The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Welcome to The Conversation with Nadine Matheson, where best-selling author of the 'Inspector Anjelica Henley' series Nadine Matheson sits down with fellow authors for insightful, honest, and entertaining conversations. Each episode dives deep into the world of writing, from the publishing journey to overcoming challenges, the experiences that shape their work, and anything else that comes up when great minds come together. Whether you're a fan of gripping stories or curious about the life behind the books, 'The Conversation' promises thought-provoking chats and moments of inspiration.
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The Conversation with Nadine Matheson
Coffee Break with Beth Lewis: The Rush
In this episode of 'Coffee Break' author Beth Lewis joins me to talk about her stunning new historical crime novel, 'The Rush'.
The gold rush narrative typically conjures images of rugged men panning rivers and staking claims, but Beth Lewis deliberately shifts focus to three women whose paths cross during the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898.
Gold fever has taken him. I believe he means to kill me...
Canada, 1898. The gold rush is on in the frozen wilderness of the Yukon. Fortunes are made as quickly as they're lost, and Dawson City has become a lawless settlement.
In its midst, three women are trying to survive on the edge of civilisation. Journalist Kate has travelled hundreds of miles after receiving a letter from her sister, who fears that her husband will kill her. Martha's hotel and livelihood are under threat from the local strongman, who is set on buying up the town. And down by the river, where gold shimmers from between the rocks, Ellen feels her future slip away as her husband fails to find the fortune they risked so much to seek.
When a woman is murdered, Kate, Martha and Ellen find their lives, fates and fortunes intertwined. But to unmask her killer they must navigate a desperate land run by dangerous men who will do anything for a glimpse of gold...
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Hello and welcome to the Conversation Coffee Break with your host, nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well and I hope that you're enjoying your week. Today I'm taking a coffee break with author Beth Lewis, whose new novel, the Rush, is out now. And can I just say Beth Lewis's novel, the Rush it's the most beautiful looking novel that I've seen all year, actually maybe ever.
Speaker 1:When you order this book, whether you go into the bookshop and pick it up off the shelf, or when it lands on your door mat and you take out the envelope, you will look at this cover and you'll run your hands along the cover and you will say to yourself oh my God, this is, is beautiful. I never want it to come to harm. It really is a stunning, absolutely stunning book cover. So enjoy today's coffee break with Beth Lewis and if you are enjoying it, please, please, leave a comment. You can leave a comment on Spotify, you can leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you can also send me messages directly. You can email me at theconversationatnadiemaffersoncom or you can send me DMs on my social media accounts. All the links to my social media accounts are in the show notes and you'll also find the links to Beth's new novel, the Rush, in the show notes too.
Speaker 1:Now, normally I would say sit, say sit back or go for a walk, but instead grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy your break. Beth Lewis, welcome to the conversation coffee break, hello, thank you. Hello, you're welcome. I don't know why we're so giggly like school kids because we're excited about your book. We're excited about your book, the Rush. So I'm going to ask you to tell the listeners of the conversation coffee break about your new book.
Speaker 2:I love this bit the elevator pitch of the book.
Speaker 1:I know I try and dress it up to not make an impression on you.
Speaker 2:So the Rush is a historical crime novel and it is about three women in the Yukon Gold Rush in 1898, and they are all based on real women at the time a hotel owner, a miner's wife and a journalist travelling to the goldfields from Kansas. His wife and a journalist traveling to the goldfields from kansas. Um, there, when another woman is murdered in dawson city, the three find their lives kind of colliding and intertwining as they try and figure out what happened to this woman, who is sadly also based on a real woman who was murdered at the time. Um, everything is kind of based on these real lives as much as possible. Even the dog is based on a real dog and that was really fun. But the dog is fine.
Speaker 2:The dog is unscathed by the end. Let's just put that out there.
Speaker 1:I understand why we have to clarify. The dog's okay, but in fact there's a little bit in my head that makes me go. Why are we clarifying? But we have to.
Speaker 2:We have to. I remember a long time ago asking on Twitter, when it was still a nice place to be, that what if? What if I had a dog in it and the dog ended up dying and people were like I would throw the book across the room, I would one star, review it everywhere. I would never read you again. I was like the dog's fine you could.
