Chat #22 - Lucy Rose
"A rising tide lifts all ships"
This interview is free to read. Paid subscriptions support artist honoraria.
Lucy Rose’s fiction and non-fiction have been published by Dread Central, Mslexia, The Observer, The Nerd Daily and more, and her films have screened at BAFTA- and Oscar-qualifying film festivals internationally. She is also a Forbes “30 Under 30 Europe Class of 2025” honouree and a “Books Are My Bag” Fiction Award shortlist nominee.
Lucy’s Sunday Times bestselling debut novel, The Lamb, is published by W&N Books in the UK and Harper in the US. It was selected for “Foyles Book of the Month”, named best debut novel of 2025 by Cosmopolitan and Spotify, chosen for Dakota Johnson’s “Tea Time Book Club”, and became a Goodreads Choice Award finalist and NetGalley’s “Literary Fiction Novel of the Year 2025”.
Find Lucy Rose online at lucyrosecreative.co.uk
07/02/2026, 10:01 - Finbarre:
Welcome to Tarot DMs with Finbarre Snarey. Today, I’m speaking to the Sunday Times bestseller, Lucy Rose. Hello!
07/02/2026, 10:03 - Lucy Rose:
Hello, hello. I’m so happy to be here. This is probably maybe one of the most fun interviews I’m ever going to do.
07/02/2026, 10:03 - Lucy Rose:
I should note, I’m also here with my black cat called Figgy.
07/02/2026, 10:05 - Finbarre:
Please give your familiar a scritch from me. I’ve been abandoned by my three. I’ve got Bexley, the tuxedo cat, this venerable gent who unfortunately looks a bit like something from Phantom of the Opera. He had his tooth removed and he had this big kind of swollen face and his eye was closed and he was looking rather miserable.
But he’s on the mend and he’s eating me out of house and home. I’ve got Beigli who is a ginger nonsense who has, I think, a brain cell, perhaps? And we’ve got Dios who is the sweetest, most cat-like cat I think I’ve ever owned. Have you got a picture of your little one there?
07/02/2026, 10:06 - Lucy Rose:
Oh my God, they sound perfect. I think we are in the absolute best company that we could possibly be in.
07/02/2026, 10:06 - Lucy Rose: Pic incoming
07/02/2026, 10:06 - Lucy Rose:
07/02/2026, 10:08 - Finbarre:
One from a few days back, here is Beigli sitting on my wife’s knitting project (a packet of crisps design from the 1980s)
07/02/2026, 10:09 - Lucy Rose: GORGEOUS
07/02/2026, 10:09 - Lucy Rose: literally sunshine
07/02/2026, 10:11 - Finbarre:
Oh, and he knows it. He’s been my marmalade-colored nurse, sleeping next to the cast I currently have on my leg after unfortunately doing in my ankle… but I don’t know if the purring of a cat helps bone recovery? Yeah, let’s hope it does.
Right. Normally, what I would do is I would open up the conversation by talking about, oh I so want to talk about your book, The Lamb!
But, against convention, I’m going to jump straight into your first card and then we’ll come back to your projects.
What’s your familiarity with tarot?
07/02/2026, 10:14 - Lucy Rose:
I have not a lot of experience with tarot. And by that, what I mean is that I’m kind of softly spiritual. I’ve always been surrounded by spiritual people. I have grown up around people who’ve read tarot. And I do pull myself a tarot card at least once a month. But I don’t think I have that really, really unique intuition that people who are really good at spiritual tarot have. I don’t have that intuition. But I do like the advice that tarot cards give me.
So I do, I have a couple of packs of tarot cards that I’ve been gifted. And I do pull the occasional card for myself and take the advice. But I’m not experienced, I wouldn’t say. And also, I just don’t think that I have that special intuition, but the advice is good.
07/02/2026, 10:17 - Finbarre:
Well, Lucy, I have a treat for you because we’ll be using the Queer Crow Death Magic Tarot by Frank Duffy.
I have an exceptionally nice deck just here. And your first card, spoilers, will be The Lovers.
Now, this is the card that everyone’s getting this season, obviously, with Valentine’s Day coming. This is a card of... let me guide you through the traditional meanings of the Lovers.
It’s a card of connection and alignment, significant choices. It represents union. Not necessarily romantic, something as spiritual as that connection.
It could be ethical or interpersonal. It’s the harmonization of opposites, if you like.
