Historical Happy Hour

The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay

• Jane Healey • Season 1 • Episode 81

Share episode

In this episode of Historical Happy Hour, host Jane Healey chats with bestselling author Juliette Fay about her new novel The Harvey Girls. Together, they uncover the fascinating, little-known history of Fred Harvey’s hospitality empire, the young women who became Harvey Girls, and how this unique role transformed their independence in the 1920s. Fay shares insights into her research, character development, and writing process—while also reflecting on women’s opportunities, the challenges of historical fiction, and the surprising cultural impact of the Harvey Houses across the American Southwest

Jane:

Welcome to Historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction. I'm your host Jane Healey, and in today's episode, we welcome bestselling author Juliette Fay to discuss her latest novel the Harvey Girls. Right here, which has been called historical fiction at its most transportive grounded, vivid, and unexpectedly moving. And I agree it releases August 12th. Hello, Julia. Thank you for coming on. Hello. Thank you so much for having me, Jane. So good to see you. I feel like, you know, I, I, I've said this before, it's, it's so nice when it's an author I know that's coming onto, I know the podcast because it's like, oh, this will just be like talking to chat with a friend. Yeah. Just be fun. Yeah. So fun. Um, so let me just give a quick bio. I, I'm sure a lot of listeners already know you. Juliet Faye is the bestselling author of eight novels, including the Hardge girls. The half of it. Catch us when we fall. City of Flickering Light and the tumbling Turner Sisters A USA Today bestseller and Costco Penney's Book Club pick. Previous novels include The Shortest Way Home, one of library journal's Top five Best books, women's fiction. Deep down, true shortlisted for the Women's Fiction Award. By the American Library Association and shelter me a Massachusetts book award must read book and an indie next pick. Juliette is a graduate of Boston College and Harvard University. Again, welcome. Very nice to be here. Yeah, so happy to have sort of

Juliette:

here virtually

Jane:

here. Exactly. Um, I'm, so, talk about the Harvey Girls. I love. When you know, I, I read a book and it's this like undiscovered gem of history that I never, I never heard of the Harvey girls. I'd never heard of Fred Harvey and his hospitality empire. I love that you found it. Talk about how you discovered it and why you decided to write a novel centered around these women.

Juliette:

Um, you are not alone. Most people have not heard of the Harvey girls unless you lived in the Southwest. People in the Southwest, if you say the Harvey girls, they'll be like, of course uh, people of a certain age, like, 30 and under. Probably not. So I was writing, uh, my previous historical novel, city of Flickering Light. And it's about three people who jump off a moving train to sort of head in the opposite direction out to Hollywood. And they get on another train and it's a long journey and I'm thinking, how are they gonna eat? I. So I just, you know, Google, just do the, and I was like, oh my gosh, Harvey Houses, I'd never heard of this. And then I learned about the Harvey girls, and as soon as I learned about the Harvey girls, I was like, that's my next novel. Because I was fascinated by them. I waitressed through, I probably waitressed for a decade through all throughout my twenties. Um, I had this big fantasy about that I was gonna go work in a national park one summer. I just wanted to get outta Dodge, you know? And I never did it, but, um, so as soon as I started learning about them, I wanted to know more and more and it just became this sort of passion project. They were so cool and it was

Jane:

such

Juliette:

a phenomenon.

Jane:

Yeah. So interesting. One, one thing I love, in the very beginning of the story, you have a, a prologue about Fred Harvey. So why don't we set the stage for who he was and how he built this empire?'cause I thought that was so interesting,

