Joanna will be talking about her debut bestselling novel, ‘The Whalebone Theatre’.  

The novel was a 'Read With Jenna' pick and was chosen by HM Queen Camilla for her  book club The Reading Room. It was shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction at the British Book Awards, The Authors' Club Best First Novel award, The Society of Authors McKitterick Prize and The Winston Graham Prize for Historical Fiction. It was Waterstones Book of the Month in August 2023.

Joanna Quinn was born in London and grew up in Dorset, where ‘The Whalebone Theatre’ is set. The book tells the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty books. It’s the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests.

It is also the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, fiercely determined to do things differently. But far away from the big house, as the children grow to adulthood, another story has been unfolding in the wings. And when the war finally takes centre stage, the siblings find themselves cast, unrehearsed, into roles they never expected to play.