07/02/2026, 10:17 - Lucy Rose: Oooooooooh
07/02/2026, 10:17 - Finbarre:
07/02/2026, 10:19 - Lucy Rose:
Oh, this is so interesting. I really like this card. This card makes me feel super hopeful. Actually, I think it’s. Do you know what’s so interesting about writing is that it appears solitary from the outside, but it’s actually such a collaborative process and like finding a way to create something that is a product of you, but is also actually just a commercial product. That relationship is something I’m always constantly struggling with and battling with, because it’s so hard to wrestle with this idea that something can just be like a piece of you, but also is like a piece of capitalism.
I don’t know if that’s me stretching, but like that is like something that has constantly been on my mind like this. And that thing that you said, like this balance of opposites, like, I can’t tell you how much I’ve been wrestling with that over like the last couple of months in particular. I don’t know if you understand… I don’t know if you’ve experienced that or understand that kind of that push and pull and that thing that feels like chalk and cheese, like they don’t mix. I think I’ve been trying really hard lately to find that really rare, difficult middle ground of holding that my book is a piece of me. And also it’s a product. It’s so hard.
07/02/2026, 10:22 - Finbarre:
Not something that I’ve experienced personally because I sold my soul to the devils of capitalism a long time ago.
I’m sure that anybody who comes onto Tarot DMs or is listening to this with a creative streak will know exactly what you’re talking about.
Okay.
Your Lover’s question is...
07/02/2026, 10:23 - Finbarre:
In your writing, how do you approach themes of choice and desire?
07/02/2026, 10:27 - Lucy Rose:
Oh, this is a scarily accurate question for me right now because I think the project that I’m working on is all about desire and choice. That is such a tough question. I think one thing that I promise all of my characters is through everything that happens in the novel, the novels that I write, the stories that I write, the screenplays that I write, and they all have these safe havens in the books.
I’ll talk shamelessly about The Lamb! Margot is a character who actually has very little autonomy. She is a child living in a really, really scary house where her mum is a cannibal. Beyond being a cannibal, she’s also extremely abusive emotionally and physically with this girl. And so she is somebody who doesn’t have a lot of autonomy and with no real means of getting out of that situation.
I think if you’re writing about traumatic subjects like that, where the character’s freedom is stripped away from them, you give them the ability to make choices through safe spaces. I just think that is essential.
When I think about my own experiences, life, and when I think about the research that I conducted, like all of these people who go through these things survive because of their pockets of safety. Those pockets of safety give this like really, really rare ability to people to actually think without fear, without kind of feeling like you’re under this magnifying glass.
I think when people kind of have the ability to like it sounds so silly something as simple as think and analyze that is where choice comes, and so like Margot in this novel has these safe spaces. She has a best friend at school who is really kind to her she has this other friend who is her school bus driver called Steve who he knows something is going on but he kind of gives her that space to analyze it talk about it, think about it, and I think all of those spaces can kind of help her inform her decisions.
I think the key to kind of writing those stories that are about love and are about choice all stem from giving your characters safe spaces and I just a really big fan of if you’re writing those stories they can be impossibly dark and they can be filled with terror but you have to give them somewhere that is like a refuge, otherwise there’s just no way they can survive those situations
07/02/2026, 10:34 - Finbarre:
I love how in the same message you’ve covered the cannibalistic darkness of a monstrous mother and then Steve the bus driver.
On a serious note, those pockets of safety are absolutely vital. I know in tough times for me, even being in the shower and having just space to think and space to plan ahead has been game changing for me. Also, having time with tarot cards of being able to sit and reflect and just consider the moment. These things can utterly change your life and that was a superb answer. Thank you.
We’re going on to your next card now.
Card number two is the Wild Card and this could be anything.
I say anything. It won’t be the lovers and it won’t be the card that’s been picked for you, but anything else apart from that.
07/02/2026, 10:34 - Lucy Rose: Steve the bus driver ❤️
07/02/2026, 10:35 - Lucy Rose: Totally agree about the shower! The best thinking time to just reflect 🙂↕️
07/02/2026, 10:35 - Finbarre:
I am currently shuffling the deck and reaching out my thoughts across this rainy day to you.
Let me know when to stop.
And also, just for fun, tell me what kind of card you’re hoping for.
07/02/2026, 10:37 - Lucy Rose:
You can stop at the end of this message. I am going to tell you that it’s really rainy here as well because it is. There’s a massive grey sky and I live by the sea, so it’s very windy. And I am hoping for something that offers hope and strength, which I think is something that everybody probably hopes for.
Even if they’re kind of like dark things, I just want to know that I can handle them and that I have got this. I think that’s all anybody wants.
07/02/2026, 10:37 - Lucy Rose: A “you got this” card
07/02/2026, 10:39 - Finbarre: You have....
07/02/2026, 10:39 - Finbarre:
07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose: Oooooooooooo
07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose:
The scariest thing just happened. I’m literally not even joking. I opened my tarot card book and it opened the Four of Pentacles. I’m literally not even joking.