Juliette:

right? Sure, sure. So, Fred Harvey, we don't know much about his early life. He was born in 1835 in England, comes to the United States alone with a couple of dollars in his pocket, gets a job in a restaurant as like a, a dishwasher. Just like falls in love with fine dining and actually opened his own cafe in St. Louis. This guy was just, he was driven, he was ambitious and he loved food. He was a complete foodie. So he opens his own cafe, but the. It fails and his partner runs off at the money and he ends up working for the railroads. And one of the things that he hates about working for the railroads is traveling because in those days, in the, in the you know, mid to late 18 hundreds steam engines traveled only a hundred miles before they had to stop for water and coal, and people would get off and look for food. And so these like sort of rustic. Shacks food establishments would, would crop up every a hundred miles. And the food was terrible. The food at best was simple. At worst, you would die of food poisoning like it was that bad. And people. So people hated traveling and you couldn't bring enough food to just eat your way across the country, out of your own backpack, so he had this great idea and he went to the railroads. A couple of railroads turned him down, including his own company that he worked for. He went to the Atchison Peak and Santa Fe Rail Ray and said. I think I can solve a problem that you have, which is people hate to travel. Um, and they said, we'll let you open one place. You opened it in Topeka. And and he was, he was not about, um, you know, uh, economy. He wanted white table claws and silverware and really high-end food. People started setting up their travel schedule so that they would be in Topeka for a meal. People in Topeka started going, you know, so it became very popular very quickly. And the Santa Fe railway was like, you're our guy. And he set up over, over the course of he, his first restaurant opened in 1876 and then they sold the company in the 1960s. His, his kids took over the company when he died, but they had over 80. Restaurants, nice restaurants all throughout the southwest. So it was very and in terms of the Harvey girls you know, nice restaurants had waiters, waitresses were like one step up from saloon girls. Um, he had waiters, but as one of his managers said, they tended to get liquored up and get in fights. So they. He, the manager said, what if we hired women and they decided they, they couldn't call'em waitresses, so they would call them Harvey girls. And at the time in the southwest, so the Santa Fe railway goes from basically Kansas all throughout the southwest Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Cal, you know, California Colorado. And so they started hiring these young women. About half of them came from the Midwest. Just farm girls who had never been to the next town, much less all the way across the country to, you know, stay in a dorm and learn the fine art of service. He had very high standards. You couldn't have, you couldn't have a lemon wedge out of place. And one of the, the interest, and he paid them really well. He paid them higher salaries than some of their, you know, they would send money home some of their fathers and brothers were making, they became really important breadwinners in the family because he gave them room, he gave them board. They, he gave them a decent salary and they could also make tips. So in, you know, in 1920s when my novel takes place, they were making like$50 a month, which was a huge amount of wo money for a woman at that time. And they could send it home, or they mm-hmm. He also gave them vacation time, which is also not really heard of. No. And they could travel anywhere they wanted on the Santa Fe rail. He made all these deals with the Santa Fe. He could, they could travel anywhere they wanted for free on the Santa Fe and stay in a Harvey house. So it was like they could, you know, and they'd stay in the dorm at the next, you know, you know, Harvey House three stops down or whatever. It gave these women, this, this agency over their own lives who were earning good money. They could travel without anybody, you know, without a husband or a, and also the Southwest at the time, starting, you know, in the 18 hundreds was two thirds men. Ranchers, railroad men, prospectors. And there's this great saying that there were no ladies west of west of Denver and no women west of Albuquerque. So suddenly here's this influx of young women into the community. So the guy, you know, guys in the Southwest were thrilled about half of all. So there's about a hundred, a hundred thousand women became Harvey Girls over the course of that 80 years. And about half of them stayed. Many of them married and had children whom they, the sons, they named either Fred or Harvey because it was such an incredible experience for them. They were grateful to the Fred Harvey company. Fred Harvey is credited with populating the southwest. Amazing. Amazing.

Jane:

I was reading that, especially about the babies and the names. I know. That's incredible. Yeah. Like, like the Yeah. That's stuff that like historical fiction authors live for, right? Like absolutely. Like it's so I was

Juliette:

eating that up

Jane:

with a

Juliette:

spoon. Yeah. Silverstone.

