S5 EP240 | Lucy Ashe: When the Person You Trust May Be Manipulating You

Hello My Happy People,

Today on Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt, I’m talking with author Lucy Ashe about her unusual journey from professional dancer and teacher to historical fiction author and the experiences that eventually led her to writing novels.

Our main focus is The Model Patient, Lucy’s historical psychological thriller set in early-1960s London. We explore the troubling relationship between a young model and her psychoanalyst and the questions the story raises about trust, manipulation, power, and professional boundaries.

Lucy also shares some of the inspiration and research behind the novel and how its historical setting influences the story. We talk about creating characters within a period when attitudes toward women, mental health, psychoanalysis, and professional authority were very different from those we recognize today.

Along the way, we get to know more about Lucy herself, her experiences before becoming an author, and how those different parts of her life eventually contributed to her writing.

And, of course, we finish things off with our Five Quick Questions, which are rarely as quick as the name suggests.

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Transcript

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Dianne Burckhardt 0:01

You're listening to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart, your Book Talk podcast. Join me every Wednesday for real conversations with authors and publishing insiders, where you get to connect with the humans behind the books you love. Let's get on with our show today. Well, hello, my happy people. Today is September 16th, 2026, and have I got another fascinating author for you today? Of course, don't I always? My guest is a former professional dancer and teacher who turned her talents to writing historical fiction. Her latest novel takes us into early 1960s London and into the complicated relationship between a young model and her psychoanalyst. The model patient explores power, manipulation, gaslighting, and what can happen when the person you trust to help you may actually be manipulating you. We're going to talk about her journey from dance to writing and the world she created in the model patient and the research and personal experiences behind the ideas of this psychological historical thriller. Now, don't forget to stick around till the very end because you'll find out who's going to be up next week and all of the great things that are going on with Burkhart books and Bookbanch productions. And oh my goodness, there is a lot. So be sure to stick around till the very end. But that is enough blather for right now. Let's get right to today's interview. Please welcome to Bookbancher with Diane Burkhart, dancer, teacher, and author, Lucy Ash. Please tell everyone who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I'm Lucy Ash, and I am the author of historical and psychological novels. My first two novels are sort of dance-themed historical novels set in the 20th century. But my latest novel is called The Model Patient. It's a psychological thriller. So I love to write. That's my I suppose my main job, but I'm also an English and drama teacher.

Dianne Burckhardt 2:01

That's one thing I was really fascinated about. I know that you studied English literature at Oxford and you transitioned into teaching English and becoming a drama teacher. What led you from teaching to writing your first book?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, well, teaching, I mean, I I love teaching. I still teach. I actually started off as a dance teacher because I trained at the Royal Ballet School. My goal in life was very much to become a ballet dancer, and I did for a little bit, but it didn't quite work out the way I suppose I had imagined it to. So I changed career plans. I went to Oxford University, I studied English literature, but I did a dance teaching diploma at the same time and absolutely loved that. But I I also loved English literature that I was studying, so I sort of thought, well, I combine the two and I'll become an English teacher and a drama teacher. And that was wonderful. But I really missed dance. There was so much of that world of dance that I felt like I'd left behind. And I I wrote my first novel, The Dance of the Dolls, and it was actually called Clara and Olivia in in the UK. It's about ballet, and I think I wanted to come back to that world of dance that I had left behind through my writing. So I suppose in that novel, it was a way of bringing together all these different passions in my life. I suppose what I find quite interesting when I look back on that is that The Dance of the Dolls wasn't my first novel. It was my first published novel, but I had two novels that I'd written before that in my twenties that I couldn't get a literary agent for, I couldn't get published, and I was just doing those in writing those during my school holidays as a teacher, which was a wonderful creative project to have. And I suppose they were my my practice ground to actually writing a novel that was going to get a book deal, which was really exciting. So I suppose I was sort of teaching and writing at the same time during my twenties, which was a very creative life for me.

