Jo Beckett-King’s newly published debut The House of Found Objects listed for the Bath Children’s Novel Award 2021. She tells us about her writing process, querying her manuscript and landing a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster.
The House of Found Objects is out now in the US with Simon and Schuster as the first in a series for younger readers. How does it feel to see it hitting the bookshops?
It’s hard to describe without resorting to clichés. It’s honestly a dream come true!
Back in 2021, an early draft of your manuscript—then titled Bea Bellerose and the Case of the Missing Picasso—was longlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award. You’ve said that the longlisting gave you a real boost at a time when you needed it most. Could you tell us more about those moments of self-doubt and how you kept believing in your book?
There were so many moments of self-doubt! After finishing a first draft, I sent out a small batch of queries to agents, probably sooner than I should have. When I received some manuscript requests, I was confident that the premise and the first pages had potential, but when those requests turned into rejections, I suspected there was something fundamentally wrong with the manuscript, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
It turns out, I needed some space from it. I left it alone for months and months and distracted myself with something new. When I was ready to return to it, I sought feedback from others, and their comments helped me brainstorm ways of tackling the manuscript’s weaknesses. By the time I entered the competition, I’d changed the beginning and overhauled the plot so that the characters’ motivations made more sense. When the novel was longlisted, I took it as confirmation that I was finally on the right track.
What do you enjoy most about writing for middle-grade readers?
I was such a voracious reader at that age, so I love the idea of writing for young bookworms. When I started working on the novel, I had never written for children before. I had mostly written short stories, and I tended to struggle with plot. Writing for a younger audience allowed me to loosen up a little, and I found it quite freeing. Without worrying so much about style, I was able to focus on telling a compelling story above all else.
Where, when and how do you like to write?
If I’m feeling motivated, I write at home. If I need a little extra push, I usually go to the library or a café so that I can work without distractions. I know a popular piece of advice is to write every day, but I’ve always found that counterproductive; it can make you feel like you’ve failed before you’ve even begun. I think it’s much more important to write consistently. When I’m working on a first draft, I set a daily goal of 1,000 words, and then I set a realistic target for how many writing days I can fit in per month, depending on the other commitments I have at the time. I also believe in having some guilt-free downtime between projects.
In The House of Found Objects, twelve-year-old Bea from New Jersey is visiting family in Paris for the summer when her grandmother’s most precious heirloom—a drawing by Henri Matisse—goes missing. What sparked the story idea?
Back when I lived in Paris in the late 2000s, I came up with the character of an eccentric grandma who ran an antiques shop called the House of Found Objects, inspired by the charming shopfronts in the Marais district. At the time, it was just a sketch; I had vague ideas about turning it into a picture book one day. Years later, when I was having trouble with another fiction project I was working on (a novel for adults), I remembered the grandma character, and it all sprung from there.
Bea embarks on a search across Paris, deciphering riddles, solving puzzles, and cracking codes. Do you have any favourite Paris spots—and any tips for creating satisfying puzzles?
Père Lachaise Cemetery is a beautiful spot, which I managed to include in the book! It’s so atmospheric, with a lot of famous graves worth visiting. In a similar vein, the Paris catacombs are also pretty fascinating if you don’t mind the macabre. As for creating puzzles, I consider myself an amateur, really, but I suppose the principles are similar to plotting a story — there need to be enough obstacles to keep it interesting and a logical solution that feels surprising yet inevitable.
What did you love most about your own time in Paris—and what’s it like being a Francophile Brit living in the US?
I graduated from university during the financial crisis, so Paris felt like an escape from a depressing job market back home. I found work as a waitress and enrolled in a French course to improve my fluency. Living abroad in a completely different culture wasn’t always easy, but it was an adventure and I made some great friends while I was there. I feel so lucky to have had that experience. Nowadays, I mostly stay in touch with the culture by watching French films, which also helps me keep up my language skills.
Your literary agent is Elise Howard at DeFiore and Company Literary Management. What was your querying journey like—and how did you connect with Elise?
