliant writers and their new novels. We’re delighted to welcome back Frances Quinn, with The Scandalous Ladies Football Club, and Joanna Glen, with The First Act of Summer. At this in-conversation event, friends of Chapter 34, Frances and Joanna will each share insights into their individual writing processes, the craft of storytelling, and the inspirations behind their past and present work. Expect an engaging discussion, audience Q&A, opportunity to purchase their new novels and back catalogue. Of course, Frances and Joanna will also be signing copies of their books. Whether you’re already a fan or discovering their work for the first time, this promises to be a warm, thoughtful, and entertaining evening. 7-7.45pm – In conversation with Frances Quinn and Joanna Glen 7.45pm – Break 8-8.30pm – Q&A 8.30-8.45pm – Signing

From the Costa-shortlisted author of ‘The Other Half of Augusta Hope’, ‘All My Mothers’ and ‘Maybe, Perhaps, Possibly’, Joanna’s lasted novel, ‘The First Act of Summer’ is a raw and sweeping novel about the power of a dark secret, the resilience of love and the possibility of redemption. Is it ever too late to figure out who you were meant to be?As children, Hester and Elias were inseparable. Every year, their families would spend the summer together at their beach huts on a wild and windswept sandbank, where the two of them never left each other’s side. But childhood friendships can stretch and warp as you grow up, and in the summer of 1976, the year they turned 14, Hester did a terrible thing that would shatter both of their lives. For her 60th birthday, Hester goes back to her family’s beach hut to hide from the husband she wants to leave and the daughters she’s never fully understood. It is here that she finally faces up to what she did that fateful summer, wondering whether it’s ever too late to become the person you were meant to be. And if there’s still a chance of finding Elias again.

In 2013, Frances Quinn won a place on the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course, and started work on her first novel. ‘The Smallest Man’ was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster and was followed by ‘That Bonesetter Woman’, published in 2022, and ‘The Lost Passenger’, published in 2025. Her latest novel, ‘The Scandalous Ladies Football Club’, will publish in July 2026. Welcome to the British Ladies Football Club. London, 1897. Minnie Newton – twenty-eight-year-old schoolteacher and women’s rights advocate – has a passion for football. But in Victorian society, football is a men’s game. That is, until Minnie decides to take matters into her own hands and place an ad in the newspaper, asking for volunteers to join the first ever women’s football team. From a motley collection of replies, Minnie puts together a squad. Most of the women have never kicked a ball before – but a little thing like that isn’t about to stop them. And when they take the game public, it isn’t long before they are drawing huge crowds, stirring controversy across the capital and beyond. But Minnie is hiding an explosive secret. Soon, all the attention the club is getting begins to threaten the life she has built for herself. Can she walk the line between independence and safety, or will the truth about who she really is finally come out? And is the beautiful game enough to save her freedom?

A story inspired by real-life Victorian trailblazers, who showed the world that women can do anything they put their minds to, even if the world around them says they can’t.

Buy Tickets

16 Jul

£8.00

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