Dianne Burckhardt 3:54

Do you ever think about going back and reworking those first two books?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Sometimes I consider it, and then every time I read them, I think, no way. I mean, I suppose we all develop as writers, and I had a lot to learn when I was writing those two books, and they're very different to the books I write now. One of them was like an eco-feminist dystopian novel, which is really different. I did love the process of doing it. I was teaching a lot of dystopian fiction at the time, so I suppose I was particularly fascinated by that topic. Um, and the other one was a lot of fun to write, actually. It was a murder mystery about an English teacher who went on a like an expedition to the late district. So one of her students gets murdered, and it sort of links back to a murder 20 years ago. It's you know, it was a lot of fun, but it needs a lot of structural work, and sometimes I think about going back to it. But I have so many fresh ideas that I want to write that that I think maybe I won't.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:47

Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. A lot of times it's like you're like, I already did that one, let's just leave it there.

unknown 4:53

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:54

And progress into the new adventure.

unknown 4:56

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:57

And I think it's really kind of interesting that you did start out in dance and then move to literature because basically you were still storytelling. It was just in one way you're doing it with your body, and the other way you're doing it with words.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, I think that's one of the aspects of ballet that I love so much. I I really loved the artistry of it. I love choreography as well. At the Royal Ballet School, they have a choreography competition each year, which I always entered a piece in, and it was a wonderful experience. I was often inspired by different works of art for my choreographic pieces. And so that is a form of storytelling. And I think I was I was also really fascinated by the stories or the history of dance and the stories that led up to the creation of each of these major classical ballets. So the Dance of the Dolls is set around the production of Capalia, which is a ballet which was reproduced by the company that's now the Royal Ballet, but at the time was called the Vicquiles Company, in 1933. And I did so much research into how this ballet was put on at this time and all the different costumes and sort of the dramas that went into it, and that inspired some aspects of the plot for The Dance of the Dolls, which is it is a sort of more of a thriller, that that one, um, The Dance of the Dolls, but it's very much rooted in historical detail.

Dianne Burckhardt 6:17

Even though you do still teach, do you see yourself becoming a full-time writer at some point?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, well, at the moment, it's I think I'm in a very strange sort of place in my career at the moment because I had a baby recently, and yeah, she was born in August, so she's 10 months old now. And I so I stopped my uh teaching job just before she was born. I was teaching English and drama at a school in New York. So I guess I've sort of been on maternity leave, but my novel, The Model Patient, was published in April, so I felt like I was both on maternity leave and also working a lot almost full-time, and sort of you know, promotion of the book and some events. I went, I traveled to the UK and did some quite a few book events there, and it's it's come out in the US as well. So I was sort of experiencing what is it like to just write without teaching, but I also had what is basically a full-time job of looking up for a baby.

Dianne Burckhardt 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

So I'm I'm at the moment working out do I want to have my life as being teaching, writing, and being a mother, or is that just too much? Or do I want to focus on writing and and have more time with my baby, which is probably what I want to do at the moment.

Dianne Burckhardt 7:29

And that makes sense. I mean, because there's so much involved with young children. I mean, I I don't think anybody who's never taken care of a small child understands how much time that takes.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah, I mean, you can't be trying to do anything else at the same time. And she's she's not in daycare yet, so any work that I do, um, I have some help two days a week, which is is wonderful, but I have to make a decision about how to move forward as a writer and as a creative person. Or I suppose coming up with my ideas for my books and writing my books, that does take very concentrated time. Um, it's not something I can sit down and do in really short bursts of time. So um it's been a really, really different year for that. It's been wonderful to have a book come out during this time because that's been really fun. But I think if someone had said to me, you need to write a book in this year, your baby having just been born, over like that, it's absolutely not gonna happen. Uh I mean maybe I thought I could have done it before she was born, but then as soon as you have the baby, you're like, wow, this is this is so much and so wonderful, but like every minute of the day, and especially she's crawling now, so I turn one way and she's just the other side of the room.

Dianne Burckhardt 8:45

It's like you blink and she's gone. Yeah. What is your writing process like? I mean, how do you manage everything?

