Latest / Gorls Unplugged / Interviewing CAROLINE PECKHAM & SUSANNE VALENTI | Future Zodiac Academy movie & other sneak peeks? 👀📚💫

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Interviewing CAROLINE PECKHAM & SUSANNE VALENTI | Future Zodiac Academy movie & other sneak peeks? 👀📚💫 · Gorls Unplugged

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  2 girls, a whole lot of books, and even more to say about them.
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  I'm Tor. And I'm Bronte.
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  And this is Girls Unplugged. We're here for all things
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  bookish, from recommendations and book to screen adaptations.
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  To spilling the tea on all the latest community drama and news.
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  Don't forget to subscribe and follow along.
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  Welcome back to Girls Unplugged, everyone.
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  Thank you so much for joining us.
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  As you might know, today is a very, very special episode.
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  But before we get into it, I just wanted to ask if you could
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  make sure if you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or Amazon that
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  you follow us because it really helps push the podcast out and
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  it lets you know about episodes like these to be the first
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  person to know. And if you're feeling really
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  generous, then please could you just give us a five star review
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  because that also really helps. But back to today's episode.
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  As you can tell, we have two very special guests with us, New
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  York Times best selling authors Caroline Peckham and Suzanne
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  Valenti, who you might know also as the Twisted Sisters and
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  authors of series like Zodiac Academy.
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  Hello, thank you so much guys for joining us.
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  Thank you. We're so excited to have you
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  with us, but first we thought we would just tell listeners at
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  home in case you missed last episode and you guys a little
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  bit about our Zodiac Academy journey.
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  Yeah. So you guys probably don't know
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  this and for anyone joining for the first time today, Girls
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  Unplugged actually wouldn't exist without you guys.
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  Bronte and I both started our whole content journeys because
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  of Zodiac Academy. Like we both started our like
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  book talk TikTok journeys because of the reading this
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  series. And that's how we actually ended
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  up meeting each other. We didn't know each other before
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  being on TikTok. So actually, if it wasn't for
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  Zodiac Academy, there would be no tour and Bronte, there would
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  be no girls unplugged. So this is feels like a very,
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  very like full circle moment for us as a duo.
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  Yeah, it was literally the first book both of us separately ever
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  spoke about on our TikTok back in 2021 or two, I think.
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  So, Yeah, crazy. But yeah, thank you so much for
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  joining us. Oh, that's so amazing.
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  I can't believe that that's. Incredible.
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  So we wanted to start back at the very beginning, like all the
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  way back. It's like how your writing
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  journeys began. So can you tell us a bit about
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  like how you started like writing these stories separately
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  and or together and what you even did like before you wrote
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  books? Have you always been authors?
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  We always wanted to be authors. And then it was that kind of
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  thing of, well, nobody really gets to do that, so go get a
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  real job. And we didn't want to do that
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  either. So our parents ran a business
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  and we started working for them. It was a boarding cattery and we
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  were looking after cats and cleaning up cat poop.
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  And that was what we did before writing the books.
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  And I think one day we were just like talking and we're like, we
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  should actually write a book there rather than a few
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  chapters, like write one whole way through.
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  And I think we both, yeah, let's do it.
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  And we edited for each other. And that was how we started with
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  our separate writing of books. So you wrote separate books
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  before you ever wrote books together?
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  Yeah. Yeah, we, I wrote like Aya
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  series first, which didn't really do anything.
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  And then I wrote like a vampire romance called V Games, which
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  I'm kind of trying to rework right now.
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  But when I we have, we write books all the time, so we're
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  always so busy. But yeah, I think I that was
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  like where I started. And then we kind of you did a
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  dystopian, didn't you see that? Yeah, I did 2 connected
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  dystopian series the which were kind of, I don't know.
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  So what you call them was sort of like a post apocalyptic
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  zombie type thing. So one was kind of like after
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  100 odd years and then the other one was connected.
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  But it was like when like apocalyptic ads, it happened.
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  So we were kind of at that point we'd both written those and
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  Caroline journeyed off away and was like I'm going to make this
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  work forever and went out to Costa Rica.
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  But how did you go for? I was out there for six months
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  and I kind of, I quit the cattery job and I just felt I
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  needed to do something kind of crazy.
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  So I worked out there just as like promo for a hotel while I
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  was writing and really learning. Marketing was the thing at that
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  point because I was like, OK, I'm writing books, but I don't
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  know how to sell books. That whole part of it, you can
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  click publish on Amazon and sell, publish and then you go,
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  oh, right, OK. No, like no one, no one knows
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  that this book exists. So.
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  So that was like a massive learning curve.
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  And we found like the indie community and I used to go to
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  like all the conferences and yeah, then books started selling
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  once I'd learned how to market. And I got to full time with my
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  vampire series, which just all I ever wanted was to replace my
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  income so I could do it full time.
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  Like, and I just worked part time and I kept phasing out
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  hours. I worked at a pub when I got
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  home from Costa Rica and I was like, I'm just going to part
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  like do the hours I need to do. So I'd go to the pub in the
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  evening, working the day, writing and marketing.
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  Eventually managed to go full time.
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  And then Suzanne, we kind of started talking about Co
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  authoring because we saw some other authors doing it.
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  And yeah. I was a bit more nervous about
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  throwing in full time because I had a mortgage and a baby and I
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  was like, I don't know, I'm scared, Carol.
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  I was like, just do it and convincing me to like just like
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  put 10 lbs on an advert. I'd be like.
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  But we finally got to a point where we sort of, it was, we
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  sort of replayed like our income, but it wasn't like
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  reliable enough. Like you'd have really good
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  months and lots of great months. And then we were like, I don't
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  know, like I just had my second child, had him at Christmas.
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  And then it was over the Christmas.
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  We were sat around the table with dad and I think mum was
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  there too. And we started talking about
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  some, I think we'd seen some people Co authoring and we were
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  like, how do they do that? And then we were like, well,
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  we're together all the time. We're already edit all the time
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  for each other. We have the same brain, so try
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  that. So we did.
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  And for people who don't know who are listening at home and
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  maybe new to your books, I feel like I should say that you're
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  actually sisters because maybe that isn't quite clear for
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  everyone back home. So when they say they have the
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  same brain, me and Tor understand that because we're
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  both sisters too. Not to each other, obviously,
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  but it is a very like unique relationship, isn't it?
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  Where you sort of understand each other in a way that no one
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  else can. But once you started writing
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  together and you were Co authoring, was there a specific
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  moment where you thought oh this is actually really working or it
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  just suddenly clicked? We kind of our first series did
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  well. Like we had this Age of Vampire
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  series, which is where we we merged.
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  Like I'd written vampire Roman, she'd written dystopian.
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  So we're like, let's do something that's half and half
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  of that. But that that did do well.
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  We released them like once a week.
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  I think at one point it was like we were like we wanted to write
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  them and release them. It was great.
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  We had this crazy marketing plan.
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  We're like, just get them out. Into a wild.
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  So we do crazy stuff. But it paid off.
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  We then our income started increasing straight off the back
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  of that. But like Suzanne said, nothing
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  was consistent. And I think after that we moved
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  to Zodiac. No, we weren't the.
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  Yeah, the trilogy. You talk about that one.
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  Tell us. We don't know anything about we
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  know Zodia Academy, we don't know anything about this.
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  Well, it was a trilogy. It was an Aladdin sort of
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  retelling, which then we have now reworked that to agamematic
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  game, Madison Greed. So that was a trilogy.
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  I can't even remember what they were called.
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  It's like a wish something. What were they called?
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  I actually can't remember something I wish wish I don't
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  know we had. Two moments, clearly.
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  So bad, I forget the names of all the books.
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  So bad. I'll be I just call them like
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  this series, 1234. Yeah, that series.
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  Well, it didn't, it that didn't really take off in the same way.
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  It just didn't, it didn't hit right.
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  And then we were like, OK, let's just sort of change it up a bit.
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  And we sat down and came up with the idea for Zodiac.
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  I have to know because we're both like big astrology girls.
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  Like like always been obsessed. My granddad actually used to
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  read birth charts for a living so I've been into it from a
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  really young age. Are you both like astrology?
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  Like really into astrology? Is that where the idea
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  originally came from for Zodiac Academy or was it just like now?
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  This sounds cool, let's do it. We wanted to do a fantasy school
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  that was more like adult college, but we wanted it to
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  really relate to people. So we were like, what can we do
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  that people could see themselves in it?
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  Like they go like, I would be in this house or I would have this
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  magic. And the astrology thing just
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  came up. I can't even remember.
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  We were just talking about it all.
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  And then we were like, everyone's got star sign.
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  Like everyone knows. Like even if you're not into
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  star sign, everyone knows their star sign.
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  Like, you have that instant connection to it.
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  So yeah, sadly we're not like, super.