07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose:
That actually really freaks me out.
07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose:
07/02/2026, 10:40 - Finbarre: WHAT
07/02/2026, 10:40 - Lucy Rose: YEAH
07/02/2026, 10:40 - Lucy Rose: IM NOT EVEN JOKING
07/02/2026, 10:41 - Lucy Rose: Heebie jeebies
07/02/2026, 10:41 - Finbarre:
I was going to say that’s a bit spooky, but I’m kind of jaded to spookiness now.
Okay, the Four of Pentacles.
This always makes me think of, there is that wonderful illustration, which I discovered is actually by the author himself. On The Hobbit, you’ve got Tolkien’s Smaug wrapped around a giant pile of gold.
So it’s a card of possession, stability, and guarded resources. It can also be someone who fears scarcity.
07/02/2026, 10:42 - Lucy Rose: I love the hobbit 😭 I’m such a LOTR girlie
07/02/2026, 10:42 - Finbarre:
It’s you!
07/02/2026, 10:42 - Lucy Rose:
Oh, to be a sleepy dragon sleeping on a pile of goals.
07/02/2026, 10:44 - Lucy Rose:
If that isn’t me. Yeah, I like have a, you know, if to be completely honest, like have such and I talk about this loads, I have such a complicated relationship to money and to scarcity. And I’ve had like periods of my life where I’ve had nothing but instability. And there was like a really like a huge, huge, huge chunk that was so scary where it was like month to month. And sometimes like less than month to month somehow, like I was doing extra jobs on Gumtree to just kind of like get in the way.
And for the first time in my life, I’m genuinely kind of what I would consider stable. I have like a really happy situation. Like there’s very little conflict. It’s lovely. And I have just taken a step that has sort of disrupted that, which is that I left my full time job in December. Like literally my last day was Christmas Eve to become freelance and to try and pursue being a full time writer, which is really hard. It’s a hard thing to do. So I’ve been doing lots of freelancing and I’m kind of for the
first time since kind of having that like awful, awful period of financial instability and like other forms of instability. I am kind of feeling anxious about it all again, I guess. So, scary accurate.
07/02/2026, 10:44 - Lucy Rose:
I’m still literally like, how did that open to that page? Like, I...
[laughter]
07/02/2026, 10:46 - Finbarre:
The question from this card is, when it comes to your creative process, what is it that you hold too tightly onto?
07/02/2026, 10:46 - Lucy Rose: OH THATS A GOOD QUESTION
07/02/2026, 10:48 - Lucy Rose:
I think I’m going to say structure. I think, I don’t know if it’s the autism, but I, like, once something’s written down, it’s really, really hard for me to see it change or see it evolve.
And so, like, so much of, like, the new project that I’m writing has just been rewriting from scratch and, like, really confronting the blank page. I hold on way too tightly to this idea of, like, what something is in its first form, I think. And the project that I’m working on at the moment has been about letting all of that go and just kind of letting it grow and evolve and become something different, which is really tricky for me because I like, I like it when things are predictable and when I can see something and I understand it with complete clarity. Whereas, like, this is, the opposite of that. It is about unpredictability because you can write a draft and then you can be like, I don’t know what the next draft is going to look like. It could be completely different and kind of been open to this possibility of change.
I would say that that’s kind of the biggest thing for me at the moment. It’s been a really good creative lesson, though, because for things to become good, they have to change. They have to be stretched. They have to grow. They have to be challenged. And if it can’t justify its existence creatively, it’s time for it to go. And sometimes that can be really sad because it can be a scene or, like, a feeling that you care about so deeply, but it doesn’t serve this project. It might serve something else instead.
07/02/2026, 10:50 - Lucy Rose:
07/02/2026, 10:50 - Lucy Rose: One of said notebooks which I cannibalise my scenes in ^
07/02/2026, 10:53 - Finbarre: The part of this image (other than the fabulous glimpse into your process) that catches my eye is that sepia picture of the lady with the cat. Ancestor or goals?
07/02/2026, 10:53 - Lucy Rose: HAHA I’m so glad you saw that little photo!!! I found it at an antique place in Morpeth and it was 40p!!!
07/02/2026, 10:53 - Lucy Rose: I simply couldn’t not have it
07/02/2026, 10:53 - Lucy Rose: She’s my little guide when I have my creative wobbles
07/02/2026, 10:55 - Finbarre:
Lucy Rose, I am the bearer of bad news because we’ve come to your last card. But it’s a gift card. This is one that’s been given to you by Bridie Squires, who is a fabulous Nottingham poet, and she selected this one for you. An interesting continuation of the last card.
