Ask an Author with Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

‘Tis the season for Christmas reading, and I could not be more delighted to bring you an Ask an Author interview with two very talented authors, Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb! Their book Christmas with the Queen came out last month, and it’s the perfect read for the festive season!

December 1952. While the young Queen Elizabeth II finds her feet as the new monarch, she must also find the right words to continue the tradition of her late father’s Christmas Day radio broadcast. But even traditions must evolve with the times, and the queen faces a postwar Britain hungry for change.

As preparations begin for the royal Christmas at Sandringham House in Norfolk, old friends—Jack Devereux and Olive Carter—are unexpectedly reunited by the occasion. Olive, a single mother and aspiring reporter at the BBC, leaps at the opportunity to cover the holiday celebration, but even a chance encounter with the queen doesn’t go as planned and Olive wonders if she will ever be taken seriously.

Jack, a recently widowed chef, reluctantly takes up a new role in the royal kitchens at Sandringham. Lacking in purpose and direction, Jack has abandoned his dream to have his own restaurant, but his talents are soon noticed and while he might not believe in himself, others do, and a chance encounter with an old friend helps to reignite the spark of his passion and ambition.

As Jack and Olive’s paths continue to cross over the following five Christmases, they grow ever closer. Yet Olive carries the burden of a heavy secret that threatens to destroy everything.

Christmas Day, December 1957. As the nation eagerly awaits the Queen’s first televised Christmas speech, there is one final gift for the Christmas season to deliver…

Now, without further ado, here is your interview with Hazel and Heather!

1. I’m delighted that there is another Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb book out in the world! Can you tell us a little about how Christmas with the Queen came to be?

Thank you! We are delighted, too! As with all our co-written books, it happened when the time was right. We had a lot of back and forths while Hazel was freezing on the rugby pitch sidelines and Heather was in the grocery store checkout (keeping it real!), and after circling around lots of ideas, we realised we both wanted to write another book set at Christmas. When Hazel mentioned Queen Elizabeth II’s traditional Christmas day broadcast, the premise of the story came easily. We pitched the book to our editors as The Crown meets When Harry Met Sally - a heartwarming historical novel, set during the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II with a will they/won’t they romance between Jack, a royal chef, and Olive, a royal correspondent to the BBC. It’s very Christmassy, very cozy, and more than a little nostalgic in the best way.

2. How did you two go about researching this book given that parts of it are based on real-life events? How did you decide when to allow yourselves to use some artistic license in the story?

What early readers have most loved about the book are the combined elements of the 1950s setting, the ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at life at Sandringham at Christmas, and the scenes written from the point of view of Queen Elizabeth (we wanted readers to ‘meet’ the queen and Prince Philip on the page as they move through the background of the story). The story takes us from London’s Piccadilly to as far away as New Zealand and Antarctica, so there was plenty of royal research to dig into. As with any historical novel, the research forms the foundation of the story, from which we developed our fictional characters. We remained faithful to the timeline of the royal family and the pivotal moments during the five years we cover, but with Jack and Olive being entirely fictional we had great creative freedom. Lots of readers have also picked up on the culinary elements - how could we not lavish the story with lots of mouth-watering dishes when Jack, a chef from New Orleans, has joined the staff. It was also great fun to create on the page and we had some ‘interesting’ conversations and brainstorming sessions about how Jack and Olive’s love story would play out.

3. I’m always interested when the royals feature in books because we all have such a strong idea of their public image, but of course there must be so much about them that we don’t know. How did you decide whether to lean into or shy away from the common perceptions of members of the royal family as you were writing?

This was such a fun book to write together as we explored the secretive world behind the Palace doors and learned about royal Christmas traditions, not least the food! We both especially loved capturing the queen in the scenes written in her first person point of view. We had great fun writing those pieces and showing a softer side to the woman behind the crown. We wanted to show her as a wife, mother, and young woman, rather than as the older queen we mostly associate with her. In many ways, it was a privilege to write this book during the queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which were too quickly followed by her death. To watch the outpouring of affection for her, particularly the queue to see her lying in state, was especially powerful, and definitely impacted us as we returned to the page. In terms of leaning in or shying away, that wasn’t really a consideration for us. We were more interested in showing a very real, human and lovely Elizabeth as a young woman ascending to a position she wasn’t ready for and how she grappled with it - and ultimately gained her footing - over time.

4. Many readers will know that this isn’t your first book set at Christmas. I’m thinking in particular about Last Christmas in Paris. What is it that you think keeps drawing you and readers back to stories set at this time of year?

This is our fourth co-written book and having set our second novel in Monaco and our third in several European cities, we loved returning to a seasonal setting! There’s something so nice about curling up with a heartwarming cozy read as the days get shorter and the weather colder. Setting a Christmas story in the past also adds to that sense of nostalgia, and a yearning for a slower pace of life. We love this time of year, but ultimately we follow a story where it takes us.

5. My readers and I are always looking for book recommendations, so I’d love to finish by asking about some of your favorite recent reads. Do any in particular come to mind?

For historical fiction, The Briar Club by Kate Quinn was a fun read and Heather also thoroughly enjoyed The Coast Road by Alan Murrin, set in a coastal, rural town in the north of Ireland (and the book just won Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards - congratulations Alan!). For something lighter but still poignant, The Wedding People was terrific. Hazel also loved Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton -a beautiful and tender memoir based on the author’s experience of raising a wild hare during lockdown. Incredibly touching, and a great option if you’re looking for non-fiction.

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Hazel Gaynor is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author known for her deeply moving historical novels which explore the defining events of the 20th century. A recipient of the 2015 RNA Historical Novel of the Year award, her work has since been shortlisted for multiple awards in the UK and Ireland. Her latest novel, The Last Lifeboat, was a Times of London historical novel of the month, shortlisted for the 2023 Irish Book Awards and a 2024 Audie Award finalist. Hazel’s work has been translated into twenty languages and is published in twenty-seven territories to date. She lives in Ireland with her family. You can find out more about Hazel’s books at https://hazelgaynor.com/.

Heather Webb is the award-winning, USA Today and international bestselling author of ten historical novels, including her most recent The Next Ship Home, Queens of London, and Strangers in the Night. To date, her books have been translated to eighteen languages. She lives in Connecticut with her family and two mischievous cats. You can find out more about Heather’s books at https://heatherwebbauthor.com/.

Hazel and Heather’s co-written historical novels have all been published to critical acclaim. The USA Today and international bestseller, Last Christmas in Paris, won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award, Meet Me in Monaco was shortlisted for the 2020 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Novel award, and Three Words for Goodbye was selected by Prima Magazine as a Best Novel of 2021. Christmas With The Queen is their fourth collaboration.