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  But it's obviously really cool and there's so many things that
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  were there that work so well, like, you know, the elemental
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  ties and everything and it so it was, it just made it really easy
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  to build the magic system off of it.
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  And then we got to learn a lot more about astrology and
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  everything else. We were researching everything
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  and obviously like linking it to the stars and all the different
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  things that we did with it. So it was, it was really cool
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  and we really enjoyed getting to know more about all of it.
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  But yeah, we weren't. It went massively into it
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  before. That's OK.
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  We just had to know. And so we've like like we've
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  both watched a lot of like your like Facebook and like Instagram
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  lives and stuff other years. So we know.
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  That. The way that you write is that
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  you have like, characters. Like.
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  That's how you split the writing, isn't it?
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  But how do you choose who's going to write which characters?
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  It's like a vibe we get. We kind of come up with an idea
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  and then we come up with a few characters and we're kind of
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  like, so you're feeling this character and we nearly always
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  feel the characters. Like, I know what she's going to
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  write and I know what I'm going to write when we're talking
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  about it. It just always goes that way
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  somehow. I.
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  Feel like there was there was. Was it maybe for sinners?
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  We discussed Because when we do the reverse harems, obviously
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  what we do is one of us does the girl and the other one does all
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  of the guys. So that does make it like, I
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  feel like maybe that was the one where we there was one, I'm sure
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  where it was like you'd sort of said, I've done the guys because
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  you've done the ruthless voice. And then we were like, oh,
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  because it ends up you've got so many more characters to do.
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  I feel like that might have been the one where we weren't as
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  certain initially. Yeah, I.
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  Can't remember that it was one of the.
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  Herons, I remember we weren't sure on.
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  Yeah. But then the harems, I kind of
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  love that because I've done a few of the harem books where I
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  just do the guys, and it does give you that if you're just
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  doing the girl love, so you're in that one character.
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  But I love the range. Doing that range of characters
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  is like one of my favorite things.
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  So I quite like that. And I love when the harems take
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  each other. Especially because all of your
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  characters have such larger than life personalities and in the Y
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  choose books specifically, I feel like you have some really
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  really funny guy characters to write and feel like you must
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  have just been cracking up when you were writing Leon.
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  Yeah. We shouldn't make each other
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  laugh. So like if Leon is a great way
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  of just doing the most ridiculous stuff.
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  But then there is the other side, like we, although we write
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  like I'll write a Leon chapter, Suzanne will write Leon in the
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  lease chapter. I don't come along and fill in
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  like Leon's parts or anything. So like we do kind of
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  intuitively pick up those characters from each other as
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  well as we have to, they have to be on that page from the other
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  characters. So they're like completely the
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  same person across the book. Actually, that kind of relates
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  to what I was going to ask next, which is for people like me or
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  others at home that might also be interested in writing.
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  Do you have any tips for anyone who wants to start their own
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  writing journey I. Think you need to write, you
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  need to go like I know this person, they are my friend, I
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  know them too well. We hang out too often deep into
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  their brain. All the good, the bad, the ugly,
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  every part of them. Don't ever, like we never shy
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  away from, you know, like Tori was stubborn to the point of
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  really fucking annoying sometimes, but that was who she
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  was like, like I was raising her and I'm like, like, stop it.
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  But she won't stop it because that's exactly who she is.
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  And you have to accept them who they are and don't back out of
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  it at all. And then also just to write that
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  story that you really want to write and don't care about, like
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  a lot of people went on writing, as I say, Oh, do the tropes, do
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  the trends fit to this, fit to that.
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  But actually, when you've written the story that you love,
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  the passion for it will be there.
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  Hopefully that will like them reflect when people are reading
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  it, they'll feel how much you loved it.
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  And then you can go, oh, actually it's got enemies to
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  love was in it. It's got this, haven't written
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  it going. I must make it this.
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  But there's so many tropes that you can, when you look at
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  something, step back and go, oh, actually it's got this, it's got
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  that. And then you can market it that
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  way. And that's fine, but don't try
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  and write it to market, I think. I think I think that's a really
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  interesting point because it's coming up on TikTok a lot at the
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  moment where people are trying to write to market or they feel
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  forced by publishers to do that. But then what you end up with is
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  kind of a market full of books that feel the same, whereas you
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  do what you're saying and write something that you just really
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  love and know you. That's when you get those
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  original stories that feel so special to the readers anyway.
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  And the tropes, like you say, come second.
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  So I think that's a really good point to take away.
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  Hopefully any writers out there will listen to that.
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  I think it comes down to like the same point means like when
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  people ever ask us like how we got into content or what they
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  should do to get into content. And my thing is, I'm the same at
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  work. If you're your most authentic
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  self, you're going to bring forward the right readers, the
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  right followers, the right friends.
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  Like, no matter what point, like, no matter where you are
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  and what you're doing in life, if you're just authentic to who
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  you are, that you're going to bring the right people around
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  you, aren't you? So.
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  Yeah, feels cheesy, but I get into that old line of no one can
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  really do what you're doing because only you were you.
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  So. That yeah, it makes complete
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  sense. We.
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  Put that with the humour a lot in our books and there's so many
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  times we've looked at each other and gone, this is too far.
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  It's too strange. It's too far sitting in a room
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  cackling away and not sure we're just going to be like the fuck
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  as some people definitely are. But then we're like.
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  But then we get to find the people who would be in that room
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  cackling with us, which is the brilliance of it.
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  It's like we get to go like, like, you know, Yeah, like you
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  get to get your people who get it.
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  And then you're every time, every time we meet anybody, it's
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  just like straight away we're wandering over the same thing
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  because we were all been in those headspaces and got on with
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  it in the same way, which is really great.
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  You can see it through the Zodiac series.
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  How much more ridiculous like some of the scenes get or like
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  the like Xavier's embarrassment. Every time I do that scene like
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  a new embarrassment, it's got to be worse.
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  It's got to be more ridiculous when you fell off the treadmill.
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  See that she was she was on The Walking treadmill editing my
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  Xavier chapter. I can't remember which one it
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  was, but she. Might have been the dejazzle.
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  I was about to say, is it where like he like walks into the room
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  just just just after he's had it done, It's like my mum's just
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  tired. Honestly the start of book 8 I
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  have never laughed I don't think just at a book but anything in
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  general ever so much at the the whistle washers.
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  Whistle. Whistle.
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  The best thing about that is I didn't know what the whistle was
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  at the time. I just kept writing it and I was
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  like, he's following this whistling noise.
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  So funny, I think about that moment quite a lot.
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  The best thing about it was that it was like who it was
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  listening, like the fact that it was Leon.
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  This is amazing. We put a little bit of track
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  there, but. Out of all of the books that
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  you've written, what would you say?
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  Like which book would you say you had like the most fun
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  writing? I think the Death Club duet.
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  Really. Wow.
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  It was just such ridiculous chaos writing.
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  I wrote Nile and I mean, I just aside from casually killing
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  people for fun, he's just brilliant.
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  Like don't give a shit. And he's just so funny.
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  And it was, I don't know, they were just easy because they were
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  such ridiculous people. Anything with them, they could
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  just turn anything into some sort of chaotic fun.
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  Just it just was really fun the whole time.
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  Really. Even when it was awful, it was
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  still really fun because, you know, like Brooklyn's having a
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  mole meltdown with the emotional support pineapple.
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  Like, yeah, she's miserable, but she's ridiculous about it.
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  So it just, there wasn't a point where you were just there
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  sobbing so bad that you couldn't breathe like in Zodiac, writing
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  certain things off to do the school run like a little bit
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  more difficult. Yeah, there is definitely some
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  trauma in Zodiac Academy for sure.
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  Those cliffhangers were brutal. Yeah, they're.
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  So there was very heaviness like that.
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  The book 8 was very heavy to write.
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  It was a long book and there was a lot to for us.
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  It was like, it's it's great. I mean, writing it's always
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  great, but it's that was a heavy 1.
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  So it's different. But then like book 7 was great
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  fun because of the whole it's like 90% of the book is so much
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  fun and then it's like super devastating temps.
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  It yeah, it's good. And book 4 was very stressful at
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  the end as well. I don't know if it was a
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  stressful for you guys planning that cliffhanger.
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  I'm sure everyone at home has hopefully listened to it and
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  doesn't mind me saying that. When we were laughing earlier
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  about Tory's stubbornness, that was why, because of the end of
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  book four. And we were talking about that
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  the other day, thinking that was the most stressful ending of a
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  book ever. And the Death Club duet
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  specifically, I, I, it's obviously a duet.
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  So it's two books. So I suppose like that might
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  make it easier as well because you're kind of you've not got to
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  think about the long stretch of journey and emotions that you
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  have to put the characters through as much as something
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  maybe like Zodiac. Yeah and it's like it's the
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  world, the fantasy is always heavier and the more characters
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  you add, the more you have to remember and get right and make
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  sure everyone gets their arc. And once you start getting to an
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  end of a series you've like we had like these post its on like
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  this window in front of us for about 3 books towards the end
• 18:50
  because we were like OK, these things have to happen and we
• 18:53
  have to get the characters ready for these major plot points.
