You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Two Roads will publish Maggie Ritchie’s Daisy Chain, a novel inspired by the lives of pioneering women artists the Glasgow Girls, and set between pre-war Glasgow and 1920s Shanghai.
The title is billed as a "sweeping and atmospheric" story of feminism, friendship and creativity. The synopsis reads: "Lily Crawford and Jeanie Taylor, from very different backgrounds, are firm friends from their childhoods in Kirkcudbright. They share their ambitions for their futures, Lily to be an artist, Jeanie to be a dancer. The two women's eventful lives are intertwined but they lose touch when Jeanie flees domestic abuse and joins a dance company, while Lily attends The Mack, Glasgow's famous school of art designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. A chance meeting brings them back together and on to the glamour of 1920s Shanghai, where they must resort to desperate measures to ensure their safety."
Publisher Lisa Highton acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Jenny Brown at Jenny Brown Associates.
Ritchie says: "I’m so pleased that Two Roads will be publishing Daisy Chain, which gave me the chance to explore two worlds I find equally fascinating: turn-of-the-century Glasgow where women artists were at the forefront of the new Glasgow Style, and jazz-era Shanghai with its hedonistic demi-monde. Living in a city that retains much of its artistic and architectural past and a research trip to Shanghai’s beautifully preserved French quarter, allowed me to go back in time and follow in the footsteps of the Glasgow Girls."
Ritchie is the author of Paris Kiss (Saraband, 2015) and Looking for Evelyn (Saraband, 2017).