Normal People's Daisy Edgar-Jones bonds with Duchess of Cornwall over hit novel
Watch: Daisy Edgar-Jones shares love of Where the Crawdads Sing with Duchess of Cornwall's book club
Star of Normal People Daisy Edgar-Jones has revealed a love for one of the Duchess of Cornwall's picks for her reading room book club, and said it will "stay with [her] forever".
Edgar-Jones filmed a special video for Camilla's reading room project, discussing her love for Where the Crawdads Sing, ahead of her appearance in the movie adaptation of the novel.
The 22-year-old rose to fame as Marianne in BBC Three's Normal People and is to play Kya, the abandoned “Marsh Girl”, who seeks solace in nature, in an adaption of Delia Owens’ novel.
Edgar-Jones shared with the reading room how the ideas of isolation had felt particularly poignant during the summer of 2020, when she first read the book, because the national lockdown had left many people feeling lonely.
“I just feel that this idea of isolation was such a resonant one when I read it because of the climate that we’re currently living in,” she said.
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Camilla, here in December 2020, launched a reading room to share her love of books. (Eddie Mulholland - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
“We’ve all experienced such loneliness and disconnect to our friends and our family because of the pandemic, so being able to escape into Kya’s world and see how she finds comfort and solace and love through the connections she makes with the beautiful natural world that’s around her I just found incredibly comforting and moving.
“I just feel so privileged and excited to be able to be playing her.
“I think she’s such a special character and such a special person and I think this book will stay with me forever, so to be able to step inside her world for the next few months, I just feel very lucky and I could not recommend this book enough.”
Olivia Newman will direct the film adaptation which is due for release in 2022.
Daisy Edgar-Jones, here in October, shot to fame in BBC Three's Normal People. (Getty Images)
The duchess's reading room was born out of her love for books, which she first shared in Spring 2020 when she offered her recommendations to a local paper in Aberdeen, near where she and Prince Charles were living in the first lockdown.
She was struck by the response and so went onto set up the Reading Room, which recommends four books every few months, sharing particular highlights from them one-by-one for a fortnight.
The initiative offers questions to provoke discussions between friends and includes interviews with the authors.
Watch: Duchess of Cornwall explains how her father inspired her love of reading