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Well, I love writing historical novels. The model patient, my latest novel, is set in the 1960s. So some people say that's historical novel, some people wouldn't say it's historical, depending on how you define that. But I love the research aspect aspect of it. You know, whether it's set 100 years ago or 50 years ago, there's going to be a lot of research. So I spend a lot of time researching the topic that I'm writing about. So the model patient is about psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. So that required months and months of just reading a lot about it. I'm not a psychologist, so it was it was a subject I really had to learn a lot about. And then also research into the time period. So 1960s, I think it's like, what was it like to be living in London at that time for a woman of my main character's age in her mid-20s, the food, the fashion. She's also an artist, so what kind of art is she being inspired by? So it's a really immersive experience for the first months where I'm not really writing anything. I'm just doing a lot of research and plotting what the novel is going to be. I think that's what it's a really fun stage. And then when I start writing, I I feel I have this almost compulsion to just keep writing until it's written. So I write first drafts quite quickly. For the model patient, I wrote the first draft in five months, I think. And then it took another 18 months to edit. But that first draft was was fast. Um, all my first drafts are usually quite fast. It's almost like I can't rest until it's written. It's like the characters need to get to the end of their story. But then, but then it does take a huge amount of work after that to get it into a good enough shape to be able to share with my editor and my agent.

Dianne Burckhardt 10:34

Are there any particular programs that you find especially helpful for your work? Things like Plotter or Vellum? Any of those that you you work with?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

You know, I actually never used any programs like that. I think maybe I like to have a lot of flexibility with the way I am plotting. So I I literally just have a Word document and I plot it chapter by chapter, and I'll review that as I write. So even though it might look like it's sort of all plotted out, I might get to writing up to chapter 20 and then realize I need to replot the second half. So I will have a lot of flexibility with that. And then with my research notes, it's kind of this sort of mix of notebooks everywhere, little bits on Google documents, um, images that I've printed out. So, but I think I need that flexibility. I think another program I might feel contained by it. I mean, I've never tried it, so maybe it'd be wonderful, but I've never tried.

Dianne Burckhardt 11:30

Whenever you're plotting out your storyline, do you ever pick people that you know or movie stars or television stars to use as a visual aid for your characters as you build them?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

I think a mix of people sometimes. I certainly wouldn't want to be entirely limited by a real person. But I mean, the model patient is an interesting one for that because the the novel was inspired by my own experience in therapy. It was a very kind of intense relationship that I had with my therapist in the first sort of year and a half, two years that I was seeing him. I had a lot of transference, which is where you sort of transfer patterns of behaviour and emotions from your past onto the therapist. Um but he was very he's very much like a kind of blank slate therapist where I don't know anything about him, I don't know anything about his life. But because the novel was inspired by this intensity of this relationship, even though the novel is completely fictional, nothing that happened to me happened in this book. The spark of the idea did come from that intensity of that relationship. I suppose when I was writing my therapist character, I did have my own therapist in my mind in terms of the way he spoke and the sort of the nature of the psychoanalytical relationship, the sorts of answers or silences that happened in the therapeutic space. I think it think this this novel would have been almost impossible to have written if I hadn't had that sort of experience in in therapy. So to give an example, it's it's like I would sort of ask a question and then there would be a lot of silence, and I would feel more and more uncertain about what I'd said. I'd be very sort of doubtful of myself the whole time. And that is kind of the purpose of this therapy, to bring out lots of those insecurities, and then hopefully you come to find a very safe space with your therapist that you can explore those things. But it's not it's not the kind of therapeutic relationship where you're having a conversation back and forth. It's a lot more taut and silent than that.

