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What's the story behind the story? What inspired you to write Our Fallen Woman?

Our Fallen Woman began as a question rather than a plot: what does survival really cost, and who gets judged for paying that price? The novel is inspired by the lived histories of women, men, girls, and boys who rarely appear at the centre of historical fiction, despite forming its emotional backbone. These are lives shaped by famine, poverty, migration, and moral judgement.

Erin Kelly’s story draws from real social histories across Ireland, London, and New York between 1880 and 1925, when institutions, churches, markets, and laws decided who was granted opportunity and who was denied it. Though emotionally charged, the story is lively and rhythmic, moving with the pace of an Irish reel. At its heart are two unforgettable characters, Erin Kelly and Padraig “Paddy” McCann, whose lives are both polarised and pulled together by circumstance.

Like the cover art, their worlds exist in tension—one grounded in endurance and instinct, the other driven by ambition and momentum—yet neither exists without the other. Around them is a wider cast of survivors navigating the same grinding social machinery, many of whom readers will recognise through heritage, family history, or lived experience.

The novel follows two characters down narrow, often dirty paths from circumstance toward redemption and reinvention, offering intimate perspectives from both men and women as they move through the grinding wheels of empire. This is not a story of simple morality or clean choices. It is about scarcity of options, proximity to power, and the human cost of survival in systems designed to exploit rather than protect.

The term fallen woman is reclaimed here not as condemnation, but as remembrance. The “our” matters. Erin is not the fallen woman; she is our fallen woman—an acknowledgement of shared responsibility. She does not fall because she is weak or immoral. She is pushed by a world that leaves her no safe ground to stand on.

Writing this book was an act of empathy, historical truth-telling, and quiet defiance on behalf of those that history chose to forget.

If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of Our Fallen Woman, what would they be?

Erin Kelly – A Bird in a Gilded Cage: a song of confinement disguised as protection, reflecting a life shaped by restraint, moral judgement, and survival within systems that offer shelter without freedom.

Paddy McCann – The Rocky Road to Dublin: restless momentum, charm, and forward motion at any cost.

Kieran Rooney – The Bonnie Ship the Diamond: steadiness and moral ballast; a song of return, responsibility, and earned survival rather than escape.

Music shapes the emotional rhythm of the novel, particularly Irish folk traditions that carry hardship and hope in equal measure. It is woven throughout the story and supported by a companion playlist for readers who wish to explore the shared history through sound:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1mJtxvhjhgOmwF3wvFb2J3

What's your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

What books are on your TBR pile right now?

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

The quieter moments. Scenes where Erin is forced to choose who she will become—not because the choice is easy, but because not choosing would mean disappearing. In the chapter The Wages of Sin Is Death, there is an intimate moment where Erin’s life path is decided for her. Does she fall—or is she pushed?

Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)

I write in intense, fixed periods, often directly in the locations that inspired the scenes themselves. I capture emotional and sensory detail first, usually while listening to Irish music to maintain rhythm and purpose. I then go for a walk and play the passage back using a screen reader with synthetic accents that reflect the characters’ voices—Irish, American, French Canadian, Jamaican. This allows me to test pacing, resonance, and cultural nuance before rewriting and refining the prose.

Do you have a motto, quote, or philosophy you live by?

Survival is not a moral failure.

If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?

That Erin’s story—and Paddy’s—were never theirs alone. Our Fallen Woman reflects lives that were, and remain, true for many. I hope readers finish the book asking not only “What would I have done?” but “Why did the world make life so hard?” The story invites empathy before judgement, and recognition of the systems and circumstances that shape who survives—and how. Ultimately, I hope readers ask themselves whether they are extending a hand to the vulnerable and exploited—or whether they are part of the systems that make survival so difficult for others.

 

Steven Habbi is the author of the new book Our Fallen Woman

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