• 18:57
  So it definitely became more difficult.
• 18:59
  The longer the series got, the more people you add.
• 19:01
  So like the death garb, obviously it's it's not so many
• 19:04
  characters and it's a short, pretty short story.
• 19:06
  So that's always easier. OK.
• 19:08
  So I think we want to dive in specifically now about the
• 19:12
  sister dynamic because I think that is obviously something that
• 19:14
  makes you guys so unique as authors and co-authors.
• 19:19
  So, and as I mentioned before, we're obviously sisters
• 19:21
  ourselves. I'm a baby sister towards an
• 19:24
  older sister. But we're dying to know, do you
• 19:26
  actually ever genuinely argue in your process about maybe one of
• 19:31
  you wants something to go one way and the other wants it to go
• 19:34
  another way? And do you think like, does it
• 19:37
  ever get quite serious? Because we think if we tried to
• 19:40
  write with our sisters, we'd end up in 50 cups.
• 19:43
  They'd. Be fist thrown 100%.
• 19:46
  So far as the actual plots of the books go, we we sit and plan
• 19:51
  them. So like that usually all comes
• 19:53
  out in the planning. There was a point it was in the
• 19:56
  3rd or 4th Sinners book. Do you remember what it was?
• 20:01
  But I remembered because where we've planned it, sometimes one
• 20:03
  of us gets ahead. So I was ahead by 3 or 4
• 20:07
  chapters and then Caroline's writing her chapter and looks up
• 20:10
  to me and sort of says this doesn't work.
• 20:13
  And I was like, no, it has to. Because I know.
• 20:17
  And that, and I think I just sat there annoyed because like for
• 20:20
  about half an hour and then I just was like, yeah, like, fuck
• 20:23
  it, you're right. Like because it was right.
• 20:25
  And I had to change my chapters. Emotional.
• 20:29
  I can't remember specifically what it was.
• 20:31
  I know it's about Chase. There was like an emotional
• 20:33
  thing that had to happen, but he hadn't got there emotionally.
• 20:36
  And it was like a big thing. I can't remember what it was,
• 20:38
  but we were just, I was just like, God, we're not ready.
• 20:41
  He's not ready. That's the one that I can
• 20:45
  remember, like during the process of writing, getting
• 20:47
  annoyed. I mean, we've had like issues.
• 20:50
  Just usually it's like a pressure issue, like if one of
• 20:53
  us does get far ahead or if we've got deadlines coming,
• 20:55
  which is where we sort of tried to where we've built our own
• 20:59
  company now and everything. We don't really have the
• 21:01
  deadlines in quite the same and we've always done it ourselves
• 21:03
  anyway. But we have to just relax a
• 21:06
  little bit because the stress of trying, I mean, we were
• 21:08
  uploading, was it Zodiac 7? You have to upload it by
• 21:11
  midnight and we were doing it at like 1150.
• 21:14
  It was like I was crying like it's just awful.
• 21:19
  It's just so stressful and we're just there and we're going.
• 21:23
  It's not unloading. And we have one where like all
• 21:25
  the pre-orders, was it for four or five?
• 21:27
  All the pre-orders got cancelled because the upload, even though
• 21:29
  you have to do it by midnight on a certain date, we didn't
• 21:31
  realize it can take up to 48 hours to get approved.
• 21:34
  So really it's a few days before that.
• 21:35
  We didn't realize this until all our pre-orders got cancelled
• 21:38
  once and we missed it. So that was the whole thing.
• 21:41
  But I think we enough of those things have happened to us now
• 21:44
  that we're a bit more like, oh, fuck it, it'll work out.
• 21:46
  But like, at the time, that was quite not so much of an
• 21:50
  argument, but a very stressful situation where we'd just be
• 21:53
  like, no. Yeah.
• 21:56
  I actually remember that the pre-orders being cancelled
• 21:58
  because I was in your Facebook group as well.
• 22:00
  So I used to get those updates. And I think the thing with that
• 22:04
  is as well, like people kind of expect it a little bit more with
• 22:07
  indie publishers because you're doing everything on your own.
• 22:09
  So I feel like I should just let you know that readers can be
• 22:13
  demanding on social media, but I think most of us are pretty
• 22:16
  understanding and we get we get the issues like that.
• 22:20
  But is there ever, is there ever a specific character that you've
• 22:25
  disagreed on? Like one of you loves this
• 22:27
  character or the other ones? Like no, I want to kill them
• 22:29
  off. I don't think that, but we did
• 22:32
  have the last book of Zodiac. I remember talking about who we
• 22:35
  were going to kill and we did have.
• 22:39
  We both disagreed and we both kept them alive.
• 22:41
  The 2 characters that were up for discussion.
• 22:45
  I want to know who it is because I I'm savage.
• 22:48
  I love a character death. Though I suggested German.
• 22:53
  Team no, I know. And and you thought Xavier,
• 22:59
  didn't you? Oh yeah, that would have been
• 23:02
  brutal. But it was like they'd gone
• 23:04
  through so much. We just kind of circle back and
• 23:07
  we were like, if we kill Xavier, that's like such a dagger in
• 23:10
  Darius's heart. And he'd been through
• 23:13
  everything. Like, it wasn't there.
• 23:16
  And then Geraldine, she's so beloved.
• 23:19
  And then, yeah, it just didn't feel right.
• 23:21
  Like, well, she'd fought for. Yeah, there might have been
• 23:24
  riots in the street, Yeah. Got rid of.
• 23:26
  Geraldine for sure. Yeah, I think it felt like at
• 23:30
  the end of this great big series, we kind of always felt
• 23:34
  we should kill off a major character.
• 23:37
  And then we kind of sat back and were like, but this is our story
• 23:40
  and they've they've suffered enough and actually we want to,
• 23:44
  I believe that bitter, like I've read all these books, all these
• 23:47
  fucking books, and at the end my favorite character died feeling
• 23:50
  on people because actually that's shit, isn't it?
• 23:52
  So we were like, no, like they were, you know, obviously, you
• 23:56
  know, some of the characters that went at the end, it was
• 23:59
  still sad and it's still they, you know, they a lot was a lot
• 24:02
  of trauma and everything, but we felt we wouldn't we wouldn't
• 24:05
  kill. I mean, there was a point in was
• 24:07
  it? I remember getting quite
• 24:08
  stressed. It was, it must have been in
• 24:10
  seven and eight writing 8. And I was just like, you know
• 24:13
  what? Darius is staying dead.
• 24:15
  Yeah, you. She had a rage one day and she
• 24:17
  was like, no, I'm not bringing him back.
• 24:20
  I'm sorry, we're fully spoiler talking now, but it's fine.
• 24:24
  We will put a. Warning at the beginning of the
• 24:26
  episode, because there's no way we could have done this episode
• 24:28
  without forms of spoilers, so we'll make sure there's a
• 24:31
  spoiler warning. No, I was like, that's it.
• 24:34
  Darius can stay dead and Tori can be with him because I'll
• 24:36
  kill her too. Cheryl.
• 24:38
  I was just like. This is this is so funny because
• 24:43
  when we did our last episode, we were talking about the Zodiac
• 24:46
  books and I was like, I wasn't stressed when Darius died
• 24:49
  because I knew they'd have to bring him back because they're
• 24:52
  releasing inmates. How would it work?
• 24:54
  But I didn't think about the fact you might have killed her
• 24:56
  too. It is always tempting.
• 24:58
  If you're in a bad mood writing though, you're going to kill
• 25:00
  them. I'm just going to kill this
• 25:01
  person. Let's make sure that you're
• 25:05
  always well fed and watered before writing, ladies.
• 25:08
  OK, yeah, tall can't take the trauma the day I love personally
• 25:13
  a character killing I just love it.
• 25:15
  I find it like keeps me on there keeps me feeling alive.
• 25:17
  You know like what's going to happen to this character but
• 25:20
  tort she likes a happy ending. We said we.
• 25:22
  Were going to get a whole episode without me crying today.
• 25:24
  OK, And if I start talking I'm welling up for it.
• 25:26
  She's like. She will cry just thinking about
• 25:28
  the characters dying. And we did our episode last week
• 25:33
  before we inside the interview, you guys, we did an episode.
• 25:36
  We did like our full debrief on like all your books, like mainly
• 25:39
  on Zodiac Academy. And I think I cried like two or
• 25:42
  three times. Yeah, she cried, talking about
• 25:45
  the twins parents. It was the scene.
• 25:48
  And in the last book where like with all the clay and they and
• 25:50
  all their like their like souls effectively come into like the
• 25:55
  what are they called golems is. That what they're called, yeah.