Dianne Burckhardt 13:38

How did you decide what personal experiences to draw on while you were writing this novel? Because I'm sure that there were a lot of things that happened in your own sessions that kind of sparked new ideas. But how did you decide how much of yourself you wanted to put in there?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah, it was really, really difficult at times because I was, I suppose I was writing this novel at the same time as going through the experience. The two things were really happening simultaneously. And I didn't want my novel to become a kind of record of my therapy sessions. That would be insane. And also my character, Evelyn Westbrook, she has completely different sort of issues or things that she's bringing to the therapy than I was talking about. So, in some ways, it wasn't really possible to have brought the same conversations in to the novel that I was having. But there is a feeling, there's an atmosphere, and there's also a kind of an intensity of in the dynamic that that does that did exist in my therapy that also exists in the novel that I did draw upon. But but the novel, you know, it is a psychological novel, it's it's like has thriller elements to it, that it's it's very dramatic. It's not the sort of thing that happened in my experience with with my therapist. But I I think one thing that also really helped is when I was going through this. I mean, it was really it was a very traumatic time, I think, because I had this very intense reaction to him, and also because I was thinking of sort of exploring things from my past, particularly from my time at the ballet school, so ballet boarding school, really intense, that I'd never really explored before. And I found the therapy quite re-traumatizing. And because of his quite cold withholding manner, I didn't feel that I was in this sort of safe or warm holding environment where I felt kind of contained. It was a very chaotic relationship that we had. But at this, I had these two things going on at the same time that I was doing the therapy and I was journaling a lot at the same time. I was writing between sessions, I would journal about the therapy. And when I look back at that, that now is this gigantic document, it's like nearly a novel in itself, though what doesn't read like one, it's just completely uh some wild thoughts. And that was very free and almost like kind of free association writing, like a sort of stream of consciousness. And then I had the novel where everything was researched, every sentence I would craft carefully, you know, write three times before I was happy with it. I had all the research, the historical research that went into it. So it was this sort of polished piece in response to the chaos of the emotions that I was experiencing. And I think having the two alongside one another was very powerful for me, it was very transformative. I think it did give me a feeling of a sense of understanding of the therapy I was doing, and I was able to move forward with it much more effectively as a result, but also being able to take something very painful and turn it into an artistic creative process. I suppose people have been doing that for centuries, you know, using art to make sense of things. And that's really what was happening, I think, for me when I was writing this book.

Dianne Burckhardt 16:51

Did your own emotions kind of surprise you at times as you were writing this?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah, definitely. Um I think that I think that's part of what can be so powerful about therapy, and I suppose what I was trying to explore in the in the model patient is that sometimes when we have emotions that surprise us, we can have these feelings of kind of shame about them, about these emotions that come up, a kind of very deep shame about why we might feel like for me, I felt this real need for my therapist, need to feel cared for by him. And I felt that I was being I was too much, that my emotions were excessive. And I I found in writing the book that I could explore that a bit, I could think about well, are these thoughts, these emotions, shameful in some way? Or actually are they there to be explored in the therapeutic space to help us understand ourselves? I think to learning to get rid of shame about our emotions is one of the most helpful things that we can do in living a more contented life.

Dianne Burckhardt 17:58

I absolutely agree. That's one of the things that we've been trying to focus on the last two seasons is actually talking more about mental health and how it actually affects writers and their work. And the fact that you can put so much of your own personal experience into this work of fiction and share it with the world is a fantastic thing because it will reach those people who will read this and think, oh my god, I am not the only one who thinks like this or feels like this. And having those kinds of representations in literature is not only fabulous, it's necessary.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, I agree. I think if we if we all sit there and think we're the only person feeling so intense about something or having these anxious thoughts or circular thoughts, then it's only going to become worse. So yeah, I hope that I have put a lot of myself into the novel in in that way. And then it was helpful for me, and I hope it can be helpful for readers as well.

