Ellery Lloyd's "The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby"

Ellery Lloyd is the pseudonym for the London-based husband and wife team of Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos whose last novel, instant New York Times bestseller The Club, a “smart, stylish, and savage” (People Magazine), was a Reese’s Book Club pick. The former deputy editor of Grazia Middle East, content director of Elle (UK), and editorial director at Soho House, Lyons studied History of Art at Trinity College, Cambridge, and has worked in Sydney, Dubai, and London. She has written for the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the Sunday Times. Vlitos is the author of two previous novels, Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day Is Like Sunday. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Greenwich.They are also the authors of People Like Her.

Here the authors dreamcast an adaptation of their new novel, The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby:

Vlitos: The Final Act of Juliette Willoughy is a mystery set over the course of one hundred years, and centers around a runaway aristocratic painter – Juliette – and her great lost masterpiece, which was believed destroyed in the studio fire which killed her and her older married lover, Oskar, in 1938. In 1990s Cambridge, Patrick and Caroline, two art history students become obsessed with this story, and uncover something which they believe proves that the fire was no accident and there was something sinister at play. Fast forward to now, and Patrick, an art dealer in Dubai, is accused of murdering his oldest friend - and the only surviving member of the Willoughby dynasty – after selling Juliette’s newly-rediscovered painting for a fortune.

Lyons: Now I have to be honest, I don’t think we usually have actors or actresses in mind when we write our novels - I know some writers actually have photos up on their walls of real people who they imagine in their books - but I have to admit that Eddie Redmayne did pop into my head as Patrick occasionally, as I studied History of Art with him at Cambridge, and he was pretty much the only man on the course in our year! For Caroline, the dream casting would be Florence Pugh because she is always brilliant in everything and Caroline has her feisty, headstrong energy. For her best friend Athena, I think Marisa Abela. And for Juliette, Sophie Turner would do an incredible job. Now all we need is someone to make it…

Visit Ellery Lloyd's website.

--Marshal Zeringue