• 26:01
  That like that bit always really got me Any to be fair, anything
• 26:03
  emotional. I'm the biggest crybaby of our
• 26:05
  friendship group by far. But this section we, we noticed
• 26:10
  that sort of when authors talk or do interviews, obviously the
• 26:15
  main focus is usually the books they've written and what they've
• 26:18
  got coming up, which is important.
• 26:20
  But we also kind of want to know about authors as readers as
• 26:23
  well, because obviously that's a lot of where the inspiration
• 26:27
  comes or where your love for writing comes.
• 26:29
  So when you're not in your writing cave, what are you
• 26:33
  reading and what are you both reading at the minute, if
• 26:35
  anything? I am reading the.
• 26:37
  Red Rising and 1/3 Red Rising. My favorite?
• 26:43
  It was I'm just past the point which it has go in the Fraser
• 26:47
  for a while. I was annoyed at it for reasons
• 26:51
  and I was annoying. I'm doing an audio book because
• 26:53
  I tend to do an audio book because I thought I fall since
• 26:57
  doing writing. I used to read physically a lot
• 26:59
  more, but I find since writing, reading feels a bit like work,
• 27:04
  which is really sad. I can't do it sometimes, but
• 27:07
  like yeah, often I'll just like immerse myself better.
• 27:10
  I'll just audiobook it. So I was audiobooking it on the
• 27:12
  walk to school as as terrible things are happening and it's
• 27:16
  quite a long drawn out something that happens and I just like why
• 27:21
  am I in public? So it was in the freezer for a
• 27:24
  while. Then I'm very much enjoying it.
• 27:25
  It's back out can. I ask if that if that thing that
• 27:31
  was stressful was in book two or three. 3.
• 27:34
  OK, I think I know what it is. But I don't know when it's a
• 27:38
  spoil. So it's like a.
• 27:40
  Tor hasn't read them and I've read them.
• 27:43
  It's one of my favorite series ever, but that book is, there's
• 27:47
  a very sad moment in it. I feel like maybe it's that, you
• 27:52
  know? Winking at each other like.
• 27:54
  Is it that? I mean the whole series is
• 27:56
  stressful to be fair, so it could be anything.
• 27:59
  Yeah, but like you were saying, you enjoy those parts.
• 28:03
  Yeah, I do. That's probably why I like it so
• 28:05
  much. I thought I do enjoy it, but
• 28:07
  that was like the one that I would have rather it didn't
• 28:09
  happen to. Yes.
• 28:11
  OK. Yeah, I definitely know what it
• 28:12
  is. And what about you, Caroline?
• 28:15
  What do you like to read or what you reading at the minute?
• 28:18
  I've just finished the latest Hunger Games, which I love.
• 28:21
  I love Suzanne Collins and all those books are amazing to me.
• 28:25
  And I'm very excited about the movies because I feel they get
• 28:27
  the movies really right. I think they do them so well.
• 28:32
  So yeah, that's what I'm reading and or just finished.
• 28:34
  And yeah, generally like reading what we write makes sense.
• 28:42
  It does. It does like writing does change
• 28:44
  the way you read. So it's not like it is like that
• 28:48
  weird because you're an edit brain and you can't really
• 28:50
  switch it off. So that when you, when you read
• 28:53
  on, especially like listening to audiobooks sometimes is a bit
• 28:56
  easier in a way because you kind of consume it better.
• 28:59
  But when you're actually looking at a page, I can't help but see
• 29:02
  the words, if that makes sense, more than I would have before.
• 29:08
  Writing that definitely makes sense.
• 29:10
  I'm an editor, like a freelance editor, so I have the same issue
• 29:14
  and I'm like, we'll joke in our friendship group that I'm a
• 29:17
  hater. But it's just is she is a hater,
• 29:21
  you can't. I'm so easily pleased and she is
• 29:23
  so hard to please. But you can't turn that part of
• 29:27
  your brain off, can you? Like once it's in there, it's
• 29:30
  written, you notice everything that almost you would change
• 29:34
  when you're reading a book. And it's almost like you just
• 29:37
  can't turn off your imagination of where you think it should go.
• 29:40
  So it does make things harder. Maybe I should switch to more
• 29:43
  audio. Maybe that will solve my issue
• 29:45
  as well and I'll be less of a hater.
• 29:47
  You struggle. She struggles to do fantasy on
• 29:49
  audio though, whereas like I, I love it.
• 29:52
  So awesome. I haven't got the attention span
• 29:55
  for. I need to work on the attention
• 29:56
  span I think. The writer's brain though,
• 30:01
  that's, that's like that when you watch it.
• 30:03
  So you can choose something, you're reading something, and
• 30:05
  then you go, oh, it should have gone.
• 30:07
  And then because that's where I'll go, and then I'll be like,
• 30:09
  I've got this whole idea of a whole thing, which is actually
• 30:11
  now nothing to do with whatever I was reading, writing,
• 30:13
  watching. It's a completely separate
• 30:15
  thing, but that'd make a cool story.
• 30:17
  Yeah, I was going to say the same.
• 30:19
  It's like, it's such a good way of getting ideas because you'd
• 30:21
  be like, it'd be a completely different way.
• 30:24
  You would take the story and you'd be like, we should write
• 30:26
  that. Yeah, honestly my notes app in
• 30:30
  my phone is just full of like book ideas.
• 30:32
  But my problem is I get halfway through a draft and then I go.
• 30:35
  I don't like this anymore. Oh, it's the first draft.
• 30:40
  The first book's really difficult and it's, it is just
• 30:43
  sitting through it and getting it done because like that first,
• 30:46
  even if it's shit, like objectively, and if it's not, I
• 30:49
  mean for like, I'm not saying it's shit.
• 30:52
  I mean like for yourself, write it for yourself and get the
• 30:55
  words down. Even if you feel, oh, it's not
• 30:57
  perfect, getting that first draft just gets you to a
• 31:00
  different place. And then you can be like, right
• 31:02
  now I'm just going to look at it completely as one story.
• 31:05
  Yeah. And.
• 31:06
  Usually the like things that I like, the shittiest things I've
• 31:09
  written, I'll go back the 8.5 Darius getting called into the
• 31:15
  room. I literally was like, I I sent
• 31:19
  it to Carols. I don't even fucking look at it.
• 31:21
  I think I've done a terrible job.
• 31:22
  It's not funny. I really just don't get on and
• 31:25
  it's been one of the best receipt.
• 31:26
  But when I read it back, I was like, Oh, no, actually, like, I
• 31:30
  don't know what. Sometimes it's like you're in
• 31:31
  your own head too much. And like, I had so much pressure
• 31:33
  in my head to make it funny. And then I was like, it's just
• 31:36
  not going to be. And I felt like it hadn't come
• 31:38
  off right at all. I mean, maybe some people don't
• 31:40
  think it is, but I think it's been generally quite won't
• 31:42
  receive that chapter. But I at the time, I can
• 31:44
  remember just feeling like I'm going to have to redo the whole
• 31:46
  thing. And then I was kind of like, oh,
• 31:48
  actually it seems to be all right.
• 31:49
  So usually, even if you're thinking, oh, I don't like it,
• 31:52
  I'm not fine with it. When you go back, you can be
• 31:55
  quite pleasantly surprised. Yeah.
• 31:58
  Okay, I feel really motivated now maybe.
• 31:59
  Into the excerpt. Yeah, maybe after this I'll go
• 32:02
  home and I'll just whittle away in my writing cave and I'll come
• 32:05
  out like taught. I finished the draft.
• 32:08
  She can't actually go home because we're having a sleepover
• 32:11
  and watching off campus tonight so.
• 32:13
  Yeah. True bookish vibes.
• 32:16
  We've kind of touched on this a little bit earlier when we were
• 32:18
  talking about writing tropes and maybe actually just writing the
• 32:21
  plot 1st and then the tropes come naturally themselves.
• 32:24
  But are there any tropes that you love to read but you would
• 32:27
  never write? I can quite enjoy just a quick
• 32:32
  happy. Well, I'll say that I don't I
• 32:35
  don't tend to read them, but like I might like watch like a
• 32:37
  happy kind of romance movie and be like, oh, that was cute.
• 32:40
  That was nice. They didn't even argue.
• 32:41
  They didn't even hate each other, but I just didn't write
• 32:43
  it. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:49
  I don't know. I mean, I'd love to like I love
• 32:53
  sci-fi. I don't know we'd write sci-fi.
• 32:55
  I feel like it's almost, it's like seeing in some ways it's
• 32:59
  not really a shift at all. And in other ways it's almost
• 33:02
  like it is like I feel like suddenly if we were like right
• 33:04
  now, we've written a sci-fi book, a lot of people will be
• 33:06
  like, no, thank you. That's not what you do.
• 33:08
  You write fantasy and then it like that shift.