Speaker 1:You could do whatever you want, whatever you want to people in any way, shape or form, and readers are okay with it. Any mention of a pet like they're like they're on guard, they're like what happens, what happens, listed. Author. So you already explained that the characters in the rush like influenced by real people, so it does follow on for the next question, which is like what came to you first the character, a specific scene, the overall premise or something completely different?
Speaker 2:um for this book. It was the premise. Well, it was the setting. Really, I wanted to write a novel set in the gold rush. I always have, and I did um a talk at St Hilda's, as you know, because she was there. Yeah, that made that.
Speaker 2:This all came from that, because I, um, I gave a talk on man vs Wild and Jack London and the Gold Rush and things like that, and an editor came up to me afterwards and said, have you ever thought about writing a novel? I was like, yes, only every month at least. And then it became very clear immediately that I needed to focus on the women. So that premise the women of the gold rush came first, and then it was quite easy to piece that into a full narrative when I discovered that these incredible women were alive at the time and doing what men were doing. They were mining, they were owning businesses, they were doing the whole 600 kilometre trek, but they were doing it in skirts and shoes, you know, and unsuitable attire and that is the kind of classic, you know, women's history. We're kind of overlooked a bit and I really wanted to pull that into.
Speaker 1:I was just trying to think when we did St Hilda's, which is a, it takes place at Oxford University this crime fiction weekend and the authors basically give talks, and I did mine on Moheda and said, yours, you did because I was at yours, so I think that was like 2022. Yeah, and to think there's an editor sitting in the audience and they ask you if you ever thought about writing a book and even if your answer hadn't been yes, would you still said yes?
Speaker 2:probably because you do when you're networking with an editor who's, like, interested in something. It's funny, though, that that particular editor did did make an offer on the rush, but, um, I didn't go with them. So it's, I think these things work out.
Speaker 1:I think it's. It is weird, but I also think it's fascinating. But also it just shows the listeners or, yeah, shows the listeners that anything could happen any like any situation you find yourself in or any opportunity that's presented to you. It's not wasted at all something to follow on from that. I feel like just stopping interview there, but I can't just write the book.
Speaker 2:That's the only advice that there is really. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So, beth, which character surprised you the most whilst writing the Rush?
Speaker 2:I think because they're based on real women. It was probably Kate. So she's my journalist who travels, does the trail to the gold fields, because with the Gold Rush the interesting things were the mining, the town and the journey to get there, which was horrendous um, and about 70 percent of people turned back um and didn't make it. But this particular journalist, who was called emma kelly, she, she made it and she did it sort of by herself and paid her way. And she was really interesting because she was by herself with her dog Klondike, and she was a very modern woman at the time and she was very much a feminist. And she, while she was on the trail, I found her, um, her written account of what happened there. So it was great to have that kind of primary, primary source.
Speaker 2:And she, when, when you go up the, up the the trail to the gold fields, there's a section of rapids that are really, really dangerous and you have to, you know women weren't allowed to go on those rapids. It it was, they'd stop. Any women in the boat would get out, walk miles around the gorge and then get back in on the other side, because women weren't allowed to do it for whatever reason. But Emma Kelly said screw that, I'm going, anything a man can do I'm going to do because I want to experience it all. So she was the first woman to run the rapids and survive and find and she enjoyed it so much that she got out, she walked back and she did it again.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, and I loved that. And it was just such a surprising thing because it's such a dangerous thing to do for no real reason and she did all these fun things, things she ended up owning gold claims and mining and become she never married, you know, which gives you an insight into kind of who she was. But she, yeah. So she was the most surprising and I tried to get as much of that as I could in in Kate, who's my my I.
Speaker 1:I was just thinking like our only modern day equivalent of going across the rapid and enjoying it so much and getting off and doing it again. It's like you know, if you go to like a water theme park, you go down the crazy slide, you might need to go and do that again and it's so not the same thing, but it's the rush, yeah, yeah, exactly the rush.
Speaker 1:But the thing they drive you. You walk around the whole gorge and do the long way around as opposed to just. It'll be the shorter route, but the more dangerous route. Yeah, and I'm supposed to, and the way they will sell it. It's like you know they're protecting you.
Speaker 2:It's oh yeah it's for their own good you you can't handle it whereas, you know, there were all these men who upended their boats and ended up losing their years worth of food that they brought with them and everything that they had, and it it was insanely dangerous, did you, um, did you do research?