Dianne Burckhardt 18:54

And I'm always a big fan of therapy. I tell people all the time, therapy is wonderful. If you find a good therapist.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, and that's such an important thing, isn't it? Because I I suppose because of the the model patient having just been published, I suppose my Instagram algorithm is just completely therapy at the moment. You know, I become sort of obsessed with one thing, and because the model patient is, you know, it is it is about therapy. And I find it really interesting how people advertise themselves as therapists and the types of modalities they do, but also the way people are drawn to different types of therapy. And and there obviously there are so many different types that you can do, but really I think that what it comes down to is finding a therapist where you do have a really good connection with that you can have meaningful for work and you can talk in depth about things. You know, you you can say, Oh, I feel this strongly about something going on in our relationship, or something you said last week has really stayed with me and I feel uncomfortable about it. Can we explore it? And a therapist who is is open to exploring that rather than getting defensive about it, or or think that no, this is the work we're doing, we're not kind of discussing the dynamics of the relationship. I think that's that's such an important part of it. But but of course, how do you know that the therapist is going to be someone you connect to? It's a really difficult, it's a really difficult thing. I think it's hard to find a great therapist.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:20

Yeah, definitely. You can take a little bit of trial and error.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:25

Is there any other little points about the model patient that you want to get out?

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah, I mean, the model patient, it is a novel about therapy, but it's also a novel about women's autonomy over their own bodies. It set at a time in the 1960s when the contraceptive pill had just become available on the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. And that's one of the reasons I set the novel then at this really pivotal time, because women were suddenly have this access to this pill that could give them control over their own bodies, but there were all there were so many rules around it that I found fascinating and also really troubling. Like, for example, unless you were actually you were married, it was highly unlikely that a doctor could give you this pill. Some doctors even required your husband to give you permission to give it to you. So the novel is a lot of it is set around Evelyn Westbrook, my protagonist who is taking this pill, for the one, you know, one of the first women to take it, and her her husband's reaction to this. And I suppose when I was writing this, I just found myself constantly thinking about how much has changed and how much how much hasn't changed, and these questions about women's ability to make decisions for themselves about their bodies without the kind of patriarchal voice coming in at the same time to control them. It just feels so relevant still today. And it that was another strand of writing this that um was very powerful for me to be exploring women's autonomy over their bodies now and then, just as exploring. You know, therapy and mental health and how much access we have to it now and how that might have changed since the the 1960s.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:08

Yeah, there was a lot of things that were were changing in the 60s for women. It was really amazing. I know one of the things that just really shocked me was how long it took before women could even have their own bank account in their name or their own credit card in their own name or rent an apartment in their own name.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Yeah, there were so many restrictions. And the the thought that that you couldn't even make a decision about what medication you wanted, the contraceptive pill, without your husband having his opinion there as well. Just was such a such a strange thought. But it was it's a really transitional time, the 1960s, and and I wanted to set the novel at a time of transition because we see so much in the in the book of how characters, particularly even in Westbrook, my main character is struggling with letting go of the values of the 1950s and the sort of expectations of what does it mean to be a wife and a mother then, and then sort of moving into the swinging 60s and the liberalism, liberal values of that, which hasn't haven't quite kicked in yet, but she's on the in the middle of it. She's she's trying to make those that change. And and I found that really interesting how so many times we can be in in places in our lives where we're trying to make changes about ourselves. Like, for example, in therapy, you know, you you go to therapy to to hopefully change something about yourself, and yet actually, so much of the time we resist that change, even though you know you know you should, and you you know you it'll be in your best interest to change. We sort of cling to the things that we know and the things that are familiar, even if they're not particularly good for us. Um so that's something that I was really playing with and exploring a lot in this book of why is it that we resist change so much.

Dianne Burckhardt 23:54

You know, and I I'm kind of disappointed that some people want to call this historical fiction because it was not that long ago that these things were still in place. And I want people to realize that it was not that long ago that women didn't have the rights that they have now. And I'm always afraid that if people push that too far back into history, they're going to think that it's not important to remember now.

unknown 24:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

I always think about women's rights or any rights is it's not once they once you've got them, they're not fixed. They're forever. You've constantly got to be doing work to maintain those rights. And I think we're at that place at the moment where there's so so much, I feel, this kind of fear that if we if we let ourselves slip back in time, we're going to lose those rights. And it's so important to continue fighting for them.

