Interviewing novel writing duo Mellissa Hill and husband Kevin is an absolute treat and, after a couple of minutes of talking to the married couple, you can see so clearly why collaborating on a novel was such a good idea. They finish each other sentences with constantly shared excitement and enthusiasm. You could talk to them all day.
For women’s fiction writer Melissa, Taboo is a stark break from the norm. It goes to a place where her regular characters would have no business being. Set in a grislier side of Dublin, the novel is far more in the style of Kathy Reichs work or Criminal Minds than her usual stomping ground of matters of the heart. Although the central character is a woman, Reilly Steel has very little time for love or anything like it. The California born forensic anthropologist has been given the task of bringing the Irish Crime Lab into the 21st Century and is met with snobbish reluctance from the old hacks of Irish crime investigating.
The question I want to ask the couple first and foremost is how they decided to take on this daunting task of collaborating on a crime fiction novel. Melissa explains: “What happened was about three years ago in between writing my own books I had made a start on a thriller; this kind of serial killer type of thing, it was only 50 pages, very raw and Kevin loved the idea but I just didn’t have to time to go back to it because I was getting busier and busier with my own stuff so if I wasn’t writing a book I was promoting one. You have loads of ideas in your drawers that you never get a chance to work on but this one in particular stood out and Kevin kept saying ‘would you not go back to that one’, he loved it so much.”
Kevin continues: “I was involved in property development and things had slowed down incredibly. I had always been interested in travel writing - Bill Bryson kind of stuff - so I took the plunge and went for it and I did and loved it. Then Mellissa suggested to me that I have a look at the thriller she’d had the idea for and I had some ideas for the middle and the end of the book so we started from there. It just took its own course; there was no deadline so we could do it free and easy because we had time.”
Since the couple were living together and working from home, the process of writing a novel together was quite hassle-free and they both put their own unique slant on ideas. Melissa had work to do on her own writing at the same time so they went off to their own separate corners of the house to write. Melissa explains that since having the idea initially, the enthusiasm for the story never waned. “We were just exchanging drafts back and forth. Kevin has some great ideas that got me interested so even when I was still doing my own stuff we were still chatting about it.”
Kevin describes how the idea for the book took over day to day for the couple: “We were brainstorming about it all the time. We’d be sitting in restaurants talking about people that didn’t exist and what they were up to with Melissa’s books and now with these books the dinner table conversations has changed quite a lot. From talking about some woman being left by someone now it’s about someone being slashed by someone! We were talking about a putrefying corpse in a septic tank there recently...”
Although Taboo is set in the middle of Dublin’s crime scene, it doesn’t read as a Dublin book. It has a far wider appeal and this was very important, Kevin explains. We didn’t really want the backdrop to be too strong a character in it because I think sometimes that pulls people out so we had to make it blend more seamlessly into the book. I’ve read books before on Irish crime and it can be a bit too localised...” Melissa interposes “A bit too true life, I think you need a bit of escapism; particularly now. It was just slightly different to bring that more CSI, Criminal Minds, Quantico stuff into Ireland. It could be anywhere really. We didn’t make Dublin a character.”
With Melissa’s work schedule and both of their work on Taboo the couple had very little time for anything else, until they found they were expecting their first child in the middle of all of the hustle and bustle. Just as they were finishing Taboo, Melissa talks about how they juggled everything and kept on top of it all. “The last year was crazy for us because just before our agent sent out Taboo, we had a baby and when that happened it all kind of exploded. I had intended on finishing my next book before she arrived but I just couldn’t do it. Then our agent waited until it had all died down before she sent it out. Within 24 hours we had a publisher, we hadn’t expected that.”
Although chaos reigned with Melissa trying to finish her solo work, look after their newborn and prepare herself for publishing Taboo, there were certain benefits to their position of stay at home writers and parents. “It’s great for us because we can both be at home with her. She’s getting to the stage where she needs more attention! She used to just lay there at the beginning but she’s full of life now! We’re afraid what her first word is going to be when she’s just sitting there listening to us chatting about the book!”
Having been offered a two book deal, with plans afoot to write a whole series based on the character Reilly Steel, the couple's dinner table conversations are due to continue being rather out of the ordinary, but the promise of a continuation of this series is very good news for lovers of top notch crime fiction.
Taboo is out now, published by Simon & Schuster
Originally published in Verbal
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