Speaker 1:and I don't mean the online research, but did you do the physical? Get on the plane and go to the I, I didn't.
Speaker 2:I have been to canada a lot. I didn't do it specifically for the book but I I have been white water rafting in canada and it's really fun and not at all dangerous. So there were some elements of sort of practical research in there. But I've been to a lot of canada and the pacific northwest in that area that it's in. But it is a dream to to go to the Yukon and do the gold trail, or at least some of it what's the most random fact you now know because of this book?
Speaker 2:this was an interesting question when you sent them to me.
Speaker 1:I love this. I love the answer to these questions. People are always surprised by their own answers, like I did not know one of the ones that I found really fascinating.
Speaker 2:So there's a fortune teller in the in the book um who who? She is a kind of almost sort of magical realism type character that helps the women out, and she, she always says that she tells the men what they want to hear and the women what they need to know.
Speaker 2:To survive up there, um, but she's also based on a real woman called um madame renio, and she my. My favorite fact is she was the first woman to ever be arrested for witchcraft in the yukon, and that was because there was a big crackdown on fortune tellers, because that is a very lucrative business. During a gold rush that they she absolutely refused to shut up shop. Um, the Mounties were pressuring her and telling her to stop, but she no, I'm not going to. And she went to court. She was arrested for witchcraft, um, but she was. She was, uh, released without um charge because they it was found that her fortunes were mostly complete nonsense so if I was like a fortune teller, I don't know how I'll have.
Speaker 1:I'll have mixed feelings about this. I'll be like, yay, I've been released. Dude, how dare you question my? Fortune, or she could just say well, I knew this would happen yeah, I would have just said that I was like well, I did my fortune before I got arrested. I knew it was going to happen and I knew that you would believe that none of this was true but afterwards she kept being a fortune teller and her business boomed because of the publicity from her arrest.
Speaker 1:There's no such thing as bad publicity. I love that. Not at all, beth. You know, when you're writing these characters because they are based on real people do you feel like you have more responsibility to them?
Speaker 2:This is the first time I've ever written a book based on real people. I felt like I had a responsibility to my main four women so the three main characters, and then the, the victim of the crime and I felt like I needed to show them in not necessarily a wholly positive light but a realistic one, and I tried to do that as much as possible, with trying to find as many resources on that, on the women as possible, um, but it was quite hard because there aren't that many, because they don't get the publicity and they weren't listened to.
Speaker 1:So, no, I felt like I had to fictionalize a lot of their lives and obviously the the connection between them and the murder is fictional, but they are all kind of have their roots in real people and I suppose that even if they had I'm not saying even if they had, but if, even if they had been really successful, I would say out of the whole group of that who've gone off to get to gather gold, that they've been the most successful out of the group the way women are viewed. They wouldn't have spoken about their story anyway. They wouldn't even have been a footnote, because women aren't meant to be anything yeah, yeah, they're.
Speaker 2:They're always kind of incidental and they are a footnote in it, because you get, whenever I've been reading about the gold rush, there's you know how how you know information has been is split into sections. There's like the postal service during the gold rush, the mining laws during the gold rush, the women during the gold rush. They're just this extra section. Yeah, they're not part of the whole thing, they're just an interesting side point which I found really annoying it's frustrating because you know better yeah, and they're there. They were there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'd made a lot of money, a lot of them, so okay so so was this book harder or easier to write than the last one, and why?
Speaker 2:um, this one was easier to write than previous books. I think probably since my debut this was the easiest to write because I I knew the setting so well, I'd done so much research, like through my life, of sort of being immersed in this setting and, and I love it and I watch Deadwood on repeat, things like that that.
Speaker 2:You kind of immerse yourself in this world. So it feels quite second nature. And the characters came so easily and their voices came so easily, because I write all in first person. So as long as I've got a strong voice, the characters just flow and it's. You know it. It was a really fun one to write. It's mostly a blur because I did it at five o'clock in the morning every most days, but it is. It was quite, quite straightforward.
Speaker 1:I've got such an irrelevant question um following up because you mentioned Deadwood. It's just so superficial. Can you remember your amazement when you realised that Lovejoy was Ian McShane? I?
