Great conversations is a look at some of the fantastic authors and writers we feature every week on Final Draft. It’s not always possible to use the full conversation live to air so this is your chance to discover more secrets and hidden gems about the books you love…

Today’s Great Conversation is with the award winning Melbourne author Chris Womersley. Chris won the Ned Kelly Award for his debut novel The Low Road, his second novel Bereft won the Indie Award and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. Chris’ latest novel is City of Crows, which takes us away to France and back in time to the seventeenth century, an era of magic and superstition.

Sitting broadly within historical events in France in the late seventeenth century, City of Crows explores the lengths to which people will go to hold on when they are disenfranchised and bereft of power. Charlotte Picot lives outside the capital, a world of labour and hardship compounded by rogues and the spread of disease. Charlotte flees her village with her son following the death of her husband by the plague. They are waylaid on the road and her son is kidnapped by traders who will sell him into servitude or worse. Rescued by a powerful but solitary woman, Charlotte is thrown into the path of Adam du Coeuret by seemingly mystical means. Together the pair embark to Paris to rescue Nicolas and encounter a world of intrigue and superstition where they must confront the cities underworld.

Chris Womersley joined Andrew Pople to discuss the world of seventeenth century France and the ways power, magic and superstition operated in lives of everyday people.

City of Crows is out now from Pan Macmillan

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

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