Heide: Oh, yes. This had been a 2020 project, some writing and some art to keep us sane in the Spring 2020 lockdown. We needed it.
Iain: What’s next? April! The indefatigable Matthew Lloyd Davies provided the narration for our standalone werewolf comedy, A Heart in the Right
Place.
Heide: You know, it’s a small book but one we had lots of fun writing and, which has a special place in our own hearts.
Iain: It really does.
Heide: We’d been working on the first three Sam Applewhite crime novels for much of 2020 but, before leaping into books four, five and six, we went off on a little tangent during the early summer.
Iain: We did. We began work on three novels that will probably be published in 2022 and feature stories of horror, science fiction and workplace comedy.
Heide: Shall we give out more details on those books in 2022?
Iain: Yes, because we really must talk about the Sam Applewhite books.
Heide: We were so thrilled to launch the first book in the Sam Applewhite trilogy in June. Sealfinger was our first foray into writing crime, and we
were very excited to unleash it on the world.
Iain: Do you remember how we came up with the idea for those books?
Heide: Yes! It was a discussion that we had a couple of years ago when we were driving back from a convention. We talked about how much fun it would be to emulate the Carl Hiaasen style of “Florida whackjob” novel with a UK setting.
Iain: Skegness being the obvious choice for the location.
Heide: Yes, it’s got everything we need. Seaside location, Vikings, vicious wildlife!
Iain: Er, quite.
Heide: Another thing that happened in June was that I went to see the “Bright Young Things” exhibition in Sheffield. It was about Cecil Beaton, the photographer and the hedonistic friends that he partied with and photographed in the 1920s and 1930s. We should write about them one
day...
Iain: The rest of our summer didn’t quite go as planned, did it?
Heide: July definitely had its ups and downs. Doggerland and Sandraker were published, and all three of the Sam Applewhite books were starting to get reviews. There we were, shiny new crime authors!
Iain: So obviously we wanted to go and hang out with other crime authors at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.
Heide: It always looks so much fun! And Harrogate is a lovely town. We were all set, and then my son got covid, so we needed to isolate. Happily we were all fine.
Iain: At least we did get to go to a convention in September.
Heide: Yes. We were able to go to Fantasycon: the science fiction and fantasy convention that we go to most years. We were very happy to have a chance to meet up with our writer friends.
Iain: It was so local as well! Birmingham city centre.
Heide: It was nice to know that we hadn’t gone completely feral. I think I remembered how to eat and wear clothes and everything else that polite society demands.
Iain: We even did panels and workshops!
