Hi Ella,
Lucy Knight suggested I send this your way, now that you’ve taken over the books desk from her.
For most of the last century, the marriage of convenience ran one way. Gay men married women to pass as straight, to keep their jobs, to stay out of jail. The lavender marriage. I spent my new novel turning that arrangement inside out: a straight woman recruits her gay flatmate to pose as her fiancé, and the cover story she needs has nothing to do with who she fancies.
What struck me writing it was how much of that old machinery still runs, just rewired. The piece I’d like to write: the queer history of the marriage of convenience, and the way romcom has started borrowing it back, with my book as one strand (rather than the subject). Equally happy if it’s more useful to you as an interview.
For context, it’s Lisa Doyle is Absolutely Fine, out 18 June, set largely on and around Manchester’s Canal Street. No attachment here, just say the word and I’ll send it over.
Best,
Mo Fanning
07881 925376