Sarah Bailey in the spotlight - Part One

In this episode we speak to and explore the journey of Sarah Bailey, acclaimed crime writer known for her gripping crime thrillers. With a background in PR and communications, Sarah transitioned from a successful corporate career to focus on her writing. 

Books by Sarah Bailey

The Gemma Woodstock series

• The Dark Lake
• Into the Night
• Where the Dead Go
• Body of Lies

The Oli Groves series

• The Housemate
• Click

He Read, She Read podcast (with J.P Pomare)

https://www.sarahbaileyauthor.com/

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The Kill City Podcast is a part of the Booktopia Affiliate Program, meaning that when you purchase a book from Booktopia using one of the above the links, we get a small commission. Or as they'd say in the crime world, a kick back! 

At the Kill City Podcast we love celebrating and promoting the work of Australian writers, publishers and bookstores, and we hope you do too.

Disclaimer

The episode transcripts are auto-generated, and while all efforts are made to ensure their accuracy, there may be some instance of incorrect spelling and/or errors in the accuracy.

www.killcitypodcast.com.au

Transcript

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Speaker 2 0:00

The Kill City podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands we're on. Here in Melbourne, that's the Wurundjeri Woiworong people of the Kulin Nation. We honour their deep connection to storytelling, a tradition carried across more than 2,000 generations. Pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and we extend that acknowledgement to First Nations people listening today.

Speaker 0:28

Welcome back to Kill City, where Australian crime fiction is our MO. Today we're stepping into the world of tight-knit communities with long memories, celebrity-level investigations, and digital age menace, all hallmarks of the wonderful Australian crime author Sarah Bailey. She's the creator of two gripping female-led series, one featuring homicide detective Gemma Woodstock, who has a talent for walking straight into trouble, and the other starring investigative journalist Ollie Groves, who has a habit of digging into the stories everyone else would rather leave buried. Sarah's known for her sharp psychological insight, her beautifully planted red herrings, and twists that keep you guessing right up until the final pages. Sarah, thank you very much for joining us today. Now, before we jump into the conversation, Sarah, and thank you very much for joining us, we thought we'd take a little stroll through your books in order today. But first, for anybody who might not be as familiar with your background as we are, I'll give the quick version of your bio. So you're Melbourne born and bred, and you studied media and communications at Swinburne, and I think journalism was your original plan before going on to build a very successful career in advertising and communications. And I love this bit. Then at 33, you set yourself a very specific goal to have your first book published before you turned 35, which obviously, well, which you absolutely nailed. The Dark Light came out the day after your 35th birthday in 2017, launching the Gemma Woodstock series and setting you on a whole new path. Since then, you've written six more crime thrillers, including the Audible Original Final Act, all while working full-time and raising your three boys. Until last year, you were balancing your writing with a major leadership role at VML, one of the biggest creative and digital agencies in the world, running their Melbourne and Sydney offices. Then you stepped away from agency life to focus on writing, screen projects, and podcasting, which we'll get to a little bit later. But before we do jump in, and I've actually heard you ask this before, um, but it still fascinates me. How have you juggled and balanced it all? Because the three parenting, uh, a career in the corporate world, and especially in one that's not known for its you know easy come nine to five kind of rhythm, uh, and then writing are all really time consuming. So, uh, what's the key, do you think?

Speaker 1 2:46

Oh, I don't know. Um, I mean, as you said, I've I've left my full-time job in um at the end of 2025. So I'm sort of in the same position as you now, where I look back and I'm like, how did I do that? Because I feel like this year I'm I've theoretically got all of this extra time, but it doesn't feel like I've got any extra time, and I don't quite know how that maths isn't mathing for me. Um I have like taken on a few other projects this year, I guess, so I I can sort of see where some of the time's gone, but I think when I was just in that kind of world of work and I really still wanted to write books, you find a way to fit things in. I mean it's like you know, you guys with your podcast, I think. You just if you want to do it, there is a way. Um so you do have to, I think, really want to do it for it to work. But look, defin I mean, look, sometimes, yeah, some some years was m more of a juggle than others, and some deadlines were more stressful than others. And uh, I think since I've had my youngest son, that has definitely made things more challenging. Like I'm just more tired and he's crazy and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, there's different kinds of um ways, I guess, that you try and kind of hack the hack the writing process and make it fit around everything else.

