The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett

Content Warning: This section contains discussions of suicide.

Annie Lyons, a resident of Southeast London, began her career in bookselling and transitioned to publishing before turning to a writing career. She has written seven novels and a novella and teaches creative writing. In an “About the Book” section included in the American paperback version, Lyons shares that in middle age she developed an “obsession” with death and decided to write a book that focused on the topic. When her own mother died, Lyons realized that her family had never discussed death. Lyons found writing The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett “a strange kind of therapy” and encourages her readers to have these important conversations about death with loved ones before it is too late (5).

The section also notes another personal connection: Lyons modeled Eudora on the wartime grit and stoicism of her parents’ generation. A later novel, The Air Raid Book Club (2023), revisits Lyons’s interest in World War II–era determination and philosophies of life, again paying homage to that generation. That novel also includes an Intergenerational Friendship in which an adult and child (a 15-year-old) learn from each other.