Gill Hornby

Gill Hornby's debut novel, The Hive, hit America in September 2013.

From her Q & A with Lisa O'Kelly in the Observer:

Is it nerve-racking, publishing your first novel when your brother is Nick Hornby and your husband is Robert Harris?

Yes, it's terrifying, and not just because there are bound to be comparisons. Apart from doing a bit of journalism, I've lived an extremely quiet life for 20 years, raising my children, and now I'm feeling exposed. This is so much more personal than writing a column in a newspaper. It's entirely you.

The Hive is about playground politics among a group of mothers who meet at the gates of a home counties primary school. Need I ask you, as a mother of four, where you got the the idea?

I think I've had the idea all my life, since I was aged seven in the school playground. The book is about queen bees, the rule of the clique, and what that does to us. There are queen bees like my main character Bea everywhere. Most start off quite nice but, as their power over the clique grows, other women get girl-crushes on them and indulge them until we find we've created a monster. Then it's: "We hate you, you're a bitch", and we start hovering around someone else. Power...[read on]

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--Marshal Zeringue