The Book Nook bookshop in Ware is delighted to welcome award winning author, Joanna Miller, Historical Fiction author of The Eights to Hertford Library on the evening of Thursday the 9th of July to celebrate the paperback publication of the book.
Joanna will be in conversation with The Book Nook's Volunteer Sara, talking about her debut novel, The Eights, set during the shadow of the Great War and the stories of the first women to study alongside men at Oxford University. Sara has won several awards and the book was shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards in 2025
Joanna will be signing copies of her book, out in paperback on 2/6/26, which is available to pre-order with 10% off from the The Book Nook or will be on sale on the evening. Tickets are £8 and include refreshments or £15 with the book.
About the book: The Eights
Following the unlikely friendship of four of the first ever women to study at Oxford University: a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination, courage, and what it means to come of age in a world that has changed forever.
They knew they were changing history. They didn’t know they would change each other.
Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.
Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Beatrice, politically-minded daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and her own friends – for the first time. Socialite Otto fills her room with extravagant luxuries but fears they won’t be enough to distract her from her memories of the war years. And quiet, clever, Marianne, the daughter of a village vicar, arrives bearing a secret she must hide from everyone – even The Eights – if she is to succeed.
But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.
About Joanna:
Joanna Miller studied English at Exeter College, Oxford and later returned to complete a PGCE in Secondary English at The Department of Educational Studies. After ten years as a teacher and literacy adviser, she set up an award-winning poetry gift business with celebrity clients. Joanna’s rhyming verse has been filmed twice by the BBC and in 2015 she won The Poetry Prize, run by Bloomsbury Publishing and the National Literacy Trust. In 2021, Joanna graduated from the Faber Academy, after which she was accepted on the Escalator Talent Development Scheme at The National Centre for Writing. She has recently returned to Oxford to study part-time for a diploma in creative writing. Joanna lives in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire with her husband and their three teenage children.
To find out more about Joanna visit her website here