Speaker 2:was like oh, the second the most awful character in TV pretty much, who I did use as a bit of a template for my awful character in the Rush, and he's just yeah, it was a bit of a shock.
Speaker 1:It was a bit of a shock. I say Sunday because I can't remember what day it was on, but it was. You know, he's Sunday gentle evening or maybe Monday TV he wasn't 9 o'clock HBO, murdering and swearing and constant swearing.
Speaker 2:I think every other word was a swear word.
Speaker 1:It was wonderful writing oh, if you haven't watched Deadwood, watch Deadwood. That's our recommendation. Absolutely watch Deadwood. Okay. So, without giving away any spoilers, did the book end the way you originally planned or did it surprise you too?
Speaker 2:I don't plan books, so I don't know how I expected it to end. I I knew I wanted it to end with the uncovering of the murderer, um, and the comeuppance, that, but I didn't know who it was. When I started writing the book and I I realized that each of the three women comes up with their own theory that is pure. That is completely like evidence based in their own, their own narratives, and they each had a theory as to who did it and they're all different men. So I kind of got to the point, at about just over two thirds or or three-quarters, in that I was like I probably have to decide this now of who actually did it. So, yes, it ended in the way I thought it might, but also, no, because I didn't plan at all.
Speaker 1:Just kind of isn't that hard to do when you're writing historical fiction. Like not have a plan? I don't know. I've never that's just how you write generally. You're just not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just make it up for a long time and then figure it out at at the kind of three quarters mark, when I know I have to bring it all together somehow. I'm just yeah. There were points where I had to go back and tweak things because of who it ended up being that I had to, you know, exceed it, but it was quite minor okay.
Speaker 1:So before asking the next question, beth, can you please show us? I want you to do two things show us the rush, but also I want you, because we were talking about it before we started, recording what I now say. It's my favourite bit.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, this one, this one.
Speaker 1:Look, yes, it's glorious.
Speaker 2:I can see myself in it. It's so shiny but yeah, it's gorgeous, and there is a Goldsboro special edition with a sprayed, beautiful sprayed edge as well. It's definitely worth getting.
Speaker 1:And my favourite bit, which is the maps. How did you feel when you saw you got the maps in your book?
Speaker 2:I like really tentatively emailed my editor and was like, could could I maybe have a map? I've never had? Oh, you asked for it. I did, because it's such a thing in the book. You know, that's the map, yeah, the gold fields, and it's the real map from the. I think it's 1897, um, so thankfully I've copyrighted, but it's um, it's yeah, it's beautiful, and it's got dawson city there, and then the main gold claim that I've got for one of my characters is there, and then it's this whole lovely area and I've never had a map before and I was so excited to get a map I just think matt always added a map.
Speaker 1:They just add something different, just that little bit extra to.
Speaker 2:Somebody's taken the effort to kind of go no, this you, you should be able to visualize a bit more. It's like fantasy maps and that really helps situate you in the environment. So exactly.
Speaker 1:I think it's fantastic. Okay, so did you ever hit the wall when writing the Rush and how did you get past it?
Speaker 2:No, I didn't. It was really straightforward. Well, I say straightforward, it's still hard. It's hard to write a book.
Speaker 2:It's 100,000 words. There's a lot of research, but it was a really positive experience. The only thing I felt that was hard was because I completely changed my writing schedule. For it I used to write just at weekends and, um, at lunch breaks and things like that. But my job changed a bit and my life changed a bit and I ended up changing my entire sleep pattern to get up at five o'clock in the morning to write for two hours before my daughter woke up at half past seven. So that was a adjustment, um, but it's something now I've been doing since, yeah, end of 22, so it's worked out do you think that's how it will be now for the next, for the remaining books?
Speaker 1:I was up this morning writing on another book.
Speaker 2:It's just like it works. I can it can get about a thousand words done every, every morning, and then it's when I'm, when I'm in it, you know when you're in a book, and you can just keep going. So you know get about a thousand words done. So it it adds up an awful lot after over a period of time.
Speaker 1:Well, seeing that we've already mentioned that you are getting up at five o'clock in the morning, the next question is what are you working on next?