Jane:

And you know, I was, I kept having to remind myself that this was the 1920s. So for these, like they were. Very few paths for women in terms of Absolutely, and this was like a really unique path. It was a way out of whether, and we'll get into the characters, but like whatever situation you were in, particularly farm girls who, like you said, probably had never. Even been on a train before I mean, what an amazing way to open up these women's worlds in every way. Like, I thought that was so interesting.

Juliette:

Yeah. The, you know, and he didn't, it didn't stop there. Fred Harvey was so picky and he didn't believe that anybody else was training their people well. So he really only wanted to hire from within. These hard girls could become like an assistant manager and occasionally a manager of, of a restaurant. Unheard of at the time. Unheard of. Yeah. His head of personnel of the whole company and his chief architect of all the buildings were both women. That they were the two, two of the highest ranking women in corporate America. In the world at that time, and they both worked for the same company. So he was really ahead of his time. He was a little quirky and a little, you know, and, and not, not

Jane:

easy to please, but it worked. It worked. Yeah. I mean this was like way prem Mad Men days, right? So like, oh yeah. That kind of advancement for women in, in the corporate world was unheard of. Yeah. Just amazing.

Juliette:

And if you've read, if you've watched Mad Men or you know, any, you know, like those women were treated terribly. Yes. They were, you know, they were so abused. Mm-hmm. Harvey Girls, because of the association of waitresses with sort of, women of you know, the Knight. He made them dress basically like nuns. They had very strict rules they could not date. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And long sleeve wool dresses. He got, he got into cotton a little bit later, but it was and they had to comport. Comport themselves with utter propriety at all times. They couldn't date any other Harvey employees. They had to get the manager's approval to date anyone who wasn't an Harvey employee. So he really made it safe for them by creating this sort of bubble of rules around them. But within those rules, they had a lot of freedom.

Jane:

Yeah. Incredible. I wanna talk to you about research.'cause again, I love, I love author's notes. And it sounds like you had a lot of fun with this research. I did, yeah. And you, your sister was involved, like, so talk about the research for this book. And I always liked, like was there anything you came across that surprised you or shaped the narrative in a certain way? I, I'd love to hear about that.

Juliette:

Sure. So I knew that most of the girls got trained in to, in Topeka. It was closest to where Fred Harvey lived, and he was, you know, so they would get their training in Topeka, that first restaurant he had, and then they'd go out on the line. And depending on how good you were, you might get sent to some backwater place in Texas, or you might get sent to one of the higher end places. And I thought it would be fun. So one of the places that I learned about was the Grand Canyon, so I had no idea that the Grand Canyon the El Tovar hotel and and restaurant at the Grand Canyon was started by Fred. Um, it cost a quarter of a million dollars to build, and the Fred Harvey Company basically took over the railroad from. Or the Santa Fe plus Fred Harvey from Williams up to the Grand Canyon and people started showing up. This is in 1905. And so I was, and my sister lives in Flagstaff, so I was like, could this be any easier? Okay. Like, we're sending them to the Grand Canyon, it's an amazing setting. The other thing I really liked about the Grand Canyon was because it was so far removed and everybody who worked there on the South Rim was connected. Either they were a Harvey employee or they were a railroad employee, or they were park service.

Jane:

It

Juliette:

was, it was a very sort of insulated community and you were allowed to date other people within that community that, that was sort of a, it was sort of a wink and a nod about that. So I thought that would be fun. Mm-hmm. Um, and it was that really, so that's, so I decided that they would get, they would get sent to the Grand Canyon. Yeah. And then I start doing all this research about the Grand Canyon. I was horrified to learn. I've been to the Grand Canyon a million times, not a billion times, but a bunch of times.

Jane:

Mm-hmm.

