Publishing Today: Kitty and Mary by Julia Gray & Imogen Russell Williams

Key Info:

Key Stage 3/4/5, Hardback, 384 pages, Fiction, Historical, Families, Letters & Journals, Pride & Prejudice adjacent

RRP: £16.99 | Schools price: £11.89

Authors Julia Gray & Imogen Russell Williams very kindly answered some questions for us about their new collaborative novel Kitty and Mary.

Why did you decide to write the book in an epistolary form (letters and diary entries)?

We were drawn to this form because it allowed us to communicate with the reader on two levels – the sisterly bickering and swapping of confidences in the letters, and the more private thoughts the girls only let out in their journals. It’s always fun when the reader knows more than the characters do!

Both Kitty and Mary feel pressure from society (and their mum) to follow a certain path. What advice would you give to young readers who also feel a similar pressure?

There’s a point in the book where someone close to Mary reminds her of a Shakespearean saying: “To thine own self be true”. Although it’s easier said than done, learning to trust your own instincts and your sense of what’s right for you, despite external pressures, is a hugely important part of growing up.

Which of the Bennet sisters do you feel like you relate to more?

Being autistic and someone who would “infinitely prefer a book” to a dance or big social event, Imogen is very much a Mary, although she has some Lizzy moments when her family exasperate her! Julia, meanwhile, really related to Kitty’s struggles to make her own voice heard in a large family. (Imogen thinks Julia is also very like Jane, kind and tolerant almost to a fault!)

At the beginning, Mary is sent on a spontaneous trip halfway across the world. Have you ever done something that took a lot of bravery?

Perhaps we’ve been brave in different ways! We may not have set off on literal voyages (although we did go on a school exchange to South America together when we were 16). But becoming mums, writing books, even the process of writing and editing together where you have to reveal yourself fully to the other person – all of these need bravery too. (Imogen would also like to try skydiving one day!)

While the book focuses on Kitty and Mary, you also develop the lives of all the characters from Pride and Prejudice. How did you decide what would happen to each character?

The unfolding of the story felt very organic really. We didn’t want to crowbar in things that didn’t seem appropriate, but it seemed likely that Jane might have a baby, and that Lydia’s marriage wouldn’t thrive, for instance – and we really wanted to find out more about Charlotte Lucas, now Mrs Collins, and how she was finding her married life.