About this episode
Today, I’m speaking to Brigitte Dale about her debut novel, The Good Daughters. It is a powerful, beautifully written story that takes us back to early 20th-century England, when women from all social classes united to fight for the right to vote.
Brigitte’s suspenseful and fast-paced novel weaves historical fact with gripping fiction, centring on four young suffragettes from vastly different backgrounds who come together in London. In 1912, this was not a safe or symbolic act. These women lived in a treacherous world where they risked being beaten, sexually assaulted, imprisoned, and brutally force-fed in jail. The laws and the justice system were firmly stacked against them.
In this conversation, we talk about the real dangers of being a suffragette, the cost of speaking up, and how these forgotten histories shaped the story Brigitte wanted to tell.
We also dive into the four central characters. Charlotte is a middle-class girl who discovers that education does not equal freedom. She shocks her parents by fleeing her English boarding school, escaping to London, and joining the suffragette movement. Beatrice is aristocratic, armed with a law degree she is not legally allowed to use, and engaged to a man she feels little connection to. While handing out leaflets and joining protests, she falls into a forbidden and dangerous love with Sadie, a fellow suffragette and American expat.
Then there is Emily, the daughter of the warden at the notorious Holloway Prison. When suffragettes are brought into the jail, Emily is forced to question everything she has been taught. Her father dismisses the women as hysterical and unstable, yet they do not seem crazy at all. They simply want the right to have a voice and decide their own future.
This is a timeless story about politics, friendship, chosen family, love, perseverance, sacrifice, and the courage it takes to speak up when doing so is dangerous.