Juliette:

And'cause my sister lives so close and I had no idea about the way that the Native Americans were treated. 1893, the Grand Canyon becomes a forest reserve. Mm-hmm. And then in 1919 it becomes agra, it becomes a national park. And basically the thinking was this is this beautiful place, but the Indians don't appreciate it. And they're a little, we don't really wanna see them. So they basically move all the Indians who had been using the Grand Canyon for hunting grounds and sacred grounds. And, and you know, if you've ever been to the, to the Grand Canyon, south Rim down, uh, the Bright Angel Trail, the what was used to be called the Indian Gardens is now have a supai garden gardens, they had all their, this farming right along the Colorado River, they were moved out. It decimated the tribes. It was terrible, terrible. And, and that, that made me pause. That really made me, I sort of stopped writing for a while'cause I was like, I can't not talk about this. This is so important, but how do I talk about it? In the context of the story, but also not taking over the story. Mm-hmm. Like how do I as a white woman, tell this story without it feeling like I'm, telling the story for somebody else. So I sort of, I, I, I held off for a while, while I thought about that, and then I decided that I just wanted to finish the story, whether it ever got published or not. There were two reasons I finished it. One. I'm not good at not finishing things. Once I start something, I'm gonna finish it. I might have a hard time getting going, but once I started, I'm gonna finish it. So it felt like this thing that was sort of hanging out there and I kind of wanted to know what was gonna happen. I don't plan everything out. And then the other reason is because a very cl close dear friend of mine, her dad is a huge fan of my historical fiction, and he would send me things and he was like, oh, she's writing about the Harvey girl snacks. He send me pictures. He would send me articles and, and then he would say, is she, what? Is she still doing it? Is she still writing it? And I had to say like, I'm taking a break. Um. I was like, I gotta finish it for Paul Paul needs to know this.

Jane:

That's right.

Juliette:

Um, and then I actually started because he's quite elderly. I started reading it to him and his eyesight's not good. I started reading it to him over the phone'cause I was afraid he was gonna go on his way before he would get to, you know, to know the story. So, Paul really was the big push to just get it done.

Jane:

Oh, that is so sweet. Yeah. And I'm sure he loved it so, so much that I love that. Um, so talk about how I love your characters are so well drawn. The main characters are Charlotte and Billy. They come from very different, like practically opposite backgrounds and do not get off to a great start. How do you develop, how'd you develop these two characters? How'd you come up with them? And kind of figure out their relationship.

Juliette:

Sure. So I the way I approach historical fiction is I sort of spend three or four months just learning everything I can. I don't even think about this story. I just wanna get my arms around. What was happening? What was the thing? What was the, what was the culture in which this was happening? What's the broader culture? What was happening politically? And then sort of get, you know, get all the pieces together before I decide, like, okay, what characters. We'll tell this story the best. And the thing that I, you know, I read so many stories about Harvey Girls different, you know, women coming from different areas of the country and why they came. And two things really stood out for me, the women who were sort of fleeing bad situations. So Charlotte is very wealthy. She's raised in Boston on Beacon Hill goes to Wellesley College, falls in love with her, one of her professors, and they. Abscond together basically. And they elope. Turns out he's not a good guy, so she's gotta figure out, and she's, her family won't have her back. How is she gonna save herself basically. And then the other thing that really, uh, sort of, tripped my imagination was that there were a lot of girls who would lie about their age. You had to be 18. To be a Harvey girl, you had to be between 18 and 30 and. There, there were girls who were desperate for the money or de desperate to get out of a bad situation, who would say, yeah, I'm 18. And you know, the records weren't, you know, it's not like you just, and you can find somebody. Right. Um, so what was gonna keep them from, so Billy is tall for her age. She's the, the oldest of nine children of Scottish immigrants. She's, she quit school in the sixth grade because they needed her help. So she doesn't have, she has. She's sort of undereducated. Charlotte is kind of overeducated. She comes from a little town in Nebraska. She's very sheltered. She's very homesick. She's only 15. Mm-hmm. Um, and they hate each other on site, basically. They just they don't understand each other and they get in each other's business and they're placed in the same room. Of course. So they have to figure out how to get along and then how to help each other.