• 33:10
  I can't, I can't see us doing it.
• 33:12
  But I would love to write 1. I would love a sci-fi from you
• 33:17
  if I could put in a personal request.
• 33:20
  I love, I love dystopian. So obviously your books that are
• 33:23
  dystopian are some of my favorites like Age of Vampires.
• 33:27
  And I feel like I've really been getting into sci-fi recently,
• 33:29
  and obviously Red Rising kind of leans into that little bit.
• 33:33
  But I would, I think he would nail.
• 33:35
  That in a in a way, it is fantasy is the thing, yeah.
• 33:39
  It's just through a. Different lens, like you can
• 33:41
  come up with anything in the same way and say like maybe it's
• 33:45
  more technological, but it's still sort of magic, isn't?
• 33:49
  It. Yeah, exactly.
• 33:51
  Especially things like obviously a big one.
• 33:53
  At the moment it's been Project Hail Mary, and I feel like that
• 33:56
  is so fun to see Rita coded with.
• 33:58
  I don't know if you guys have watched or read it, but with
• 34:00
  Rocky the little alien, it just feels like a magical sidekick.
• 34:04
  Right. No, I've not read that one.
• 34:06
  Oh you should. It's a good one, especially on
• 34:08
  audio. I haven't read, I haven't
• 34:10
  watched I should, but you I like I like sci-fi.
• 34:13
  I don't tend to read it as much, but I would say if you guys
• 34:16
  wrote it, I definitely read it. Yeah.
• 34:19
  Now if you ever release one, watch me and Bronte like
• 34:22
  clipping parts of the podcast going.
• 34:24
  We're pressed in and it happened, guys.
• 34:27
  Yeah, if you're listening at home, drop a comment below.
• 34:29
  Should or shouldn't they write sci-fi?
• 34:31
  Maybe we can make it happen. OK, so Zodiac Academy
• 34:36
  specifically is probably what a lot of readers know you for, so
• 34:42
  we have to talk about it because obviously, like we said as well,
• 34:44
  it's the series that made us friends and obviously hundreds
• 34:48
  of thousands of other people love it.
• 34:50
  When you wrote the first book, did you have any idea of what it
• 34:54
  would become? I don't think we ever could have
• 34:56
  imagined it being as big as it is, or even half.
• 35:01
  I mean it. We could have never predicted
• 35:03
  that. I think we felt the magic in it
• 35:06
  though when we were writing it. Like it was just something
• 35:09
  really special about it. So much as we were putting it
• 35:11
  together, we really sat and I mean, we wrote like how a class
• 35:14
  timetable and everything. Initially we were like, it was
• 35:17
  just so much went into kind of the building of it or we felt it
• 35:20
  was really special to us. We could never have ever, ever
• 35:23
  have predicted it going the way that it's gone.
• 35:26
  I think it always got people like, hyped.
• 35:29
  Like we, it was not our best selling series for a fair while.
• 35:32
  Like we wrote Dark Faye and that outsold Zodiac for quite a long
• 35:35
  time. Really.
• 35:37
  Yeah. Like for the first, I think at
• 35:39
  least the first year of like, because we started writing them
• 35:42
  a bit simultaneously, we went back and forth.
• 35:45
  I think reverse harem was just really popular at that time and
• 35:48
  it just sold better for a while. But the people who came to our
• 35:52
  Facebook group was Zodiac fans. And there was just a difference
• 35:55
  in like people who'd read any of our other books to people who'd
• 35:58
  read Zodiac would come to the group and want more and they'd
• 36:00
  be like, so it was just like this excitement for the for
• 36:05
  people who had read it that we didn't seem to get from the
• 36:08
  other series. I mean, we were those people.
• 36:10
  We joined the Facebook group straight after Zodiac.
• 36:13
  I think what me and Tor have discussed about why maybe that
• 36:17
  happens and like why people feel so connected to the series is
• 36:21
  because there is so many characters going through so many
• 36:24
  different things. You will ultimately connect with
• 36:27
  someone. There is someone for everyone.
• 36:29
  So, and then as the series obviously progresses into the
• 36:32
  later books, you get this found family trope that just at this
• 36:36
  point, you just want to know what happens to them.
• 36:38
  And they're all happy and safe. And the books could go in any
• 36:41
  which way to describe to make that happen.
• 36:43
  But you have to know that it happens.
• 36:46
  And I think that's what we said, wasn't it?
• 36:47
  It's just that the character work is just so, so good.
• 36:50
  Yeah, it's amazing. And I think as we said, like it,
• 36:55
  it introduced, it didn't just introduce me to a set of books
• 36:58
  that I loved. It introduced me to a whole
• 37:00
  community because like Brad said, I joined the Facebook
• 37:02
  group. It was why I started TikTok.
• 37:05
  It changed the way it completely changed the way I use social
• 37:08
  media. And I think it's that way for a
• 37:10
  lot of people. Like, does that feel surreal for
• 37:12
  you guys hearing things like that?
• 37:15
  Because for us, it's like literally changed the entire
• 37:17
  trajectory of like, our careers and lives in some respects,
• 37:20
  yeah. It's like.
• 37:22
  The world, it's amazing. And when we meet people, it's, I
• 37:25
  don't know, sometimes I just cry like it's just, we had like the
• 37:28
  first time we did a signing, it was, we've done a lot of our
• 37:31
  race stuff in COVID. We've never done a signing,
• 37:33
  never done anything. We turned up to this and we, we
• 37:36
  just didn't expect anyone to really come.
• 37:39
  And then a lot of people did. And we ended up just afterwards
• 37:42
  just laying on the floor behind this curtain that was behind.
• 37:44
  We were like doing and just just sort of like going, Oh my God, I
• 37:50
  don't know, like people get tattoos and, and and like the
• 37:53
  different. It means so much to so many
• 37:55
  people and it means so much to us and this community that has
• 37:59
  kind of formed around it. Like obviously, like writing
• 38:02
  books is a dream. This is something you could
• 38:04
  never even hope begin to hope might come of it.
• 38:08
  And it's, it is so overwhelming and you still can't really hard
• 38:13
  to know. It doesn't really make sense.
• 38:14
  It doesn't really. You can't.
• 38:15
  You kind of people say things and you just sort of go, Oh my
• 38:17
  God, no, it can't be. It can't be us.
• 38:19
  It doesn't. But yeah, I don't know.
• 38:22
  I think I'm just wording. But it's a whirlwind.
• 38:25
  It means a massive amount to us. I think that makes completely
• 38:29
  complete sense because writing as well, it's obviously, I mean
• 38:31
  less so for you 2, but it's quite a solitary thing.
• 38:34
  You're often just in one room by yourself.
• 38:37
  You know, you're not actually seeing these fans that often.
• 38:40
  I mean, maybe you do now, actually, because you do so
• 38:42
  many. What's the word?
• 38:45
  Events and. Signings, those kinds of things.
• 38:48
  And so maybe that obviously does make it sink in more more.
• 38:52
  But yeah, if you're just at home writing on a day-to-day basis,
• 38:55
  it's probably quite hard to connect the two together.
• 38:58
  We're in this bubble and we're always in that because in our
• 39:01
  normal lives, you know, like, but it doesn't impact as like we
• 39:07
  don't walk down the street and people are like.
• 39:08
  Oh my God, you mean they don't kill me?
• 39:10
  It's just not like that does. That ever happen though.
• 39:15
  No, I'm. Surprised at that.
• 39:17
  I feel like we would definitely recognize you if we saw you down
• 39:21
  the street. Not to sound.
• 39:22
  Creepy or anything it's not. Good.
• 39:25
  But we, I mean, we've been signing, so I suppose that
• 39:28
  that's probably why. But yeah, like, I'm surprised at
• 39:31
  that. It's like the closest we have is
• 39:33
  like a friend of a friend. Usually it'll be like, oh, like
• 39:36
  my my friend will be like, Oh my God, I have this friend and we
• 39:39
  just got talking about the books like you like my friend.
• 39:41
  It's an author kind of thing. And they're like, oh, I've read
• 39:43
  all their books and like, I've never personally met someone.
• 39:46
  And they've been like, Oh my God, it's like you, you've
• 39:50
  written. I can't.
• 39:52
  Believe that's never happened to you.
• 39:53
  I went to, I went to Centre Parks last year and I went and
• 39:58
  had a massage and my masseuse was like, Oh my God, I follow
• 40:02
  you on TikTok, your tour. And I was like.
• 40:05
  This is the most weirdest thing that's ever happened to.
• 40:09
  Me so. Cool draining massages a little
• 40:13
  bit. It's for a new age, just so I
• 40:20
  know, I know you. Very relaxing.
• 40:28
  Well, actually. One thing I wanted to ask before
• 40:31
  we end the Zodiac Academy section, because I this is one
• 40:34
  of my favorite things about the series is all of the crossovers
• 40:38
  and the little Easter eggs you get.