Dianne Burckhardt 24:46

And besides that, as someone who was born in 1967, the idea that this is historical fiction just really makes me feel old.

unknown 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Yeah. I mean, this this this one, because it was it's set in the 60s, I could talk to a lots of people, including my parents, aunts and uncles, who were alive at that time and remember it really well. Um it set during this in very intense weather event in the in 1963 called the Big Freeze, where it started snowing on Boxing Day of 1962, and it didn't go above freezing until like middle of March the next year.

Dianne Burckhardt 25:25

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

And it was so intense. This cold weather really affected everyone's lives. So I set the novel during that time, and I could interview people who experienced that and give me really amazing anecdotes about that time. Whereas when I was writing my first two novels, which are set in 1933 and then during the Second World War for the Sleeping Beauties, yes, of course, there are some people, but it it's it felt much more historical when researching that in terms of the sources and materials I was going to.

Dianne Burckhardt 25:55

Wow, I'm still just thinking of that many months of horrible winter. That's incredible. Yeah, so cold. Now seems like the perfect time to do our five quick questions that never turn out to be quick, but I'm just too stubborn to stop doing them. Are you ready? Yes. Now, for your questions, I actually snooped on your Instagram page. So that's where these are all coming from.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Amazing.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:20

So, question one How did ballet influence your writing career?

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Ballet was, I suppose, the the major influence for my first two books to return to ballet through writing was probably one of the most fulfilling decisions I've ever made. I think when I left the world of ballet, I did feel a little bit cast out from it, in the sense that I hadn't quite got where I wanted to be. My body wasn't right for it. I felt like I sort of failed at it. And then to have, I suppose, kind of the courage, really, in some ways, to return to the world of dance through writing was wonderfully fulfilling. I just loved exploring the kind of the early years of the Royal Ballet Company in in London in the 1930s. It was just so fascinating to do that. And then also to return to the Royal Ballet with my book and to be welcomed by them. I did interviews, I had the book stocked at the Royal Opera House shop in the UK. Um, it was just a really exciting return to ballet for me.

Dianne Burckhardt 27:26

That's amazing. Now, question two What are some of your favorite podcasts that you listen to while walking around Brooklyn?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

I have three podcasts that I absolutely love. I love How to Fail by Elizabeth Day, which just is so relatable. There's always the is like failures that have helped you, I suppose, progress or or learn from these failures. Like, do we let failures define us in a way that we then don't move on from them? Or how do we let a failure really help us to change and to grow? And it's yeah, it's always so relatable. That one's brilliant. And then there's one called Women A Mad, which is Dr. Jennifer Cox, and that she recently did a series called Writers on the Couch, where she interviews these different writers about their writing experience. But she sort of uses a, I guess the questioning really gets to the heart of the emotions behind the writing. It has a sort of psychoanalytical aspect to it because she is a psychoanalyst herself. And then another one I love is called Best Book Forward by Helen Gambarata, and she interviews writers in a kind of desert island disc style where writers share the five books that inspired them, as well as talking about their writing process. And I've I've listened to so many podcasts in the last year because of having a baby and just going for lots and lots of walks with Lyra around the different parks to try and get her to nap because she doesn't always like to nap at home. Um so it's really been very wonderful to have access to podcasts to keep my mind my mind buzzing.

Dianne Burckhardt 29:06

I might have to check those out. I don't think I've listened to any of those before. That sounds interesting. Yeah, they're really good. Question three. I know you participated in a number of races over the years, including the Lucifer Crossing race, which is 6.66 miles, which I find hilarious. How did becoming a new mother affect your ability to participate in races like that?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Oh, such a great question. I just love running so much. I started running when I was about 18 or 19, when I was sort of transitioning from dance into other things. And I suppose running for me was almost like a replacement of the intensity of ballet. And I got really into it. I've done nine marathons, I do track races, like so many. I've done I don't even know how many half marathons. And then I got pregnant and I I got really, I guess I got quite big quite quickly. My stomach was really weighing me down. And uh I I couldn't, I suppose I ran, I ran quite a lot, I ran up to about 25, 26 weeks, which is probably quite a long time actually, uh, but very slowly. And um I uh I just found it so hard. And that was that was one of the most difficult things for me about being pregnant, is not being able to run. I did a lot of other exercise the day before she was 10 days late.