Jane:

Yeah. Yeah. So good. I, Billy was my favorite, I think of the characters. I always ask writing questions. Um, you just kind of hinted that you are not a plotter, but I always ask if, what's your writing process? Are you a plotter or a panther? So I, I'd love to, I'd love to hear every, how everyone does it.

Juliette:

Yeah. I would say I'm right in the middle. I do a lot of research ahead of time. I do a lot of thinking about the characters ahead of time and this sort of narrative arc, the bit, the broader, where are we starting, where are we ending, what are the sort of landmarks along the way to get there.

Jane:

Mm-hmm.

Juliette:

But I don't plot everything out. And one of the things that I really love about the writing process is I'll sit down to write. Things will happen, you know, and I'll be like, oh, I didn't, I wasn't anticipating that, or whatever. You know, you're sort of in that trancey state where you're sort of smelling the smells and listening and you know, and sort of things pop into your head and you think, oh, okay. That's not what I expected. And so what I like to have is a plan, but it's a loose plan. Mm-hmm. So that if something comes up or you know, as you're writing, you're constantly researching. Like, I do this big chunk of research ahead of time, but then I feel like every page I'm like, wait, was that a thing in 1926? Or what would they have been eating or what, how much did that cost? Mm-hmm. So I'm constantly, and then you stumble upon something you think, I can't, I can't put this in. I had written a third of the novel before I learned, and, and, and the girls were at the Grand Canyon before I learned about what happened with the Native Americans. And so then I had to stop and do all that research and I knew I had to weave that in. Mm-hmm. So I have a plot in mind. I have a narrative arc, I have character arcs, but I'm open to changing things. And I always change things. Mm-hmm. There's always something that comes up that I go, oh no, I know. So

Jane:

I'm curious when you talk, because I'm, I know exactly what you're saying about like re researching as you go. Even you can do so much upfront, but you still, uh, whether it's music or fashion or whatever. Yes. Like all those little details that I love and that people love. Um, do you like. Make a note and be like, oh, I'll go back and research that later. When you're writing or you do, you like have to dive in right then and like add, add the detail.

Juliette:

Um, often it depends if I'm like in that sort of flow state where it's just like, you know, it's all happening and I'll be, I just put in like xx, you know, she wore XX and then I'll come back later. That's,

Jane:

I do that too. Yeah,

Juliette:

yeah, yeah. But occasionally if I'm, especially if I'm like, oh, this is hard. I don't, oh, I gotta go do some research. You know, like, yeah, it's bad writing day. I'm happy to go. Look at dresses from the 1920s, something like that. Oh yeah. Spend

Jane:

two hours on Pinterest looking at, right. Yeah, exactly.

Juliette:

Um, I do wonder how people wrote historical fiction before the internet.

Jane:

I know.

Juliette:

I mean, yeah, you went to the library, but they didn't have everything. I mean, there's so much, there's so much available mm-hmm. At your fingertips and that can be overwhelming. That can be like a fire hose of information coming at you that you're like, what do I pick? What do I focus on? Right. But I'll take that over. Gee, I hope I'm getting this right. Yeah, exactly.

Jane:

Um, this is your eighth novel. How has your writing process changed over the eight novels much or has it pretty much always been kind of the same? Um,

Juliette:

I, I would say it's, it's changed a little. Mostly it's the same. Mostly the way my brain works, has sort of stayed the same in terms of, how I do my research, how I organize things. I'm trying to get back to that place where you're the audience, you know, the readers, the publishing industry is outta my head completely, like my first novel. I didn't even think it would get published. I was doing it for my own entertainment. And then suddenly you are in an industry that's like Alice in Wonderland, you know, you're just like, none of this makes sense.

