You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.

I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.

I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,

relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.

So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,

and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience.

And maybe that's you.

So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.

Hello, we've got romance in a time of civil war, food at a time of heartbreak and a seriously wet holiday in Scotland.

With me to introduce a book they love are two writers.

Greta Say Mitchell is the best-selling author of crime novels and thrillers, most recently Say Her Name, co-written with her partner Ryan Carter and published just a couple of months ago.

Emma Gannon's books include the best-selling the multi-hyphen method and disconnected, how to stay human in an online world.

She's the author so far of one novel, Olive, and she hosts the careers podcast Control, Alt, Delete.

Greta say Mitchell, would you start us off? What's your choice of a good read? A wonderful book called

An Extraordinary Union by Elisa Cole. I got this in when it came out in 2017 and I was just wowed by it. So it's a historical

suspend stroke spy romance set in the American Civil War. There aren't many romances that

are set in the in the American Civil War. And what makes this book just absolutely pop is the main character is a black woman called

Ellie. And Ellie, Ellen Burns, she's really called. She's a spy in a southern senator's household

in the guise of a slave who can't speak. And she then finds out there's another spy in the household,

who is a Pinkerton detective, and he's white, Malcolm, and they team up. And you can imagine

when they team up, there's a lot of sexual sizz going on, which is absolutely wonderful.

But the reason this book is an extraordinary union for me is it's not

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