Aspects of History

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The past is never dead, it isn’t even past

Lucy Ashe

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Biography

Lucy Ashe is an author of historical, psychological, and crime novels. Her debut novel, Clara & Olivia, was published in 2023 by Magpie, Oneworld Publications (UK), and was entitled The Dance of the Dolls (Union Square & Co) in the US. It was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger and described by Publishers Weekly as ‘a fiercely memorable debut from a writer to watch.’ Her second novel, The Sleeping Beauties, was published in 2024 and her third novel, The Model Patient, in April 2026.

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The Model Patient is a psychological novel set in 1960s London about a former fashion model turned housewife who develops a dangerous obsession with her psychotherapist. Set in the transitional time between the conservatism of the 1950s and the liberalism of the Swinging Sixties, The Model Patient explores access to birth control, attitudes to mental health, and life during the Big Freeze of 1963.

Lucy trained at The Royal Ballet School for eight years, first as a Junior Associate and then at White Lodge. She has a Diploma in Dance Teaching with the British Ballet Organisation.

She studied English Literature at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, while continuing to dance and perform. After graduation, she obtained a PGCE teaching qualification and became an English and Drama teacher.

Her poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary journals and she was shortlisted for the 2020 Impress Prize for New Writers. She is an editor for the theatre review website, Plays To See.

Lucy lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Books

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Hunter Class - Alan Bardos
Hunter Class - Alan Bardos
Hunter Class - Alan Bardos

Articles

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From Stage to Page

From Stage to Page

When planning Clara & Olivia, I knew I wanted the setting of the novel to be a 1933 production of Coppélia performed by the Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler’s Wells theatre. However, by the time I had finished writing the novel, many more ballets had found their way into the narrative. While ...
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British Ballet

British Ballet

British BalletEver since I was a teenager training at The Royal Ballet School, I have been fascinated by dance history. Alongside daily ballet classes and academic lessons, we studied the development of ballet, how it emerged from the court dances of the Italian Renaissance, the impact of ...
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Historical Heroes: Ninette de Valois

Historical Heroes: Ninette de Valois

Dame Ninette de Valois was an ever-present figure throughout my years training at the Royal Ballet School, her name repeated in ballet studios, her influence permeating every rehearsal room. I saw her only once, at a celebration of her 100th birthday at the Royal Ballet School in 1998 when I ...
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Author Interview

Lucy Ashe
Lucy Ashe, what prompted you to choose the period that you wrote your first book in?I knew I wanted my novel to be set at a time of new beginnings for British Ballet, and the early 1930s was an important transitional time. Ninette de Valois founded the ...
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Fiction Book of the Month: Lucy Ashe on Clara & Olivia

Lucy, Clara & Olivia was your debut novel. Was the idea for the book long in gestation?

While Clara & Olivia is my first published novel, I did write ...

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Short Stories

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Sugar Plum

Sugar Plum

When rehearsals began for Casse Noisette, Theodore Frost couldn’t help thinking that Marie le Sansonnet would be a much better Mouse King than Sugar Plum Fairy. All that rushing around, thinking herself royalty, demanding hot drinks sweetened with sugar that certainly wasn’t coming out of her ...
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