To begin at the beginning…

It began - as these often things do - with a comment from my comedy husband Steve O’Brien. It’s worth mentioning that I wouldn’t have had the confidence to start writing ‘Black Knight’ had it not been for the success of my fourth novel ‘Oblivion Black’. It buoyed me up and persuaded me that Phantoms Inc had legs despite two big publishers turning it down.

Anyway, back to Steve. He mentioned that he wasn’t watching a TV series cause he didn’t like spending time in that world, which planted a seed. I was thinking of writing a series of books and thought what world do I like spending time in? That world was the Vinyl Detective books by Andrew Cartmel. I look forward to each new instalment, and being reintroduced to the characters is like meeting old friends. So I thought about the elements i wanted to be in my series. There was also another big inspiration.

I read the utterly bonkers ‘Black Knight’ satellite conspiracy theory in the pages of ‘The Fortean Times’, it’s bat shit crazy and I loved it, especially as some threads of the story pull in ‘lost’ scientist Nikola Tesla. I’d love to say that after that the book wrote itself, but it did provide a powerful catalyst.

I wrote a synopsis for the book and when i looked it over thought ‘I’d read the shit out of that book!’ and Marshall and Conner began to form and solidified as i went through the different drafts.

The bones of the book remained the same though a lot changed through the drafts, one of the supporting characters changed gender and the title went from ‘Tesla and the Black Knight’, to ‘Phantoms Inc AND THE Black Knight’ to finally…

Kate Mattacks and Helen Woodhouse.

I love writing for Marshall and Conner and i hope you enjoy reading their adventures.