Jane:

No. And you're trying to keep

Juliette:

up with it, you know, because the industry, you know, I, my first book came out 20 2009, so we're 16 years now. The industry has changed dramatically. So you're constantly pedaling to sort of figure out. How do I, you know, what is, what's the best way to do public listening now? Or what are people looking for now? I try not to write for the market. Mm-hmm. And I find that I can't really, like my, one of my editors said to me, you know, five years ago or something, could you write me a World War II book? Because that's what's really selling now. And I was like, I could. That's not my thing. Right. And I don't think I would enjoy it if I'm not, or you know, I'm sure this happens to you, Jane. People say you write novels, have I got a story for you? But it has to be something that really grabs you. Absolutely. Something you wanna live with. I say this to people, I'm gonna live with this book for at least two years. Mm-hmm. One job for two years. I gotta love it.

Jane:

You have to love it. Yeah. Love it. To the point of obsession, I think. Yeah, like I think about that a lot.'cause someone did that to me really recently. Oh yeah, you need to write about this. And I'm like. Unless I'm like completely obsessed with it. I just, I can't, I could not do it. Like if someone was like, we'll pay you this much to write this, like, I, I don't think I could do it. Yeah.

Juliette:

Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, if I had to put food in my kid's mouth, I could write about anything, but, well, that's right. That's right. You know, I, but it's. But the whole sort of way that your brain latches on and becomes mildly obsessive mm-hmm. To your subject matter. And then of course you need to tell people about it. Have I told you about the Harvey girls? Right. And, you know, and you're like, you start to see people's eyes going really fine. It's really exciting.

Jane:

I know I'm not that great at the elevator pitch either. So it's like the two sentences and people are like, oh, okay. That's nice. Yeah.

Juliette:

My elevator pi, if I, if I need, if I know that somebody only really wants about a half a sentence about it, I say waitresses in the southwest on the railroads in the 1920s. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. And that, and that. I had to think about it. You know, like, that works. What's the, what is the, the mi the minimum you need to know about this

Jane:

story? The bite size. And I also was thinking when I was reading it too, I'm like, oh, 1920 Southwest. Like, I don't, I can't recall a book I've read that was in that era or in that area of the country. So that was a really, I love, um, you know, when, when you discover something that like hasn't been mined, like World War II has been mined a lot, right? So yeah, that was, it's like, it's, it was a fresh and new piece of history, American history. What. Advice do you have for aspiring authors about writing and about getting published? So this is a question, obviously, and as we said, that publishing industry is getting crazier by the year.

Juliette:

Oh my gosh. I know. It's so true. You know, I talk to high school students a lot. And one, this is my line that I say to them, as a writer, I want you to write as a mom, I want you to have a day job.

Jane:

Mm-hmm.

Juliette:

Because it is so unreliable. It's just, it's unreliable for quote unquote, successful authors. You don't know if your next book's gonna get picked up. You just don't. You

Jane:

don't,

Juliette:

um, unless you're Taylor Jenkins read and you have a$40 million contract for five books calling, which I love her books. I'm glad she's getting paid well, but I'm like, oh my god, in terms of the industry you can't rely on it for money because and even if you are, like I said, quote unquote successful, the money comes and goes like, mm-hmm you have a good year. Then you don't, if you didn't sell a book that year, and I don't write a book a year, I write, it's, it's about every two years in the off year, you don't have much income. It's a very tough industry and it has gotten harder. I think it's gotten much harder. So there's that. In terms of writing and doing something you love you should do it. You should do it. And there's, you know, there people in the arts. People who love arts, you know, you might be, you know, an attorney or you know, whatever, a wait or a waitress and you love quilting. Well, you don't need to quilt for your job. You can just do it. Mm-hmm.

Jane:

And

Juliette:

that's what I really think is important is find a way to do what you love. And if you wanna be a writer, be a writer. Mm-hmm.

Jane:

Mm-hmm.

Juliette:

You just can't rely on the remuneration. Exactly. That may or may not come.

Jane:

Excellent advice, and I don't think that's talked about enough, frankly, to, to newer or aspiring authors. Yeah. Such good advice. So covers and titles are hard. I'm guessing that the title was pretty easy for this one.

