Louise and Gareth have always had joint projects on the go, including opening and running two bookshops in Hawke’s Bay. However, this is the first time the duo have written something together.
Gareth has written six novels and said he knew that Louise could transfer her article writing and book review skills to fiction writing. He suggested they write a novel together.
The pair have been writing their book since January 2023 and had the first draft done by June. Once the draft was picked up by Penguin in August, Louise and Gareth started the editing process, and it was all wrapped up by about March of this year.
As it was the first time the two had done something so co-operative, Louise said, “The hardest part was finding the time to sit down and get words on the page. I like to do projects in large chunks, so if I only had half an hour here and there I found it difficult to settle down and concentrate.”
Eventually, Louise started scheduling writing times into the week, which made the writing flow.
“I find it surprisingly easy to visualise characters, atmospheres and settings after I give my brain a bit of time to be in the situation the story requires and write it when I’m immersed in it.
“I was surprised by how funny we can be – I mean, we crack ourselves up, but it’s been very gratifying to make other people laugh,” Louise said.
When asked what he found tricky about co-writing a book, Gareth said the structural edit was tricky because they wrote a chapter about each character – Garth, then Eloise, then Garth and so on. If a chapter had to be added, then two chapters had to be added to retain the order.
He added, “The voices of Garth and Eloise came easily as we established them strongly so early on. They’re really more dramatic and interesting versions of Louise and me so that made it fairly straightforward.”
Both the writers are English ex-coppers with a keen sense of adventure and a feeling that life is too precious to muck about, which was likely nurtured by several lives of people close to them having been cut short.
Along with the police force, in the UK the couple were a young family, but as soon as they had the opportunity to emigrate to New Zealand they took it.
While technologies and procedures have changed a lot since Louise and Gareth left policing, they have both retained their observant and investigative natures.
“A job like that leaves you with a trove of stories and memories of cops, robbers and other assorted offenders.
“We used an amalgam of our experiences to come up with the plot and some of the characters,” Gareth said.
The writers are excited to bring Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay, and the world of their bookshop, albeit fictionalised, to readers yet to visit.
Gareth said although it’s a crime novel, it’s very comedic, and some landmarks will become obvious with a stroll around the village.”
He added, “It makes it alive for the readers, and we’re hoping it’ll be an immersive read for locals and an interactive one for visitors.”
When asked if The Bookshop Detectives is the next murder mystery book series, Louise said, “We’re absolutely hoping this will be the next big thing in cosy crime – most of the scary stuff is off the page, which is where the cosy comes in.”
Arriving at bookstores on July 30, make sure to check out The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone before the next book in the series is released ... because Gareth and Louise have already drafted the sequel.
“An extremely awful and rough draft of book two is written, awaiting some tender loving care once Dead Girl Gone has settled into bookshops around Aotearoa and, hopefully, elsewhere, Louise said.
Maddisyn Jeffares became the editor of the Hawke’s Bay community papers Hastings Leader and Napier Courier in 2023 after writing at the Hastings Leader for almost a year. She has been a reporter with NZME for almost three years and has a strong focus on what’s going on in communities, good and bad, big and small. Email news tips to her at: maddisyn.jeffares@nzme.co.nz