Speaker 4:10

Yeah, no, that that all does make sense, and certainly the young, we seem to have lost talent, but um certainly having young children is is a juggle on all the things. So um uh hats off to you for being able to um uh to sort of juggle all that. But um your books, it's been a phenomenal run. Um your award-winning debut, The Dark Lake, hit bookshops in 2017 and introduced us to Gemma Woodstock. Um she then returned in Into the Night in 2018 and again in Where the Dead Go in 2019. Um then came The Housemate in 2021, where we first met Ollie Groves. Um, you went back to Gemma with Body of Lies in 2023, and then in March this year, you've given us Click, which is Ollie's second outing. Um it's an incredible body of work in just seven years. So, congratulations.

Speaker 2 5:01

Thank you. Well, I would like to start with your first novel, The Dark Lake. So, this is the book that introduced us to Gemma Woodstock. Now, for people who may not know her, she's a respected homicide detective. Um, she's a new mother, and for this debut story, she's actually drawn back into the emotional pool of her hometown where the body of her charismatic young teacher, Rosalind Ryan, is found in the lake near Gemma's old high school. Now, the investigation that she leads causes her to confront old secrets, teenage loyalties, and a past that she's tried hard to leave behind, all while she's actually juggling quite a few messy contradictions of her own life. Now, the book was amazing. I loved it. I remember reading it, I think maybe about around the time it came out when it won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. Um, it was shortlisted for the David Awards, it was featured in our countdown of the Kill City Pest Australian Crime Debus. Um, and for anyone who wants to go back and listen, we'll pop the link in our show notes. Um, and as I said, look, I just loved the book when I first read it. Um, for me, it was just a page turn, it was just really atmospheric. Um, I loved the plotting, I liked that kind of um real emotional precision that you give your characters because I'm very character-driven, what sort of sucks me into a book. And oh, Gemma, what a character. Um, look, she just jumped off the page immediately. Um, you just instantly wanted to know what was driving her and what choices she made, even though you didn't agree with them quite a lot of the time. Um, look, and I think she also drives you a little bit mad. And I do read some reviews where people um have quite quite mixed views about Gemma. But um, but yeah, so where did the spark start? Um you know, for the story and then and then for Gemma. Had you kind of been thinking about it for a while, or did you kind of just write it as you went?

Speaker 1 6:58

Um it's so funny. So I I remember the exact moment when Gemma sort of just came to me, and it was bizarre. It was sort of a fully formed character injection into my brain. Like I I I don't know where she came from, I don't know why. Um, but I was I was midway through trying to write another manuscript and got had gotten stuck, which was really frustrating because I had really intended to sort of write that novel and and go get all the way with that manuscript, and I I could feel myself getting stuck with this story, and so I was doing that thing where I was telling myself I had to keep going because quitting was sort of this you know pattern and I didn't want to do that. Um, but I also then had this shiny new thing that I could tell was special, and so I I sort of spent a week wrestling with like, do I try and kind of keep writing this new story, or do I do the right thing and go back and finish the manuscript that I know I should be focusing on? And in the end, I sort of had to give myself permission to pursue the Gemma story because I knew it felt like a like a tidal wave of an idea. I I I was so compelled to write it, and luckily I think I listened to a podcast or something that week where someone said, You've just got to go where the heat is, you've got to write where it's hot, and you know, if it's if it's feeling cold and it's not working, there's perseverance and then there's just punishment, and I was like, thank you. So um that was good, but um yeah, I was driving, I was actually driving my kids um down to Phillip Island for a weekend, and um it just sort of it just thundered into my brain this character, this sort of premise, this plot sort of points. I didn't know everything, I'm not a planner, but there was just enough that I could see the runway of this story, and um got them into bed that night and wrote the prologue of the book, which is really uh pretty unchanged in the final version that's been printed. Everything else changed in the book, so don't worry. I had to rewrite it lots of times, but that um voice, I think, of Gemma and that sort of um emotional train wreck of a character was just so clear to me. Um so yeah, I feel really lucky that uh I sort of came upon her. And ironically, the manuscript that I had gotten stuck with and I had put that I put aside, um, that ended up being the audible original that I did go back and finish um years later, I think five years later, four years later, um, but so I did sort of finish that story, but I think it it needed to be rested and I needed to give it some space. So it all it all worked out in the end. Um, but I think the dark lake just it needed to get out of me. So it um it forced its way into the the main top of the list, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:59