• 40:39
  If you read other series by you, which we obviously have.
• 40:43
  When you do these cross crossovers and Easter eggs, how
• 40:46
  far do you have to sort of plan these things in advance?
• 40:49
  Depends how important it is. If it's like something that
• 40:52
  that's going to matter, then it's it's very intentional.
• 40:55
  If it's just some sort of throw away comments, some random thing
• 41:00
  here and there, it's almost certainly just we've seen an
• 41:03
  opportunity that we can put something in that relates to one
• 41:05
  of the other books and we just do it just as a little like,
• 41:11
  which might. We don't know if people will
• 41:13
  even pick up or not. So it's just a bit of fun
• 41:15
  really. But yeah, obviously it's like
• 41:17
  certain things that are more going to become something they
• 41:20
  might be more intentionally like, oh, we must slip that in
• 41:23
  or we might have gone back through the book and gone.
• 41:25
  Let's just pop this like threads of this here.
• 41:28
  But yeah, most of the Easter eggs, especially if they're just
• 41:30
  sort of relating back to something someone's picked up a
• 41:33
  book and gone reading like, and it happens to be one of our
• 41:36
  books, stuff like that. That's just a bit of fun that
• 41:38
  we've chucked in. It's sort of, yeah.
• 41:41
  Yeah, I love the crossovers where you hear about like other
• 41:43
  characters. And I think it's great for
• 41:45
  people that will probably like maybe people that have read
• 41:48
  Zodiac Academy or like some of your fantasy stuff and then go
• 41:51
  on and read things like the US of Anarchy series.
• 41:56
  They'll be like, oh, I recognize that person from that weird
• 41:59
  little snippet at one point I think.
• 42:02
  Yeah, you start to put all the little dots together like, oh,
• 42:05
  this link's like this. And yeah, it's so fun when
• 42:08
  you're reading them. We didn't have and I think we
• 42:10
  planned part of it. We had this.
• 42:13
  We might at some point point do it like a pre story to Zodiac,
• 42:18
  but they're in the mortal world and there's crossover with like
• 42:21
  our like our contemporary series and it's just I think we were
• 42:25
  like, oh, we could have like a party where like they all were
• 42:28
  accidentally. On a boat, I think we I thought
• 42:30
  I. Remember you saying that on a
• 42:31
  life before actually where like Tories with like the guys from
• 42:35
  like Kings of Anarchy and stuff. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:37
  And all that. They're all like almost
• 42:39
  together, but like the ones from the series that they haven't
• 42:42
  actually met in that timeline would just be kind of there, but
• 42:44
  they didn't realize the others were there and that sort of
• 42:46
  thing. Yeah, maybe one day.
• 42:50
  I think we had the whole thing planned and I think it was like
• 42:52
  the airs were going to be there partying on the other side of
• 42:54
  the boat to the twins and like it was kind of, I'm sure they
• 42:57
  were on a big yacht. It was like Saints yacht or
• 42:59
  something. It's like, yeah, we kind of
• 43:03
  yeah. I don't know, was it going to be
• 43:05
  a charity one or something or something just a bit fun.
• 43:07
  But we. One day.
• 43:09
  Yeah, it might have written a little bit of it somewhere.
• 43:12
  Sometimes find chapters of things somewhere and go Yeah, we
• 43:14
  started this book and then forgot about.
• 43:17
  Yeah, OK. So as we've actually mentioned a
• 43:18
  few times, you have this community on Facebook, if people
• 43:22
  didn't didn't already know, it's a ginormous group where people
• 43:25
  interact with each other. You guys should share like early
• 43:28
  snippets or pre-order links and things like that as well.
• 43:32
  So we have to find out they're burning questions for this and
• 43:36
  they definitely delivered on some interesting questions.
• 43:39
  So the first one was about the Christmas special book that's
• 43:43
  coming up. We're so excited about that.
• 43:46
  By the way, what made you to decide to do that and what was
• 43:51
  that conversation like? Like, should we go back to the
• 43:53
  Zodiac world? What kind of made you do that?
• 43:56
  Wait, it was Christmas. I think, I don't know that it
• 44:02
  was, it was just sort of like we should try it.
• 44:04
  I think were we planning on doing like something with Zodiac
• 44:07
  and we've kind of in the mood for it.
• 44:08
  And then I, I think it was just like, oh, let's just run out in
• 44:11
  calendar. And then we just chaotically did
• 44:13
  it in January and we're like, how quickly do we need to get
• 44:16
  this to print? And they were like, it's a
• 44:18
  really awkward print because it's these sealed.
• 44:20
  Like it has to go to print really, really soon.
• 44:22
  And we're like, cool, we'll do it.
• 44:23
  Like it's like chaos. And then we're like, we're going
• 44:26
  to fully illustrate it. And they're like, we have to get
• 44:27
  all the illustrations done. We're like, we'll do it.
• 44:30
  Lindsay, who's done the illustrations for us has been
• 44:32
  amazing and she has done it, smashed it.
• 44:34
  Oh my gosh. I can't wait.
• 44:37
  Those that don't know, by the way, we should probably explain
• 44:39
  that a little bit more. So it's an upcoming Zodiac
• 44:42
  Academy book, but designed to be a bit like a Christmas,
• 44:45
  Christmas Advent calendar, right?
• 44:46
  So 25 chapters that you could read, 1 each day.
• 44:49
  It's a full. Story.
• 44:50
  So it's not like a rat, it's not random chapters.
• 44:53
  So we came up with a story where it's their first Christmas after
• 44:57
  the end of the series, so it's all beyond book 9 and they're
• 45:04
  all together. Anyone who's 5, the series is
• 45:06
  there and basically as they're hanging up their Christmas
• 45:12
  decorations, Geraldine says we can't smash any of these
• 45:16
  decorations because it is tradition.
• 45:19
  They're hung every year, but if they're smashed, they're full of
• 45:22
  cursed spirits and they will destroy the world and they're up
• 45:26
  there. So the twins are like, maybe we
• 45:27
  don't hang them up, you know, like, maybe let's just keep them
• 45:30
  in the box. And child is like, it's
• 45:31
  tradition. So obviously chaos ensues and
• 45:34
  accidentally they all get smashed because of Seth and
• 45:37
  Xavier are getting. It's.
• 45:39
  Got to be sad, it has to be sad. He's definitely involved.
• 45:45
  And then, yeah, they have to basically spend Christmas Eve
• 45:50
  getting those spirits sorted out.
• 45:55
  Amazing. We literally we can't wait.
• 45:57
  And staying on the topic of Zodiac Academy, apart from the
• 46:02
  Christmas special, one of the other most burning questions is
• 46:05
  do you have plans to write anything else in that world at a
• 46:10
  later date? In the world definitely with
• 46:15
  those characters as front and centre, I think unless something
• 46:19
  like this, probably we won't go all in with that.
• 46:25
  It's hard because obviously they've had their character up.
• 46:27
  So as much as we'd love to, like, spend another four or five
• 46:29
  books, having them deal with something else, I think it would
• 46:32
  be a little flat in as far as, like, drama, like, they all get
• 46:36
  on and everything, you know, So. But then they probably wouldn't
• 46:39
  be the main characters in a whole series again.
• 46:43
  They would. Yeah, like things like this.
• 46:44
  We might if we come up with the right story.
• 46:47
  But if there was a sad, brooding, shadowy character who
• 46:51
  hasn't met anyone and has a lot of daddy issues that might need
• 46:55
  dealing with, and they needed a series, and maybe then some of
• 46:59
  the other characters would be involved there.
• 47:01
  Maybe they'll go over to some other land, as might have been
• 47:04
  hinted at the end of some other book recently.
• 47:06
  They will appear in fact you. Just answered one of our other
• 47:10
  questions. The most popular question asked
• 47:13
  that had like an inordinate amount of likes to the question
• 47:16
  was are we ever going to get barracks story?
• 47:19
  We've definitely had chats about barracks and we have some very
• 47:24
  early stage ideas that we are tossing back and forth of a
• 47:29
  baby. It's a baby this.
• 47:31
  Is so good. Another thing everyone is
• 47:34
  desperate to note, which is still in the same kind of vein
• 47:37
  actually, is would we ever get a series following the kids of the
• 47:42
  Zodiac characters? So like next Gen.
• 47:44
  I think it's again, it's a maybe, it's a bit more of a
• 47:48
  tenuous maybe. I think the problem with having
• 47:51
  a second generation, you can't have the parents can't be bad.
• 47:56
  And I think that does drive a lot of like emotional trauma and
• 47:59
  stuff in these kinds of books. So it just has to be done in a
• 48:03
  way. We'd have to come up with
• 48:04
  something that like, I don't know that that that they still
• 48:09
  had like a lot of issues and things to work through, but they
• 48:13
  probably. Had a good childhood, hopefully.