Dianne Burckhardt 30:23

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

And she I was just desperate to get her out because it was August in New York City and I was just so hot and so I the day before she was born, I went on the stair stepper in the gym very slowly to try and you know encourage, and that did work, thankfully. But it's been wonderful to get back into running since then. Obviously, it took a long time after she was born to feel comfortable doing it. What women's bodies go through in childbirth, pregnancy and childbirth is is unbelievable. And then just to be able to return, I was very lucky that I I went to some great physiotherapy, which helped with my pelvic floor. And I started running, I guess, maybe like three or four months after she was born, very slowly, and it built up. So I always had this race in my mind, this Lucifer's Crossing race in Ithaca, and it's a huge trail race, just up and down like these mountains. And the the year before, when I was 30 weeks pregnant, I went, but my husband did the run and I watched because obviously I couldn't do a trail race when I was 30 weeks pregnant. I was really envious, I really wanted to be doing it. So this year it was my turn. So we went and I got to run it this time, and I came second, which I couldn't quite believe. I know I I was I did not expect to do to do that well in it, but I had I had had it in my mind for quite a long time, so I've been trying to train a bit for it, but it felt really good to get back into running and to be able to move my body again.

Dianne Burckhardt 31:54

And hopefully in the future, you're going to get some fantastic Mother's Day gifts for her being 10 years late with August Heat. That's that's terrible. It was so much, yeah. Now, question four. What was it like for you to see photos that your husband sent you from Paris of your books in their bookstores?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, so my first novel, The Dance of the Dolls, was published recently in French. It was a yeah, French language translation deal there. And I hadn't seen the book yet. It's called La Danse des Poupées, which I think it sounds great. And he went to France for his cousin's wedding, and Lara and I decided not to go because it was just a long trip for a baby for just a weekend. But he went to a few different bookshops in Paris and took photos with my book in there. It was really exciting. And he got he did buy one for me and bring it back because I think usually you get sent a few, but they haven't been sent yet. I think coming from France to the US, it must take a while. So it's very exciting to have a French translation deal. I haven't tried reading it yet, but I I should. I did French at school, which was a long time ago, so I I don't know how many words I would remember, but it's nice to think that it's there in France.

Dianne Burckhardt 33:15

I was gonna say that should win the husband some points, being able to go around to bookstores and find your book for you and take photos and bring a copy back. That is some very thoughtful husbanding.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Oh, it was it was wonderful. He he did that, and he also brought back a really big box of uh macarons, which is a perfect pair.

Dianne Burckhardt 33:35

Your book with macarons. Yep. Now, for question five, we are asking everyone the same question because we're going to be putting a list in our year-in book buying guide to help people buy things for Christmas. So, in your opinion, what is the best book to movie adaptation that you have seen so far?

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Oh, great question. Book to movies. I mean, there is a st yeah, there are some great ones. I think recent, can I do a series? Yeah, and it doesn't have to be recent either. Okay, one is a series, and that's Daisy Jones and the Six. I just loved that so much. Really great series. The music, the fashion. The book is great as well. And then I think for a classic, if you were really want to go back in time, um, one of the best book to movie adaptations is A Room with a View by Ian Forster.

Dianne Burckhardt 34:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

It's the book is wonderful, but I actually it's the probably the only adaptation where I think I prefer the film to the book. Really? Is yeah, because I think the book is quite miserable at times. It's it's quite negative. The romance is just not, it's got lots of issues, it's just a lot of red flags in the relationship between um the two protagonists. Whereas the film just turns it into this wonderful, luxurious, funny romance, which I was really there for. So I think that's my favorite.

Dianne Burckhardt 35:08

That's a good I remember I haven't seen that one in forever. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yeah, Helen and Bonacata, a long time ago. Really good.

