Lucy Scholes

Absolutely, absolutely.

Don't believe in it.

Stop it now.

Yes, but I won't be repeating them now.

I'm not asking you to.

Middle-class twats, by the way.

My new favourite.

What a pleasure.

It's lovely to know.

When I first read her, actually, very recently, which I feel is a bit of a cheat on.

I feel like I should come back.

Let's didn't always say talk about a long, long harbored love.

But actually, no, I for many years, I labored under that rather stupid impression that she wrote novels about spinsters in the worst possible shape and form a spinster can take.

I think I always thought that she was along the lines of someone like Ivy Compton Burnett, who I'm not a big fan of.

Novels about taking tea with curates or things like this.

And so I just steered clear of her.

And then only probably a couple of years ago, I think I read Hotel Delac for the first time because I was writing a piece about hotels in literature.

Thought that one would probably fit the bill.

And then...

And then I realised, wow, this is not what I thought it was at all.