Joanna Quinn in conversation with Tracy Chevalier

Spend an evening with Joanna Quinn and best-selling author Tracy Chevalier as they discuss Quinn's debut novel, The Whalebone Theatre, a brilliant coming-of-age story set in Dorset before and during World War II. The novel was dubbed 'the Book of the Summer' by the Sunday Times in 2022.

The novel centres around Cristabel Seagrave, an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, with no place for her in a traditional English manor. But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and twelve-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.

With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings bring a homegrown theatre to life, providing their own kind of education. As the children grow to adulthood and war arrives, they find themselves drawn into the conflict, with each finding different dramatic roles to play…