Hello and welcome to Ask Penguin, the podcast about books and of course the people who write and publish them.

I'm Rihanna Dillon and this week I'm joined by Sophie McIntosh.

Sophie McIntosh is the author of four novels, including cursed bread for which she was long listed for the women's prize and the water cure for which she was long listed for the booker.

She was also selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2023. Her new novel

permanence is an unapologetically romantic, modern love story with a striking twist. Clara and

Francis are in love, but nobody knows it. For months, they've been slipping away from their

respective lives, sharing sweet, stolen afternoons in anonymous hotel rooms, until one day they wake up in a bedroom, neither of them recognises, with no memory of how they got there.

This is a story that asks, how do you know when you found true love? How much would you

sacrifice to keep it? And how long can you stay in paradise before the cracks start to show?

Sophie, huge congratulations on the book and welcome to Ask Penguin. Thank you so much, Rihanna.

It's lovely to be here. Thanks for having you.

Permanence is such a gorgeous book. I loved it. So I devoured it immediately. And it is built

on such a great concept and also quite a satisfying one to explain to people as well when you're

sharing the story. I alluded to it in the introduction, but what can tell us about the world that

your protagonists, Clara and Francis, inhabit, without giving too much away?

I kind of think of it as like a Disneyland for adulterers.

So they are a couple who's been having an affair.

And then they wake up in this magical city.

And in this city, they can be together the way they've never been together before.

And essentially, all they have to do is be in a relationship

together and being it openly and have fun and I kind of thought about the city I guess as

every romantic place I'd ever been like kind of what would be your dream holiday in the most romantic

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