Character Study

BONUS EPISODE: Prologue to A Real Piece of Work

This week, a special bonus episode: the prologue of Freya's debut novel, A Real Piece of Work, read by actor Ellie Kendrick. OUT NOW A Real Piece of Work follows Nola, whose memoir about her late sister Darina has become a hit — critics love it, producers want the film rights, and everyone in her family hates it. When an anonymous complaint about the book lands with her publisher, Nola is certain the culprit is one of her own relatives. As the family gathers on the remote island of Lundy to mark the fifth anniversary of Darina's death, Nola sets out to discover who made it before it does irreparable damage. It's a sparkling, spiky story about complicated families, who owns grief, and who gets to tell the story of those who are gone and those left behind. Want to know how Ellie brought Nola to life? Read Freya's interview with her in the Behind the Book series on Substack [https://freyabromley.substack.com/p/behind-the-book-ellie-kendrick] 📖 Buy A Real Piece of Work [https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/a-real-piece-of-work/freya-bromley/9781529155433] 🎧 Listen to the full audiobook [https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/A-Real-Piece-of-Work-Audiobook/B0G7KZ5M26] 📸 Instagram: @freybromley [https://www.instagram.com/freybromley/?hl=en] ✉️ Substack: freyabromley.substack.com [freyabromley.substack.com] 🎙️ And hit subscribe [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/character-study/id1896655831] wherever you get your podcasts ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Sarvat Hasin: Passage Reading – Strange Girls

Novelist Sarvat Hasin reads from the second chapter of her novel Strange Girls — the beginning of Alia's story. Sarvat and Freya talk about how the two narrators of Strange Girls arrived in different voices and tenses: Ava, bold and certain, who could only ever be written in first person, and Alia, quieter, rendered in a storybook third-person past. They discuss the novels woven through the book — Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence — and why an ambiguous relationship that's never named or declared can still change a person completely. Along the way, a conversation about what it means for writing to feel alive: raw, uncertain, and true to life, even when only a few stories have ever really been told. This is a conversation about voice, ambiguity, and the books that live inside the books we write. 🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE [https://youtu.be/3993BmiwN7U] 📘 Buy Sarvat Hasin's Strange Girls [https://uk.bookshop.org/a/11327/9780349703114] and Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work [https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/a-real-piece-of-work/freya-bromley/9781529155433] 💛 Follow @freybromley [https://www.instagram.com/freybromley/] on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions 📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com [http://www.freyabromley.substack.com/] for behind the scenes thoughts 🎙️ And hit subscribe [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/character-study/id1896655831] wherever you get your podcasts ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Sarvat Hasin: When a Friendship Falls Apart

Novelist Sarvat Hasin, author of This Wide Night, You Can't Go Home Again and The Giant Dark , joins Freya to talk about her latest novel Strange Girls a novel that explores the relationship of two former friends forced to reunite at a hen party after a decade apart. She’s written many other award-winning books and is also in a workshop group with Freya, sharing early drafts with one another, which they talk about in this episode. They also discuss why friendship breakups are so much harder to talk about than romantic ones, what theatre taught Sarvat about structure and why she romanticises the mundane moments of her own life (and how that feeds directly into her writing). A funny, honest conversation between two friends about the creative process and everything it touches. 🎥 WATCH [https://youtu.be/NmFePvB8_SY] the full episode 📘 Buy Sarvat Hasin's Strange Girls [https://uk.bookshop.org/a/11327/9780349703114] and Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work [https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/a-real-piece-of-work/freya-bromley/9781529155433] 💛 Follow @freybromley [https://www.instagram.com/freybromley/] on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions 📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com [http://www.freyabromley.substack.com/] for behind the scenes thoughts 🎙️ And hit subscribe [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/character-study/id1896655831] wherever you get your podcasts ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lucas Oakeley – Listener Q+A

Author and Boys Book Club co-founder Lucas Oakeley answers listener questions in this Q&A episode of Character Study. Listeners ask Lucas where his creative spark comes from, whether he has a way of dealing with people who interrupt his energy (he doesn't, he thinks friction is good for you), and how he gets back into his novel each time he sits down to write. His tip: never stop writing when you have nothing left to say, stop when you know what comes next, so you always sit down with momentum. He also shares his niche Wikipedia rabbit hole hack for kickstarting creativity, and tells the story of spending a day visiting four London bookshops trying to find his own debut novel on the shelves, and not finding it in a single one. This is a conversation about the writing life and why, by bookshop four, he was absolutely fuming. 🎥 Watch [https://youtu.be/Mtq9_xvkpDE] on YouTube 📘 Nearly Departed [https://www.waterstones.com/book/nearly-departed/lucas-oakeley/9781835012949]by Lucas Oakeley 📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work [https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/a-real-piece-of-work/freya-bromley/9781529155433] 💛 Follow @freybromley [https://www.instagram.com/freybromley/] on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions 📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com [http://www.freyabromley.substack.com/] for behind the scenes thoughts 🎙️ And hit subscribe [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/character-study/id1896655831] wherever you get your podcasts ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lucas Oakeley: Passage Reading – Nearly Departed

Author and Boys Book Club co-founder Lucas Oakeley reads from his debut novel Nearly Departed in this passage episode of Character Study. Lucas reads the chapter What Dreams May Come, in which grief-stricken Joel describes a recurring dream to his therapist: a woman on the opposite platform at a train station, both reading the same edition of Wuthering Heights, their eyes meeting across the tracks just as the trains pull in opposite directions. Then he wakes up and does it all over again. Freya and Lucas then talk about why he always tries to make his therapist laugh, what happens when they don't, and how he edits his drafts — removing three or four jokes per paragraph until the ones that remain land harder for the space around them. This is a conversation about grief, dreams and why you're allowed to be funny and sincere at the same time. 🎥 Watch [Watch] on YouTube 🎥 Watch [https://youtu.be/WsWbINIrcao]the full conversation 📘 Nearly Departed [https://www.waterstones.com/book/nearly-departed/lucas-oakeley/9781835012949]by Lucas Oakeley 📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work [https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/a-real-piece-of-work/freya-bromley/9781529155433] 💛 Follow @freybromley [https://www.instagram.com/freybromley/] on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions 📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com [http://www.freyabromley.substack.com/] for behind the scenes thoughts 🎙️ And hit subscribe [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/character-study/id1896655831] wherever you get your podcasts ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.