Liz Hyder and Lucy Barker Suzi Feay

Novelists Liz Hyder and Lucy Barker talk about their latest books set in a Victorian world of magic, illusions and mediums.

Hyder’s young adult debut, Bearmouth, won Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Branford Boase Award, and was chosen as the Children’s Book of the Year by The Times. She followed it up with an acclaimed adult novel, The Gifts. Her latest, The Illusions: An Astonishing Story of Women and Talent, Magic and Power, is set in Bristol in 1896 and is about Cecily Marsden, the young assistant to an ageing con artist, whose life is suddenly turned upside down when her master dies.

The Other Side of Mrs Wood is Barker’s debut novel. Mrs Wood is London’s most celebrated medium. She has survived for decades without the kind of slip-ups that have revealed other mediums to be frauds. She takes on a young assistant Emmie in an effort to spice up her show but is Emmie all she seems to be and is she a threat to Mrs Wood and her reputation?

Discussions are chaired by journalist and reviewer for the FT Suzi Feay.