Emily Hourican: On Readers Anticipating What Happens Next
Author Emily Hourican discusses continuing character arcs in her new historical fiction novel, Mummy Darlings.
Emily Hourican is a journalist and author. She has written features for the Sunday Independent for 15 years, as well as Image magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, and Woman and Home. She was also editor of three magazines. Her debut novel, The Privileged, was shortlisted for the 2016 Irish Book Awards in the Best Commercial Fiction.
Emily was born in Belfast, grew up in Brussels, and went to school in University College Dublin, where she earned a Masters in English Literature. She lives in Dublin with her husband and three children. Find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
In this post, Emily discusses continuing character arcs in her new historical fiction novel, Mummy Darlings, her
Name: Emily Hourican
Literary agent: Ivan Mulcahy, MMB Creative
Book title: Mummy Darlings
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release date: April 2023
Genre/category: Historical Fiction
Previous titles: The Glorious Guinness Girls
Elevator pitch for the book: The three glorious Guinness girls—Aileen, Maureen, and Oonagh—have started their new lives as wives and mothers, but far from “happy ever after,” they each find different challenges that their privilege and wealth haven’t prepared them for. Maureen’s relationship is passionate but destructive; Oonagh is fulfilled as a mother but bereft at her husband’s cheating; while Aileen is shocked at how bored she is. Beyond their fabulous houses, Britain is in a state of chaos and moving towards war.
What prompted you to write this book?
I had written a novel about the early lives of the three Guinness girls. That book ended in 1930 when the last of them got married. I really wanted to write about what happened to them after those weddings.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Because I had written the first in the series, the idea for the second didn’t take long. The writing took about a year, and a major rewrite.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
It was lovely to find that, because this was the second in a series, there was already a group of readers who loved the first and wanted to know What The Guinness Girls Did Next …
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Yes. When I reached the end of the first draft—some 90,000 words—and realized I needed a completely new perspective to tell the story. That was hard.
I had to rewrite EVERYTHING in order to give each of the sisters the place and space her story deserved. I got rid of the first-person narrator and handed perspective back to the three Guinnesses.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope they get a compelling story that makes them want to keep turning the pages. I hope they learn more about the Guinnesses, and also about Ireland and Britain in the 1930s, and I hope they get some insight into the ways that even lives of great privilege can be filled with sorrow and hardship, especially where women are discouraged from opportunities beyond marriage and motherhood.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Don’t give in to the inevitable moment where you read back over your work and think “this is terrible!” That will definitely happen—it always does.
But keep going. Keep working. If you write it, you can improve it. If you don’t, you can’t.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
