Sophie Austin's The Lamplighter’s Bookshop set in York

Sophie Austin, an author signed with HarperCollins, will publish her debut novel The Lamplighter’s Bookshop tomorrow (March 13).

The novel is a love story set 1899 featuring Evelyn Seaton, a former high society lady who applies for a job in an old and forgotten bookshop in the centre of York where she meets prickly writer William Morton.

The idea for her novel came to Sophie during the pandemic, with ideas for the story of Evelyn and William combining with loose inspiration taken from The Minster Gate Bookshop and the city itself during past visits to the area.

RECOMMENDED READING:

• York man to bring crime to the city in new novel
• York woman publishes first book - 30 years after it was written!

Sophie said: “I wrote this novel during the pandemic – and I wanted the story to feel cosy, to feel like an escape from everything that was happening outside my window, which is another reason why York felt like the perfect setting. It’s where I wanted to escape to – back between its winding streets.”

To ensure her novel was accurate to the city’s landscape, Sophie said that she spent a period comparing 1890 and 1900s maps of the city to the modern-day layout to make things as accurate as possible.

She was also keen to involve certain York landmarks in her writing - including the Railway Station and The Milner Hotel, ‘keystones’ of the city in Victorian England as rail travel became more popular, and York Theatre Royal – the city’s first theatre where a pivotal scene in the novel is set.

Sophie and friend Ruby Kirby outside the Minster (Image: Provided) Sophie said: “I felt a bit like a treasure hunter, trying to see what had survived from that time period, and what had been demolished or rebuilt. I think I just wanted to try and capture the magic of York. It certainly feels magical to me, whenever I get to visit.

“When I first started planning the book, I was already picturing York in my head. I knew I wanted there to be this push and pull between old and new in the story – for Evelyn and Will, they’re trapped in this conflict between traditional Victorian expectations and the burgeoning modern age, and for me that’s how it feels to walk around York.

“It’s a city of contrast – you can step from a busily trafficked road and lose yourself down medieval streets. There are pubs and buildings that have been there since the 1400s, the 1500s, and modern life just flows around them.

A favourite building - the Merchants Hall in Walmgate (Image: Provided) “It’s one of the things I love the most about York – how rich with history the city is, and how it has persisted in some ways, and changed in others, so it really made for the perfect setting for a novel that tackles what it might’ve been like to have lived on the cusp of a new age, and the struggles the characters face.”

Sophie, who works as a writer for Mojang’s Minecraft, currently lives in Sweden but said that she would have likely relocated to York had she made the decision to stay in the UK – finding a love for the city and its bookshops, especially Criminally Good Books in Colliergate, during her visits.

The book has already had a positive reception from advanced readers with a score of 4.2 on Amazon and 4.1 on review website Goodreads. There is a plan for a second novel set in the same period but in Liverpool.

The Lamplighter’s Bookshop by Sophie Austin is published by HarperCollins on March 13.