2023 Authors' Club Best First Novel Award (nominee)
2023 British Book Award Debut Book of the Year (nominee)
2023 McKitterick Prize (shortlist)
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • A transporting, irresistible debut novel that takes its heroine, Cristabel Seagrave, from a theatre made of whalebones to covert operations during World War II—a story of love, family, bravery, lost innocence, and self-transformation.
“Absolute aces...Quinn’s imagination and adventuresome spirit are a pleasure to behold.” —The New York Times
“Utterly heartbreaking and joyous.” —Jo Baker, author of Longbourn
One blustery night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel. By law, it belongs to the King, but twelve-year-old orphan Cristabel Seagrave has other plans. She and the rest of the household—her sister, Flossie; her brother, Digby, long-awaited heir to Chilcombe manor; Maudie Kitcat, kitchen maid; Taras, visiting artist—build a theatre from the beast’s skeletal rib cage. Within the Whalebone Theatre, Cristabel can escape her feckless stepparents and brisk governesses, and her imagination comes to life.
As Cristabel grows into a headstrong young woman, World War II rears its head. She and Digby become British secret agents on separate missions in Nazi-occupied France—a more dangerous kind of playacting, it turns out, and one that threatens to tear the family apart.
Genre: Historical
“Absolute aces...Quinn’s imagination and adventuresome spirit are a pleasure to behold.” —The New York Times
“Utterly heartbreaking and joyous.” —Jo Baker, author of Longbourn
One blustery night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel. By law, it belongs to the King, but twelve-year-old orphan Cristabel Seagrave has other plans. She and the rest of the household—her sister, Flossie; her brother, Digby, long-awaited heir to Chilcombe manor; Maudie Kitcat, kitchen maid; Taras, visiting artist—build a theatre from the beast’s skeletal rib cage. Within the Whalebone Theatre, Cristabel can escape her feckless stepparents and brisk governesses, and her imagination comes to life.
As Cristabel grows into a headstrong young woman, World War II rears its head. She and Digby become British secret agents on separate missions in Nazi-occupied France—a more dangerous kind of playacting, it turns out, and one that threatens to tear the family apart.
Genre: Historical
Praise for this book
"Utterly captivating. An epic romp with characters you cannot help but fall in love with and a plot that takes you in all sorts of unexpected directions. Written with great heart, humour and humanity, it's the kind of book you want to escape normal life to read at every available opportunity." - Elizabeth Day
"Playful, inventive, sharp, funny, The Whalebone Theatre offers the sort of reading experience that is remarkably rare, even for those of us whose happiest hours are spent with books: sheer, undiluted delight from start to finish. Set in a big house on the Dorset coast and spanning the decades between the end of the first World War and the end of the second, it breathes fresh, bracing air into the lungs of the multi-generational saga--and the very form of the novel itself. Few people writing today can match Quinn for the energy and precision of her prose: sentences begin boldly, proceed to hit every nail on their path, then land, gorgeously, in a totally unexpected place. In Quinn's hands, archetypes are re-born: characters damaged by the usual unsavoury traditions of the British aristocracy are depicted with piercing efficiency, then found to be loveable despite it all. Catchphrases from the past are dug up, tossed wittily around, and suddenly understood for the very first time. Most importantly of all, perhaps, Quinn gives us Cristabel, the sort of intelligent heroine that has been sorely missing from every other classic since Middlemarch: disinterested in marriage yet capable of immense love. It's impossible not to be charmed by this book, its cast of characters, and Quinn's constantly striking prose. It is both reassuringly familiar, and startlingly new: a big fat Victorian novel written by someone from the post #metoo years." - Susan Elderkin
"Can there be a better proscenium arch than the salvaged ribs of a beached whale? Framed by these giant bones, Quinn's story passes like a fabulous pageant, richly coloured and packed with incident, taking us from the lonely and unorthodox Dorset childhood of the extraordinary Cristabel to the poignant aftermath of her heroic Second World War. Quinn has a sublime touch: Cristabel and her troupe are unforgettable, as riotous in comedy as they are heart-breaking in tragedy." - Frances Liardet
"The circus playfulness of the language, the old story of the great house dazzlingly refreshed, the kind heart and the witty eye, the deep understanding of a girl's need to be the hero of her own life--this is a book that will be loved unreasonably and life-long, I believe, like I Capture The Castle." - Francis Spufford
"Magnificent. As capacious, surprising and magical as the whale that lends its bones to Cristabel's theatre: a tale of intertwined lives and braided fates as deftly managed and heartbreaking as a Dickens novel." - Rebecca Stott
"The Whalebone Theatre has all the makings of a classic. And Cristabel Seagrave is the most gratifying hero. The war scenes often left me breathless: they are as good as you will ever read. A wonderful debut. Actually, a tour de force." - Sarah Winman
"Playful, inventive, sharp, funny, The Whalebone Theatre offers the sort of reading experience that is remarkably rare, even for those of us whose happiest hours are spent with books: sheer, undiluted delight from start to finish. Set in a big house on the Dorset coast and spanning the decades between the end of the first World War and the end of the second, it breathes fresh, bracing air into the lungs of the multi-generational saga--and the very form of the novel itself. Few people writing today can match Quinn for the energy and precision of her prose: sentences begin boldly, proceed to hit every nail on their path, then land, gorgeously, in a totally unexpected place. In Quinn's hands, archetypes are re-born: characters damaged by the usual unsavoury traditions of the British aristocracy are depicted with piercing efficiency, then found to be loveable despite it all. Catchphrases from the past are dug up, tossed wittily around, and suddenly understood for the very first time. Most importantly of all, perhaps, Quinn gives us Cristabel, the sort of intelligent heroine that has been sorely missing from every other classic since Middlemarch: disinterested in marriage yet capable of immense love. It's impossible not to be charmed by this book, its cast of characters, and Quinn's constantly striking prose. It is both reassuringly familiar, and startlingly new: a big fat Victorian novel written by someone from the post #metoo years." - Susan Elderkin
"Can there be a better proscenium arch than the salvaged ribs of a beached whale? Framed by these giant bones, Quinn's story passes like a fabulous pageant, richly coloured and packed with incident, taking us from the lonely and unorthodox Dorset childhood of the extraordinary Cristabel to the poignant aftermath of her heroic Second World War. Quinn has a sublime touch: Cristabel and her troupe are unforgettable, as riotous in comedy as they are heart-breaking in tragedy." - Frances Liardet
"The circus playfulness of the language, the old story of the great house dazzlingly refreshed, the kind heart and the witty eye, the deep understanding of a girl's need to be the hero of her own life--this is a book that will be loved unreasonably and life-long, I believe, like I Capture The Castle." - Francis Spufford
"Magnificent. As capacious, surprising and magical as the whale that lends its bones to Cristabel's theatre: a tale of intertwined lives and braided fates as deftly managed and heartbreaking as a Dickens novel." - Rebecca Stott
"The Whalebone Theatre has all the makings of a classic. And Cristabel Seagrave is the most gratifying hero. The war scenes often left me breathless: they are as good as you will ever read. A wonderful debut. Actually, a tour de force." - Sarah Winman
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Used availability for Joanna Quinn's The Whalebone Theatre