Juliette:

Um, that was always the title, and that is not it's rare for me in my career that I just picked a title and that was it.

Jane:

Yeah, no, I, I, it obviously, I was like, oh, of course. Like it's gonna be that. Um, but the, and I love the cover too. Do you have much input in your covers?

Juliette:

My, my editor was so great. She was, you know, she was really responsive. I always have a lot of ideas about covers. I for various books, they've been like, oh, sure, pat, you on the head, go, you know, like, we're gonna do whatever we want.

Jane:

Mm-hmm.

Juliette:

Um, my, my experience in traditional publishing is they're gonna come up with something they like. You're gonna get to tweak it a little bit. So they came up with this, and at first I felt like it was a little too sweet for the story. It was a little too, la, la, la. Everything's fine. You know, when you have people dealing with real stuff. Mm-hmm. Um, and but then it was like, okay, they decided this is the one. And then I did things like, well, could you make one of them a blonde? It was two brunettes. Mm-hmm.'cause one of the girls, one of the women is blonde. Mm-hmm. And they had a very boring plate. And that I said, the plate is just, and it doesn't, it doesn't match with what's going on. And they said, go find a plate. So I, so they'll let you do some things. Mm-hmm. But they're kind of gonna, they're gonna do what they want. That's my experience.

Jane:

My experience. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a graphic, I'm not an artist or designer, but like, yeah, I, I'll, I get a little bit of input, but not, certainly not the final stay. I'm very happy with that now. No, I, you know, it's perfect. I think the uniforms,'cause you also have in, in like part one, part two, you, you've got a couple photos of the, of the girls, like black and white photos and the uniforms are amazing'cause they do look a little bit convent like, like not, yeah. None. None, are you? Yes. Right. Yeah. Um, but yeah. What, are you ready to talk about what you're working on next?

Juliette:

Sure. And again, I don't know whether this is, you just never know. Um, the next book is about it's contemporary fiction. It's a little more romancey than I've written in the past. It's not romance. I would say it's, you know, more in the sort of women's fiction, general fiction, but it's about three people in a small town who've all lost their person one way or another. And they sort of form this friendship, um, with its conflicts and and it's sort of how they support each other, what they face with their. Some of the people are still with us and some of them are not. And also how they support each other.

Jane:

Lovely.

Juliette:

Yeah.

Jane:

Yeah.

Juliette:

We'll see.

Jane:

How, I know you mentioned you have a mailing list, uh, newsletter. How can readers best keep in touch with you?

Juliette:

Um, the, the newsletter is the best way because I, whatever I have to say, I send out to my newsletter people first. So on my website, juliette faye.com, there's a contact thing and it'll, you know, you can just pop your email. Right in there. And you'll get, and I don't send it, I send it out about once a month. It's not gonna clog anybody's e emails. And really only around the time that a book is coming out. And then occasionally, you know, I'll do one when it's between books. But I put recipes in there. I put silly stuff in there. I, it's book news, but it's also, what I'm eating. Fun stuff. Yeah. I appreciate that. Recipes. Yeah. Can't all be books all the time.

Jane:

Right? Right. This was lovely. The Harvey Girls comes out August 12th. I think readers are just gonna love it. I love the women. I love the un like kind. Unknown history. Um, so I wish you so much luck. I think it's gonna do fantastic and um, thank you for coming on. I hope I see you in person soon too.

Juliette:

Yes, thank you Jane. I really appreciate you inviting me. It's delightful to chat with you.

Jane:

So delightful. Um, and that is a wrap. I am recording a bunch of episodes so I can take the month awe of August off to focus on my release of the word of Arlington Hall. Um, but I will be back. Great book by the way. Great book. Thank you. I know. Thank you for reading and uh, yes, and I will be back with some live events and also more recordings in September. So thank you again, Juliet. Have a great day. Thank you, you too. Take care.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jane Healey

Host