With the summer months well and truly in full swing, it is coming to that time of year where the Martha Brook team start to chat about summer reading. If we’re going away on holiday you can certainly guarantee we’ll have at least a couple of books coming along with us, so we’re always on the lookout for great fiction!

One such book is the newly released The Treasures by the Sunday Times Top Ten bestselling author Harriet Evans – when Penguin approached us and asked if we would like to work on a collab together, we jumped at the chance! This fabulous fiction novel is the perfect book to pick up this summer for long afternoons in the garden and we just knew it was one our audience would love. We’ve been incredibly lucky to get the chance to ask Harriet some questions all about her newest release, her writing process – and of course, stationery. We hope you enjoy taking a peek behind the books with us!

Behind the books: Harriet Evans

Introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are, what it is you do and how you came to do it.

Hi, I’m Harriet Evans and I’m the author of lots of novels, including The Garden of Lost and Found and The Wildflowers. I was an editor before I was an author and have written all sorts of things, but I’m most excited about The Treasures, which is the beginning of the story of a family and a house over many years. I live in Bath, I love jumpsuits, I have two kids and a very fluffy cat. 

What does a typical day look like for you?

I don’t really have typical days which is one of the good and bad parts of my job. Sometimes I am at home trying to avoid writing. Sometimes I’m in the library trying to avoid writing. Sometimes I am researching (at the moment I’m reading all about the 80s for book 2 in the trilogy) which is like work so it doesn’t count as trying to avoid writing. But it sort of is.

We loved reading your new novel The Treasures. No spoilers, but the book opens with a character finding some hidden family treasures – do you have any little treasures in your own life which may have inspired this plot point? 

Aw thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I have a shelf of treasures myself, not like Alice’s, but with little china and other trinkets on it that I used to collect as a little girl. My daughter has added to it, it has new little animals, shells and leaves with wobbly eyes on that she made at a holiday club – all memories. I love that idea of having these keepsakes in your life that sum up your past and present.

You are a Sunday Times top ten bestselling author (amazing!) so The Treasures is certainly not your first foray into writing. How did writing this novel differ from any that have come previously?

Actually it was easier than most books, I absolutely loved writing it. Maybe because it has a clear structure. I knew what happened and just had to fill in the blanks. I do a lot of editing. 

The Treasures is the first book in a trilogy – we can’t wait for the next one! Is there anything at all you can tell us about what is to come – do you have it all planned out already, have the books already been written, is there anything we can expect? 

I’m halfway through Book 2 which will be out in about eighteen months or so. It opens in 1981. We see what’s happened to the Raven family, what it’s like living in 80s London, the myths and folklore of the countryside, raising children, being a teenager, falling in love. I’m loving writing about the 80s. 

If you could describe The Treasures in three words to someone who hasn’t read it yet, what words would you use?

First love. Secrets. 

Being an author, we imagine your desk is pretty dreamy! We’d love to know what stationery items you can’t live without and why. 

I’m so excited about this collaboration because I am the no. 1 stationery fan of the whole world. Firstly, I have a weekly planner, that has a week to view but no dates. I fill in the dates myself and decorate it with stickers and beautiful calligraphy to give myself goals for the week. It’s kind of like a work bullet journal. I don’t put boring things in it like a child’s party or the dentist.

I also have lined notebooks that I use for each book that I stick photos and drawings onto to remind me of the world of the book. I also have lots of notecards and stickies. I am obsessed with stationery, always have been. I think it makes the everyday stuff much more special.  

We’ve got an exciting giveaway happening over on Instagram where 5 people can win a copy of The Treasures along with a Summer stationery bundle, because we think it’s the perfect summer read! Do you have any recommendations for any of your favourite summer reads that you think fans of The Treasures will also enjoy?

Yes! The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce just out in hardback, a dark family saga set on a beautiful Italian lake. The Secret History by Donna Tartt, the most addictive weirdest book ever written. And finally All Fours by Miranda July, out now in paperback and utterly unputdownable, about a woman who blows her life up. 

Do you have a life mantra or favourite saying that you live by?

Yes. I am a catastrophist, always afraid something terrible is about to happen. I think of three positive things every morning. Things that were good or went well or that I enjoyed. It makes you see the good not the bad. 

The Treasures by Harriet Evans is available to purchase now, and you can order from an indie bookshop here.

P.S. Fancy winning your very own signed copy of The Treasures by Harriet Evans, as well as a bundle of beautiful summer stationery? Head over to our Instagram to enter!

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