Yeah, no, that's amazing. And I love I love that um, yeah, you should basically you should just never throw away a manuscript by the sounds of it, because it yeah, I don't think so. A good idea somewhere, yeah.

Speaker 1 10:10

Yeah, yeah. I've had a few friends I know, you know, have come back to things, or you know, sometimes the idea is good, but the way that you execute it is not quite right, or you need to sort of reframe it, or it's needs to be written from a different perspective, and uh or sometimes it's just a a little bit of a story that ends up, you know, going into a bigger story. So I I think there's never a wasted there's never really a wasted idea or thought or word or whatever. It's just that sometimes um I think when you're writing, you're actually procrastinating, and it is good to sort of know sometimes when to just put something to the side because you're not actually progressing it, you're sort of wallowing in it. And I've I still have to remind myself of that all the time.

Speaker 2 10:52

Yeah, I was gonna say, um, I guess that's part of the the discipline, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And I guess um, look, I'm a reader, not a writer, so I've never written a novel, but I'm always really fascinated by that moment when something you've actually created made yourself leave your hands and becomes part of the world. So, what did it actually feel like when you know you unleashed the Dark Lake and Gemma Woodstock onto the world? I don't know, was it exhilarating, terrifying, a bit of both?

Speaker 1 11:20

Yeah, it was really I it it's it's um it's such a strange thing. And and kind of luckily, I think I did have a few moments where I actually told myself this is a really special moment, like remember this and and appreciate it because you know, A, it might never happen again, and also this is what you've really wanted for a really long time. So sort of almost sit in it and really sort of you know, what you know, luxuriate in it, it's nice. Um, so there's kind of three key moments that I remember telling myself, mark this down, like note to self, this is an important moment. Um, and that's really nice to have those um moments, I think. But it's a bit strange, like I think there's also such a strange pre-promotion sort of period where you've held the book, it's going to be real, but no one's read it yet. Um, and I think you know, even ten years ago, it was a different industry, even to how it is now, and there was sort of you know book bloggers and it's a little bit, but it was very early days, and so I didn't really feel like that many people had read the book. Um, and I I remember I went to a conference up on um in Queensland, and all these booksellers were, you know, saying, Oh, I'm so excited about your book, I loved it. And I was sort of like, Oh my god, all these people have read it. This is so strange, um, so nice, but um just just a very overwhelming kind of feeling. And then you never get that first book feeling again because it's so pure and so lovely. And then, of course, once you then have sort of a deadline and an expectation, and people have read your first book, and even if they loved it, you it's sort of it's forever different, you know. You can never have that sort of um, it's like the reality shows where people say, Oh, you know, the first season of Big Brother was so nice because everyone just went on it with sort of wide-eyed, you know, naivety, and it's a bit like that. Um, but yeah, it was it was great, and I really enjoyed it. And and I think the the best thing about my advertising career was that it really um sealed me for, you know, any kind of criticism, reviews, feedback. Like it really doesn't bother me. I'm sort of so used to being in situations where ideas are picked apart and deconstructed and everyone's got a point of view on them, and it's so subjective. I've had to give lots of feedback, I've had to receive lots of feedback, and I I really I I I really don't kind of mind bad reviews or feedback or perspectives or someone coming up and saying, Didn't like this part of your book, and I'm like, Cool, why not? Um, so I think that was helpful for me because I didn't find that part a a problem. Um mainly it's just yeah, been really nice to to talk to people about the thing that you've spent time writing. And I loved that with Gemma. I loved that people had a reaction to her. I thought that was sort of I guess ultimately the point. So it was, yeah, it was really, really fun experience.