Speaker 2:If you want to tell us I'm so technically I'm. I'm working on a book under a pseudonym at the moment which is the second on contract which I can't talk about, but it's very exciting. But I've just delivered another Beth Lewis book to Viper, to Viper, um, and that is a pure my take on a western. Um, like a full-on gun-toting uh outlaws and cowboys western, but all about the women at the time, because there were women there too did you know this was going to be your thing?
Speaker 2:and I say historical fiction, westerns, that whole era no, I've always had two book deals, um, so the publishers have always wanted something similar for a follow-up, yeah, so it kind of depended on what the deal was, because my first book was a kind of coming of age dark story, and so was my second book, and then my third one was a more women's fiction focused uh story about about a woman in a domestic violence situation, and that had speculative elements, and so the follow-up had was similar and had speculative elements, and so now this one is I feel like I'm settling now into a bit more of a niche and I really want to write a book about um female motorcycle gangs of the 1960s that's my next one.
Speaker 1:You're just like this cool person. Oh you are. You can have it today. I just think that you're writing all these things. I'm like it's just cool. You're just writing the things that you want to write and interest you, and it's just. There is coolness in that oh, I think it's just.
Speaker 2:I can't write something if I'm not interested in it. I don't know about you, but I just, if it's not something that grips me, I'm just not.
Speaker 1:I feel the same way about book topics, the way I feel about jobs in general. If you're going to spend, I'm just saying if you're going to spend a minimum of eight hours a day doing something, at least it needs to be something I have a interest in, that I enjoy, because it's a long time, okay. So what message or feeling do you hope readers take away from the Rush?
Speaker 2:I hope that they take away a bit more knowledge of a time in history that is very often overlooked and possibly a bit more awareness of women's role in that history. And you know, it's a book that's all about the kind of interconnectedness of women and the the sort of sisterhood that we all have. No matter where we are, you usually are going to help out women and if they need it, and I I think that that in a very lawless environment, a very difficult environment, is even more stark and I I hope that people would take away that kind of feeling of togetherness and connectedness that I think we all have because the hostility, when I'm thinking about it, it's not just like the terrain and I say doing the job, but it's the hostility from the people around you, the hostility from people and I say men who just think you are less than and you're just there to be wives and bear children, like that is your role or prostitutes.
Speaker 2:That was that oh yeah main. The main reason women were there was either as wives or as prostitutes, because, I mean, from an entrepreneurial point of view, there were a lot of men looking for that at that time, so they made a lot of money, but it's a very dangerous thing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so finally, beth Lewis, to end our coffee break. Which book, film show or video game do you recommend?
Speaker 2:Deadwood, we've been there, um, so I just finished a couple of it. I finished, um these Wicked Devices by Matthew Plampin, who is an amazing historical fiction writer. He, it's a book set in the 1600s in Rome and it's all about Pope Innocent and the machinations behind the papal throne, which is really, really interesting. Um, and I think for books that, but you say video games, which is interesting. I don't know how many people would recommend video games, but a video game that really helped me with my research was Red Dead Redemption. Oh, it's so good.
Speaker 1:I keep losing my horse yeah, right, the horses.
Speaker 2:So the funny, funny story, this, the horse in the rush, her name? She belongs to one of my, my ladies um. Her name is bluebell and she is named after ruth ware's horse in red dead redemption oh my god he kindly gave me permission to use it, so I um I recommend red dead redemption to anyone.
Speaker 1:It's a fantastic game I'm trying to think I think you are my first coffee break video game recommendation and and I support this message I might even leave my Xbox username in the show notes. So, Beth Lewis, that just leaves me to say thank you very much for joining us for the Conversation, Coffee Break.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It was great fun.
Speaker 1:And that's it for this Coffee Break. Thank you so much for joining me Starting from season. And that's it for this coffee break. Thank you so much for joining me. Starting from season four, we will be bringing you regular coffee breaks, 30 minute episodes, perfect for a quick chat with your favorite authors about their latest books. And here's the fun part next season, we are answering your questions. If there's something you've always wanted to ask an author, send it in email, your question to the conversation at nadiemathesoncom, and we might just answer it in a future episode, with a special shout out to you, of course. Until next time, keep reading, keep listening, and I'll see you soon for another coffee break. Oh, and before I forget, don't forget to subscribe, follow, like, review and share this episode with your friends. Your support keeps the podcast growing and if you head down to the show notes, you can also support the podcast by buying us a cup of coffee. The links are in the show notes.