• 48:16
  Yeah, would make sense. Another one that I have to ask
• 48:22
  is a burning question of the fandom, but one for me myself.
• 48:26
  Are you ever going to continue the A Game of Malice and Greed
• 48:30
  series? Is that done in the water or do
• 48:32
  you plan to go back to it? So as we said earlier, it was
• 48:36
  originally this trilogy and the way we kind of did it when we
• 48:40
  reworked it, it that first book was, was it a little more than
• 48:44
  book 1? Wasn't it Caroline?
• 48:46
  It was the original and then the other two.
• 48:50
  I don't like to say this, but we did do about half of it.
• 48:53
  I think we did more than that. Yeah, like it's not it probably
• 48:58
  at some point we'll be like, we must finish this.
• 49:00
  It's not at the front at the moment.
• 49:02
  I don't want to leave it like, but it it reworking it sounded
• 49:08
  really easy and it really isn't. And it deviates so much from
• 49:12
  those original stories at that point.
• 49:15
  But because we did use the originals, there are also plot
• 49:19
  points and things in it that need to remain.
• 49:21
  So we felt we couldn't just be like, right, we'll just
• 49:23
  completely write new chapters out.
• 49:25
  But there was an element of that, too.
• 49:27
  And then, yeah, it was a lot harder.
• 49:30
  I mean, even like with this, similarly with this Zodiac admin
• 49:33
  calendar, we were like, that's great because it obviously like
• 49:35
  has to be a certain word count to fit in these parcels, these
• 49:38
  syllable passes. That sounds great.
• 49:39
  That's awful. That's so hard to do.
• 49:43
  It's so hard to do. And then obviously we just get
• 49:46
  like, you know, for our format. So she'd be like, this is great.
• 49:48
  You're like 6 pages short and then you'd be like, oh, it's OK,
• 49:50
  you're right, right. And then because the formatting
• 49:52
  is different if it's text messages, things like that, like
• 49:54
  sometimes like having more structures are something we find
• 49:59
  anyway is a lot harder. And I think that's kind of where
• 50:02
  we got a bit bogged down in with again, with Mice and Greed.
• 50:05
  We wanted to kind of make it into the duet and finish it up.
• 50:09
  At the moment it has kind of stalled, but I'd like to say we
• 50:13
  will at some point. We can take that.
• 50:15
  At least we have an answer, yeah.
• 50:17
  We've slowed down so much. Generally that's the trouble.
• 50:19
  Like if we were working at COVID speeds of 14 books a year, we'd
• 50:22
  be like do it. But it's we've just sort of
• 50:25
  trying to have a bit of a life these days.
• 50:26
  Yeah, it's not possible. You'll burn out and we can't
• 50:29
  have that. Then we'll have no books at all.
• 50:32
  On the topic of unfinished stories, will there be any
• 50:36
  further books in the US of Anarchy series?
• 50:39
  People were very interested in Luther and Carmen.
• 50:42
  Yes, we did set up for Luther and Carmen, which is why Luther
• 50:45
  kind of vaguely disappears towards the end of the series in
• 50:50
  the center's playground. So we have plans for it.
• 50:53
  Again, I think we're waiting for the moment to strike us for that
• 50:57
  series. At the moment, we're just super
• 51:00
  focused on we're just really enjoying writing romanticity.
• 51:02
  So I think that's where we are for now.
• 51:06
  But yeah, I would like to go back to that.
• 51:09
  And then random, but it makes so much sense, this squid emoji, we
• 51:14
  have to talk about it. And there is, I feel like some
• 51:18
  people don't get a lot of people asking, what does the squid
• 51:21
  emoji mean? And that's obviously because you
• 51:24
  don't know until you read the right one of your series.
• 51:28
  But like, I feel like all of your books have some something
• 51:30
  like iconic like this. Like you've got the squid, the
• 51:33
  bagels, the lemons. Like there's always something so
• 51:36
  fucking wild going on. How do you come up with these
• 51:39
  ideas? It is the Kipling cake.
• 51:43
  Which only after those that whole series come out, someone
• 51:46
  was like like Mr. Kipling. And I was like, huh?
• 51:50
  Really, it wasn't. Planned objects and then the
• 51:57
  cake just came into it and they were already called that and I
• 52:01
  don't know, but anyway, it wasn't intentional, but it but
• 52:05
  it's but yeah, the I don't know, I think sometimes we're just on
• 52:11
  one and we just like, let's just do something completely crazy.
• 52:15
  And just I did see someone recently they were starting to
• 52:18
  read the dark more books and they said they were just feeling
• 52:21
  like getting a tattoo for it. And a lot of people had
• 52:23
  suggested potato and she almost got a potato, but luckily other
• 52:26
  people were like no. And then they were all going
• 52:30
  like, where is the potato going to be?
• 52:33
  She was really glad she hadn't gotten the potato because she
• 52:36
  hadn't fully understood the context.
• 52:38
  And she got there and was like, thank you.
• 52:40
  So around you told me not to do that.
• 52:42
  That's brilliant. So now if we realize they're
• 52:47
  going to become such a thing, I feel like it's more like a joke
• 52:49
  that hits well with the other one.
• 52:50
  So like we probably each other, one of us first wrote that squid
• 52:54
  emoji being sent and the rage it caused.
• 52:56
  The next one of us probably then just thought this could get
• 52:59
  carried on and then it and that and similarly like with the same
• 53:02
  with his lemons and like it just becomes sort of a bit of a
• 53:06
  something where we're probably at each other as much as
• 53:08
  anything just to. We do pick up on the readers as
• 53:11
  well, like when when we wrote Kings of Quarantine, obviously
• 53:14
  we would see people's reaction. So the squid emoji might not
• 53:17
  been, I don't really remember, but it probably wasn't hugely on
• 53:19
  our radar. We just did it as whatever it
• 53:21
  was in that book and then people were like, what is it?
• 53:23
  Or like, hook onto it. So then we lean in because we
• 53:26
  just want to like, poke the bear.
• 53:30
  And that's so funny because with the squid emoji, like
• 53:31
  specifically as well to you in the beginning it meant nothing,
• 53:35
  and now it's part of your like, King's Hollow branding, isn't
• 53:37
  it? Yeah, we love it.
• 53:41
  We want everyone to forever be asking what it means and to
• 53:44
  forever get the same kind of response.
• 53:48
  Give me such joy when everybody rushes to tell them in the best
• 53:53
  way. I love it, I love it so much.
• 53:58
  So what is a beyond? Obviously we've got lightning
• 54:02
  coming. We've got Oracle Bay coming.
• 54:04
  That was one of the things I cried out in our first episode
• 54:06
  back this season, the end of Cinder Vale.
• 54:08
  I did a. Live reaction video to it.
• 54:10
  I was sobbing, it was so intense.
• 54:12
  But beyond what we know, is there anything else you can tell
• 54:17
  us about what you have coming up beyond like being Oracle Bay and
• 54:20
  the Advent calendar? Well, because we kind of, we're
• 54:25
  going to be done. We're like, we won't have any
• 54:28
  open series if we don't talk about the ones that we've
• 54:30
  somewhat abandoned, but we like the ones that we're actively
• 54:34
  writing right now, we'll be kind of done, which is quite freeing.
• 54:38
  So we have. We're not going to write anymore
• 54:41
  and we're done forever. Yeah, we have.
• 54:45
  We have some plans and thoughts. We have we keep meaning to write
• 54:49
  Frankie's book in the Beautiful Carnage series and just not
• 54:53
  quite hitting on the right story for that.
• 54:54
  It's possible we might just go like let's palate cleanse and do
• 54:56
  that one possible and it's possible that we might do
• 55:00
  another story that we're sort. Of yeah, we're talking.
• 55:04
  We are still talking to Eric's, like we said, which might be the
• 55:06
  next one. We never know.
• 55:07
  Once we close this series, I think we'll know.
• 55:10
  We have. We've discussed demons a few
• 55:13
  times recently, so we might move in that direction.
• 55:17
  Something demon E would be cool. Oracle Bay is going to be the is
• 55:22
  Oracle Bay the last sins of the Zodiac?
• 55:24
  But kismet, yes, I. Never say 100% because sometimes
• 55:30
  as we're writing it like we can't complete everything that
• 55:33
  needs to happen like in a satisfying way.
• 55:37
  So it might have to become another one.
• 55:39
  But I think from what we have planned, we haven't sat and like
• 55:42
  structurally done chapter by chapter yet.
• 55:45
  So we think it should be all achievable in that final book,
• 55:50
  unless it gets ridiculously big and we have to sell it in half.
• 55:53
  But that is the plan. That will be the last one.
