‘TIMES CHANGE, BUT THE HUMAN HEART DOESN’T’ Award-winning author Kate Mosse on family, feminism and finding joy

Bestselling author and founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Kate Mosse tells Ella Dove about family, feminism and the joy of a (very) early morning

Kate Mosse speaks as she writes. Thoughtful, eloquent and descriptive, words flow from her with ease, her mind clearly as complex and roaming as the historical epics she is famed for. Mentally and physically, she gives the impression that she never stops. ‘My research is fundamentally through my feet,’ she says. ‘It is being in the places, climbing the mountains, walking around the edge of the lake and working out how long it would take you to run if you were pursuing a baddie.’

Her determination is certainly echoed by her impressive career. After graduating from Oxford University, Kate worked in the publishing industry, eventually becoming an author in 1992. Her big break came in 2005 with Labyrinth, the first of her famous Languedoc trilogy, which has been translated into 38 languages. She now has nine novels and short story collections and four plays to her name. Her latest book, The City Of Tears, is the second in a new epic series.

As if that weren’t enough, she is also founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which she has helped to run for 25 years and which earned her an OBE in 2013 for services to literature and women. ‘When I set it up, 60% of novels published in the UK were authored by women, however fewer than 9% of books ever shortlisted for major literary prizes had female authors,’ she explains. ‘Our work simply wasn’t seen as important.’ Now, millions of readers have engaged with the prize, and she is ‘tired, but very pleased’.

Born and raised in Chichester, she now lives with her husband, Greg, and mother-in-law, Rosie. With a new book on the horizon, Kate tells GH how she keeps all the plates spinning.

In recent years, we have seen a boom in historical fiction.

There has been a slight snobbery about it, but that has gone away now because our awareness has changed. Five years ago, when I did talks, I would tell people that we didn’t realise we were living through history. Now, we do, because history is a pendulum. Sometimes, things get really bad and there is great loss, tragedy and grief, but that pendulum will swing back again eventually. I think what readers love about historical fiction is the resolution you get from it – that sense of a proper full stop.

My mission as a storyteller is to put ordinary people back into history, particularly women.

There’s a huge amount written about royalty and courts, but what about the rest of us? We were there, too. Times change, but the human heart doesn’t. When you hear the soldier hammering at your door with the hilt of his sword, the fear that you feel is the same fear anyone would have felt. Historical fiction links us to big, challenging emotions, but with the safety of seeing them at a distance, several hundred years in the past.

My latest book, The City Of Tears, is a refugee story of hope.

The second in my Burning Chambers series, this is a story about love. The inspiration came when I visited Franschhoek in South Africa, which means ‘the French corner’. Fascinated, I dug deeper, and when I discovered the amazing stories of the persecuted French Huguenot refugees who fled France and sailed to the Cape in search of a better life, a seed was sown. This book is about huge tragedy, families separated and a missing child, but the resilience of the human spirit shines through.

My characters are not exceptional, they’re women who would have lived.

History quite actively leaves out women’s contributions, but if the men were away at war for a generation, who do we think was running the towns? There is a sense that history is made

by men and endured by women, yet we know that isn’t true. We can see the evidence around us all the time.

As a feminist for many years, I really welcome increased representation in publishing.

Ethnicity, gender, disability, class and opportunity are also now common topics in a way they never used to be. For me, what matters is the guarantee that all our voices are welcome at the table, always.

When I write, I never know what’s going to happen.

There are often moments when I surprise myself! People find it shocking when I say this given how big and complicated my books are. I’m known for plot and story, but my first draft of any book is always about the emotion, seeing where the characters take me. Some people find planning useful, but after years of being a publisher and an editor before I became an author, I’ve learned that I find the structure by not controlling it too much.

I imagine and create best when I’m on the move,

so I walk a lot, and I never listen to music when I’m out. Instead, I’m very much held in my own head, loosening my creative thoughts by striding out with the dog.

I always do three drafts of a book.

I speed through the first one, writing for eight or nine hours a day, seven days a week, desperate to know the ending. The next two drafts are all about planning and structure, looking at the big baggy mess of words and emotion and seeing what works and doesn’t.

I like to write before the rest of the household is up.

I tend to start around 3.30 or 4am – I love that quiet, to be the one person awake in a sleeping house. Afterwards, I have the rest of the day to edit, unload the dishwasher, take the dog for a walk and do all the normal domestic things. I rarely work in the afternoons and never at night; evenings are for a glass of wine and a good old Agatha Christie!

My working hours are partly circumstantial.

When I first became an author, I had young children. They are now grown up, but for more than 10 years I was a carer to both my parents, who lived with my husband and me at

My mission is to put ordinary people back into history

our home in Chichester. My father suffered from Parkinson’s and sadly died in 2011, and we lost my ma quite suddenly in 2014. Two days before she died, she was on stage with an entertainment troupe that she and my mother-in-law, Granny Rosie, were part of. I always say she left the world as she lived in it – which was both a shocking and wonderful thing. Granny Rosie is now in a wheelchair. She has lived with us for 30 years, and she was brilliant when our children were growing up, so it is lovely to be able to return the favour and look after her.

Family has always been at the heart of my life.

In my spare time, I love nothing more than sitting around a kitchen table with loved ones, chatting over supper and a bottle of wine. I also run, go to the theatre and I read every day. I can’t go to sleep without reading a few pages – even if it’s always the same few pages and the book falls on my face!  The Burning Chambers (Mantle) by Kate Mosse is available now in paperback, ebook and audiobook. The City Of Tears (Mantle) is available to pre-order online