Literary Lunch – Kate Moore

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21st September 2023 @ 12:15 pm 2:15 pm

Literary Lunch with Kate Moore

For our next Literary Lunch, we have author Kate Moore, who has written numerous books, both under her own name and as a ghostwriter for some extraordinary people. Some of her books include the New York Times bestseller The Radium Girls, the Sunday Times bestsellers Felix the Railway Cat and Catching a Serial Killer, and, more recently, the critically acclaimed The Woman They Could Not Silence.

Kate Moore

Kate Moore grew up in Peterborough and always dreamed of becoming a bestselling writer. 

After graduating from the University of Warwick with a degree in English Literature, she embarked on a  successful career in publishing as a nonfiction editor.

Over the next decade, she rose to become an editorial director at Penguin Random House UK.

In 2014 she went freelance as an author, editor and ghostwriter, penning numerous Sunday Times bestsellers, before publishing her best-known book, The Radium Girls, winner of the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History.

‘The Radium Girls’ tells the story of the young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium and their strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances.

Her latest book (published in June 2021) is The Woman They Could Not Silence, runner-up for Best History in the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best History, among other accolades. 

Book Synopsis

1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened – by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.

The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they’ve been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line – conveniently labelled “crazy” so their voices are ignored.

No one is willing to fight for their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose…

In an interview with BookBrowse, Kate talks more about how the book came about. Read the full interview here. If you would like to learn more about Kate, please visit www.kate-moore.com.

In this thrilling and carefully crafted book, Kate Moore tells the shocking story of how early twentieth-century corporate and legal America set about silencing dozens of working-class women who had been systematically poisoned by radiation… Moore [writes] so lyrically…FIVE STARS.

― The Mail on Sunday on The Radium Girls

Moore’s expert research and impassioned storytelling combine to create an absolutely unputdownable account… A veritable tour de force about how far women’s rights have come and how far we still have to go.

― Booklist, STARRED review of The Woman They Could Not Silence 

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£15 Ticket Price (per person)

The Ballroom, Old Bull Inn, Royston

56 High Street
Royston, Hertfordshire SG8 9AW United Kingdom
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