• 55:55
  That's kind of what happened. Zodiac we got it was supposed to
• 55:58
  be 7, I think. And when we got to seven, we're
• 56:00
  like, there's no way. Like there is no way it's being
• 56:03
  done in this book. So then eight and then we're
• 56:07
  like, that's not happening. You could.
• 56:09
  Bludgeon someone to death with the last books in that series.
• 56:12
  Like that's so big. Yeah, but no, not.
• 56:17
  You have to continue that series because there's so many
• 56:19
  characters. It would have been impossible to
• 56:21
  give them all the right ending if you hadn't.
• 56:23
  And if you'd only focused on the twins, for example, a lot of
• 56:26
  people would have been unhappy with that either way.
• 56:28
  So it makes sense. But very, very exciting.
• 56:31
  And you never know, guys, they might do a sci-fi next, who
• 56:34
  knows? One last question for this
• 56:38
  section, and it's a question for you to each other in a way.
• 56:42
  If you had to choose a character from any of your own books that
• 56:45
  you think the other one is most like, who would it be?
• 56:50
  She's a washer, that is. That is very systemly behavior.
• 57:01
  Washer. Then That's Caroline.
• 57:07
  Oh, well then she's plunder. No, but how can I make it 1?
• 57:15
  Yeah, I've heard of it, but I'm not, I'm not on dark more yet.
• 57:19
  I'm again, I'm really nervous. You're yet to make plunder.
• 57:22
  He doesn't make washer look good.
• 57:26
  Yeah, he done really does. I was saying to toll the reason
• 57:30
  I haven't done The Dark More and Sins of the Zodiac is I have
• 57:34
  this overwhelming fear I'll just have no more books by you guys
• 57:37
  to read. So I keep them as like rainy day
• 57:40
  books, but then you've always got new books coming.
• 57:43
  So I need to get out of this habit and just just continue
• 57:46
  with the series and be brave. I know we said that I was going
• 57:49
  to be the last question in that series, but then while we've
• 57:51
  been talking, I did have one other question that's come to
• 57:53
  front of mind and that is that at the minute, like it feels
• 57:57
  like every day we are getting new book to screen news like in
• 58:01
  the book world, like it's wild, Like there's something new
• 58:04
  coming up every day. Can you can you ever see
• 58:07
  something like Zodiac Academy going screen?
• 58:09
  I know that you've kind of talked about it before, but do
• 58:12
  you think that that would ever happen?
• 58:14
  We've turned down a couple of offers.
• 58:18
  We are a bit fussy. We have things that might be
• 58:22
  happening and discussions. It's something we'd love to see
• 58:25
  done right. Right.
• 58:27
  Yeah. It's very tricky to lock that
• 58:31
  into contract. You'll get a lot of.
• 58:33
  We promise. We'll stick to the books.
• 58:34
  OK, write it down. But we're not going to write it
• 58:36
  down. But we promise we will just
• 58:38
  trust us. And then it's like, I don't
• 58:39
  really trust you. You're a massive you can glamour
• 58:42
  and that they have the right to with a lot of contracts.
• 58:44
  They have to have the right to make up characters to do spin
• 58:47
  off shows and just kind of do what they want.
• 58:49
  And we're like, no, you need to like, if we're going to do it,
• 58:53
  let's tell the story in the same way that everyone fell in love
• 58:56
  with the story. Let's not make up characters.
• 58:58
  Let's not go, oh, we're just going to have two ears, you
• 59:01
  know, like, Can you imagine? It's just like you can't, It's
• 59:04
  there's no point doing it, is there?
• 59:05
  In that case, so. I mean, if they did wild things
• 59:07
  like that, the fans would hate it.
• 59:09
  Yeah, who would you cut? Because who would you cut you?
• 59:12
  Can't. Yeah, we say just promise you
• 59:15
  won't in the contract. And they're like, no, we won't
• 59:17
  do it, but we're not gonna write down that we won't do it.
• 59:19
  And then we're like, well, I ought to trust you.
• 59:21
  Yeah. And when you see other big
• 59:23
  popular adaptations that have changed things quite
• 59:27
  significantly, like Vampire Diaries is amazing, but it's
• 59:30
  nothing like the books. And then you get, you get a bit
• 59:34
  nervous because it's like, well, you're saying you haven't done
• 59:37
  it, but you do it pretty much everything that's adapted.
• 59:39
  So it's obviously, yeah, it's definitely a nerve wracking one.
• 59:43
  But I'm sure we, I mean, I know we would love to see it to
• 59:46
  screen. I'm sure so many other people
• 59:48
  would too if it was the right, yeah, the right thing.
• 59:51
  We're having very interesting, exciting talks right now, so
• 59:55
  I'll say that we'll see what happens.
• 59:58
  We'll keep our fingers crossed. So thank you so much.
• 1:00:02
  For answering all of our. Questions, we hope we haven't
• 1:00:06
  bought you with them. We always like to wrap up our
• 1:00:10
  interviews with people with like a little game.
• 1:00:13
  So we want to do like a quick this or that.
• 1:00:16
  You have to answer as quickly as you can to each of these
• 1:00:20
  questions. OK, so writing at dawn or
• 1:00:23
  burning the midnight. Oil Dawn Dawn 5.
• 1:00:28
  OK, villain era or redemption arc?
• 1:00:31
  Redemption arc. Fancy or contemporary Age of
• 1:00:39
  Vampires or Zodiac Academy? Zodiac.
• 1:00:44
  Enemies to lovers or friends to lovers enemy.
• 1:00:50
  Plot everything or see where it goes.
• 1:00:53
  We plot everything. Yeah, we plot, but it's not the
• 1:00:55
  most stringent, so I mean, you wouldn't want to see it.
• 1:01:00
  We have to, we kind of have to because we can't go off script
• 1:01:04
  because then like we do in like in the middle of it, it has to
• 1:01:08
  go a start and end point has to be the same because like if
• 1:01:10
  she's down right in the next chapter, at the same time, she
• 1:01:14
  has to know where Maya ends. So yeah.
• 1:01:17
  Makes sense. Please hang an ending or happily
• 1:01:20
  ever after. I feel like that was an obvious
• 1:01:25
  one. Read the reviews.
• 1:01:27
  Or hard pass. Used to be read the reviews, now
• 1:01:31
  it's. Yeah, like first reviews.
• 1:01:36
  Like we usually read the first wave on the.
• 1:01:38
  First one that's always a one stop.
• 1:01:44
  Matter what, it'll be a completely different person
• 1:01:47
  every time. The one the one that goes on
• 1:01:49
  Amazon first is always a low rating.
• 1:01:55
  Funniest character Leon, Geraldine, Seth or Sin?
• 1:02:01
  Sin's pretty good. Sounds pretty good.
• 1:02:03
  He just can get away with everything on Geraldine.
• 1:02:06
  I don't know. They're also.
• 1:02:08
  You have to choose one, Geraldine.
• 1:02:12
  Sin. OK perfect, I need to read those
• 1:02:15
  books then so I can see Darius or Lance.
• 1:02:19
  Darius. We wrote those.
• 1:02:22
  I wrote Lance as you write Darius.
• 1:02:26
  Makes sense have to bat for your own character.
• 1:02:31
  So this has been such a fun episode and also just such a
• 1:02:34
  surreal experience. I think I can speak for both of
• 1:02:37
  us when I say that it's such a special opportunity, so we can't
• 1:02:41
  thank you enough for sitting down with us and doing this.
• 1:02:44
  This has really just been like the most full circle moment for
• 1:02:47
  us, honestly, like getting to talk to you guys and just have a
• 1:02:51
  conversation and you answer our questions.
• 1:02:53
  It's honestly been so amazing, so thank you so much.
• 1:02:57
  So where can everyone find you and make sure that they're
• 1:03:01
  keeping up with everything and what's coming up next for you
• 1:03:03
  guys? So I feel like the best place
• 1:03:05
  for us is generally TikTok or our Facebook group is the most
• 1:03:09
  active place for community. Even if you hate Facebook, it's
• 1:03:13
  such a good place just to be in there for, like, for readers and
• 1:03:16
  chatting about the books. And they chat about all books.
• 1:03:18
  And there it's not just our books.
• 1:03:20
  And you get great recommendations in there as
• 1:03:21
  well. And you might meet some friends
• 1:03:23
  that like books, which is nice. So that's called Karen and
• 1:03:26
  Beckham and Suzanne Valenti's Reading Tribe on Facebook.
• 1:03:31
  Yeah. And then we're on TikTok under
• 1:03:34
  our names. And we'll have all the links
• 1:03:36
  below if you're listening at home in the description, so you
• 1:03:38
  can find them there as well. Thank you so much to everyone
• 1:03:43
  listening. We really appreciate you taking
• 1:03:45
  the time. Don't forget to like, follow,
• 1:03:47
  subscribe us and the sisters and we'll see you in a couple of
• 1:03:50
  weeks for another episode. Bye, thank.
• 1:03:53
  You bye.