Dianne Burckhardt 35:15

I love her too. So what is next for you?

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Well, I have just I'm just doing my edits actually on my my fourth novel, which is very exciting to think that I've got another one coming, which will be coming out in a year's time, so summer 2027. And it it also has a sort of therapy angle, but more about a sort of a therapy cult actually that did exist in the in New York in the 1970s, but I've created a fictional version of it. It's like a a cult that um used but hides sort of deeply disturbing methods of control behind a facade of like free love and countercultural ideals. So I'm I'm doing the sort of final edits on that. It's gone gone to my editors, which is very exciting. So I suppose this year I'll be building up to that, but I also want to start writing something fresh soon, probably in September, when it'll feel like you know, my daughter will be one year old, I'll be getting a bit more childcare, and it'll be a transition into a new stage of our lives, I suppose.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:17

Now, let's remind everybody who you are and where they can find your work.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yeah, so I'm Lucy Ash, I'm the author of The Model Patient, my my most recent book, and you can find my my books in all bookstores online and in physical stores, always available. And I've got a website which is lucyash.com, and also I have an Instagram, which is Lucy Ash underscore author, and I love sharing what I'm reading, what's inspiring me, and a little bit about my my day-to-day life in Brooklyn as a writer and mother.

Dianne Burckhardt 36:52

And of course, all of your information will be in the description of today's podcast with links so that people can click and go and find you and your work very easily. This has been so much fun. Thank you so much. You're delightful to talk to.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Oh, thank you. This is really fun.

Dianne Burckhardt 37:09

So there you have it, folks. That was my interview with the amazing Lucy Ash. This was such an entertaining interview, even for me as I was doing it. I love getting to talk to authors like this who start out from such a different place and end up being an author. People have so many amazing stories and their journeys are also varied and intriguing, and Lucy is a perfect example of this. She also shared so much personal information. It was just incredible. It makes you want to find out more about this book. I know it does for me anyway. So if you're interested in books that explore questions of manipulation, power, and trust, you definitely need to go pick up a copy of The Model Patient Today. And don't forget to follow Lucy on her social media so you can keep up with what she has coming up next. Now, you may have noticed a little typical New York City background sounds in this interview that could not be filtered out. Lucy lives on the 30th floor of her building and we can still hear police sirens. If that doesn't give the perfect New York City background audience, I don't know what could. Now, next week we will be talking to author Julie Gerstenblatt about her new historical novel, The Stargazer of Nantucket. Now, this historical fiction book goes a little bit further back in time. It is set in 1851, and it was inspired by the Starbuck family and the famous clipper ship Flying Cloud. If you love historical fiction, you will want to be sure to come back next week. Now, a little bit of news for Burkhart Books and Book Banch Productions. At Burkhart Books, we are currently updating our website with more information on DS Stevens' new paranormal romance, The Haunted Heart series, focusing on the first book in the series, The Langston Watch Hotel. We are working to get this first book up for pre-sale before we head off to the Frankfurter Book Mesa this year so that we can do a big marketing push while we're there. Be sure to check it all out at Burkhartbooks.com under DS Stevens. And for Bookbank Productions, we are also very busy. We're gearing up to cover the Frankfurter Book Mesa this year for the podcast and for a large spread in this year's Book Banter magazine. We're going to be doing all kinds of interviews while we're there and plan to share as much as possible as we can from this experience. Because for everyone who loves books, you should experience the Frankfurter Book Mesa at least once in your life. Even if it is vicariously through Book Banter Productions. And on a personal note, this week is going to be very special for me because the 19th happens to be my birthday and it finally falls on a Saturday again. So we're gonna be going out and doing some celebrating this weekend. Well, now that is more than enough for today, so you know what that means, folks. It's that time. It's time for you all to go forth and be really happy that we keep finding such amazing authors to share with you. Thank you for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart on your favorite podcast streaming service. Because if you love books like we do, you do not want to miss a single episode of this podcast.