As mentioned above, my querying journey was not particularly straightforward. After the novel was longlisted, I took some time to polish the manuscript and eventually began querying again, more widely this time. I was fortunate enough to receive a decent number of requests, so I felt confident about my query package, but I kept receiving rejections along the lines of “I liked it, but I just didn’t fall in love.” The “almost but not quite” rejections were the hardest to deal with. I felt like I had taken the manuscript as far as I could on my own. By the time I came across Elise’s profile, I was starting to lose hope, in all honesty, but about a week after querying her, she requested the manuscript, and about a week after that, she offered!
Tell us a bit about your submission experience and how your deal with Simon & Schuster came about.
In contrast to my querying journey, my experience on submission was pretty quick and painless. Elise became a literary agent after a long career as an editor, so I fully trusted her judgment when it came to revising the manuscript prior to submission. She soon got it into the hands of Krista Vitola at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, and not long after that, we had an offer for a two-book deal!
You’re a French-to-English translator, and your love of the language shines through in the wonderfully playful vocabulary—like Aunt’s “coucou”. Do you have any favourite French words?
This might sound a little corny, but I’ve always been fond of the term coup de foudre (literally, “stroke of lightning”), which also means “love at first sight.”
Bea and Céline begin with an awkward, standoffish dynamic before becoming close friends. How important have international friendships been in your own life?
I’ve had quite a lot of international friendships over the years, and I’m always interested in meeting people with diverse perspectives and experiences. In the novel, having the cousins come from different backgrounds felt like a natural way of exploring the cultural differences between the French-speaking and English-speaking worlds. I enjoyed making them clash!
We loved cousin Céline’s clear-eyed directness. It’s sometimes said that the French are more direct because of the precision of the language and a cultural openness around sharing opinions. Would you agree?
I do agree that there is a directness in the language that can sometimes be mistaken for rudeness. In my experience, French culture really values politeness, but sometimes the rules of etiquette can be a little confusing to outsiders and misunderstandings can arise.
In Book Two, the cousins reunite in New York. What does Céline make of the city?
In the second book, it was fun to reverse the situation. In New York, Bea is a little more self-assured, and Céline is the one who finds herself in an unfamiliar place. Of course, she soon falls in love with the city.
Is there a particular piece of writing advice that’s really stuck with you?
“Perseverance is everything” is one piece of advice that has really resonated with me. For a long time, I had trouble finishing things; I would lose interest halfway through or find myself stuck, unsure of where a story was headed. By committing to finishing a novel-length project, I proved to myself that I could actually write something longer than a short story.
Finally, do you have any advice for writers thinking of entering this year’s competition?
Do it! Sometimes the odds of winning writing competitions can feel so remote, it’s easy to talk yourself out of entering them, but in my experience, just having a set deadline can be a strong motivator. The work you put into polishing your entry will improve your manuscript in the long run, so it’s worth doing regardless of the outcome. Then, if you end up making the short or longlist, it’ll be a bonus.
Interview by Caroline Ambrose
JO BECKETT-KING is originally from England, and spent several years in Paris after graduating from university. Following a stint in New York, she now lives with her husband in San Francisco, where she writes and works as a French-to-English translator.
The House of Found Objects Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.Org | Amazon
“Codebreakers and mystery fans will want to read this fun adventure, tout de suite.” —Kirkus Reviews
For fans of Beth Lincoln’s The Swifts and Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Greystone Secrets series comes an exciting mystery filled with cryptic clues and wonderful word puzzles as two cousins search for their grandmother’s missing portrait.
Twelve-year-old Bea from Passaic, New Jersey, is visiting her family in Paris for the summer when her grandmother’s most precious heirloom—a drawing by Henri Matisse—goes missing. After a cryptic clue arrives on Bea’s doorstep suggesting its whereabouts, Bea is determined to pursue the lead.
Without the French skills to navigate her way around the landmarks of Paris, she teams up with her cousin, Céline, whose clear-eyed French directness makes her a perfect partner for curious, problem-solving Bea. The girls embark on a city-wide search, deciphering riddles, solving puzzles, and cracking codes as they try to locate the Matisse, find a thief, and identify their mysterious benefactor.