07/02/2026, 10:55 - Lucy Rose: SAD!
07/02/2026, 10:56 - Finbarre:
07/02/2026, 10:56 - Lucy Rose: I could only ever trust in a poetess to bring me good fortune 🤍💌
07/02/2026, 10:58 - Finbarre:
This card reminds me of Yggdrasil, the world tree, or the mighty Major Oak that we have here in Nottingham. This is a card of abundance, of security, of tradition.
It’s a stable foundation that’s built over time, and often through dedication or community of inheritance. This is a card of what’s passed down, whether it’s tangible or not.
07/02/2026, 11:01 - Lucy Rose:
This is such an interesting one because I often find myself saying this to so many creatives and I always forget to remind myself. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a painter or a poet. My feeling is that persistence always brings good fortune.
I know that there are kind of variables to that like the creative industries is really difficult to access and it kind of comes with difficulties depending on like your privileges and those variables. But I do really believe in just persisting with something even if it’s really difficult. Even just thinking about like the different projects I’m working on at the moment I’ve got a bit of a cauldron at the moment of different things.
I’m kind of really challenging myself and trying to be more ambitious and tackle ideas that I think are bigger than the projects that I’ve done before. I just I don’t know there’s something so reassuring in that feeling of like if you work hard, if you keep going, if you push yourself.
The success, what that looks like to, you know, different people is different. But to me, I know that I’m going to come out of this a better creative for just trying. And I think that that’s part of the journey of being a creative is shifting what that success looks like. It might look like financial gain. It might look like career success.
For me at the minute, that is feeling proud of my work in abundance. That that is like, is what will make me feel rich, I think, at the moment.
07/02/2026, 11:04 - Finbarre: Completely with you on the subject of of persistence. Years ago when I was in a Manchester launderette, this was stuck to one of the sides of a tumble dryer. Stayed with me until now:
07/02/2026, 11:05 - Finbarre: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On!’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” - Calvin Coolidge
07/02/2026, 11:05 - Lucy Rose: I love this so much
07/02/2026, 11:05 - Finbarre: I digress! Thinking of your final question while the crows outside caw for their morning nuts.
07/02/2026, 11:06 - Finbarre:
I’m not entirely sure how to say in crow “Don’t worry. I’ll just be a few minutes!”
Okay. Your last question is, which values do you feel responsible for passing on?
07/02/2026, 11:08 - Lucy Rose:
My number one philosophy in life, and this goes for my creative practice, it goes for my work, it goes for my professional network, it goes to my neighbours, everything is… a
A rising tide lifts all ships.
Which I think in this climate, which is very much driven by individualism and like negative competitive spirits, I think is really important because to me success, what that looks like is we’re all thriving.
The game is not fun if nobody else is playing and I want to see other people succeed.
And sometimes I get really scared that as a sort of creative community, we’re like kind of like the rest of the world, we’re losing that sense of community and togetherness.
We’re doing this thing, we’re connected by this one thing that we all love, which is like craft.
And that’s really special and unique and it’s unique to the human race.
And so for me, that is my guiding… it’s my North Star, it guides me through life, it guides me through my creativity, it guides me through everything.
So that’s kind of what I would say to that.
07/02/2026, 11:11 - Lucy Rose: This has been so fun! I’m so sad it’s coming to a close!
07/02/2026, 11:11 - Finbarre:
Like a sunstone, the navigational instrument by seafarers of the Viking age, that is a great way of plotting your course.
And this is your chance to influence the direction, tweak the threads of fate for another person on Tarot DMs.
Lucy Rose, I’d like you to take your tarot deck, give the shuffle, pull out a card, and see what you get in your hands for the next person.
Please take a picture of it, and I’m curious to see what comes out.
07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose:
07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose: Eeeek
07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose: The High Priestess
07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose: Hope she finds the person she’s meant to 🤍
07/02/2026, 11:17 - Finbarre:
Oh my goodness, a card to uncover somebody’s enigmatic secrets! Tea will be spilled!
07/02/2026, 11:17 - Lucy Rose:
Oh to be a fly on the wall in that Whatsapp conversation! Yeah I hope she finds whoever she needs to and gives the best advice at the perfect time, that is all i can hope!
07/02/2026, 11:19 - Finbarre:
Lucy Rose, you have provided a magnificent triptych of tarot answers. This has been wonderful fun this Saturday morning. I’ll be going outside with a handful of cashew nuts very shortly to feed the crows who have been patiently waiting outside my window and I wish you a fabulous weekend.
07/02/2026, 11:19 - Lucy Rose:
Hope the crows enjoy their breakfast and thank you so much for having me. This has been a delight!