Speaker 2 14:19

Yeah, I was gonna say, and um we'll we'll talk some more about um you know the other Gemma books, but um talking about the first one and you know that idea about being subjective about you know what people thought about Gemma. So The Dark Lake is getting adapted for um screen. So that's very exciting news. I think it's is it independent film producers Brew Haha Entertainment and Phoebe Tonkin, who Yeah, that's right. She's Eli's mum from Boys Follows Universe, and I think is she directing and producing it? So that's incredible. Is that correct?

Speaker 1 14:53

Yeah, she she's she's starring in it and and um producing it. Um so she's quite involved in the scripting process and um sort of some of the decisions around the way it will it will present itself. Um yeah, she's been great, and it's a very long time in the making because I think the I think the film rights were optioned in 2017 or 2018, so it has been a while. Yeah but there's been lots of sort of uh different phases of the process and it COVID really sort of uh put it on ice for a couple of years and it wasn't gonna happen and then it was back on and back off. Anyway, it's happening. Um so that's great. It's filming um relatively soon and yeah, I think everyone who's involved is really excited about it. So I can't wait to see it. I think I'm really open to what they do with it and and how they need to change it for TV. I'm I'm really aware that the book is written in first person, so it's very internal, it's very, you know, from Gemma's perspective, and uh they obviously need to change that for TV. So I'm really kind of excited to see how that that works. And um, I've read you know some of the scripts and was involved in the original writer's room. So it's it's I love it. I love the interpretation of an idea and um the evolution of an idea. I think that'll be really, really great.

Speaker 2 16:16

Well, um we'll wait patiently, I think, because it sounds like it may be a little bit far away, but yeah, no super excited for that one.

Speaker 16:24

I'm very much looking forward to it. I love the dark lake. You anchored Gemma's really messy emotional life, like inside this police investigation. Um, and it was just it felt grounded without getting bogged down in you know, stand like in police procedurals. Um so it's funny, it's almost 10 years that we'll be celebrating soon. But and I like Helen um and she and I were working together at this point. I also read it very soon after it came out, and there are still scenes in it that are so I've read all your other books since, and you know, however many other books I've read in the last nine years, there are scenes in it that are so clearly still etched in my mind. Um, it had such a strong sense of place, and I can see the town of Smithson so clearly, and the house in which Gemma's dad lives, I feel like I can see that. So it was a fantastic writing, and just a I I love sense of place in books, and you know, some of that is why we sort of have this podcast, which uh is about Australian crime writing. So um, yeah, that was such a remarkably good book. Thank you.

Speaker 1 17:30

That's really nice, thank you.

Speaker 17:33

Then 2018 you released Into the Night, which was obviously Gemma's second outing. Um this time she's investigating the murder of a high-profile actor on a film set. Um it's a case unfolding under the media glare and sort of tight production schedules, um, which was quite suffocating, I remember, from that as well. Um, and then personally, she's pretty unmoored. She's just moved to Melbourne, her relationships are under strain, and she's still carrying you know the the fallout from um the dark lake and all of that sits under the investigation and gives the book this really, really sharp edge. Now, because she's in operating in a bigger environment with bigger stakes, um, while she's not exactly steady in her personal life, I'm curious to know what kicked this one off for you. Was it the the film set world, was it the shift in location, or did you just want to see what Gemma would do next?

Speaker 1 18:20

I think uh once I knew that the Dark Lake was going to be a sequel because they told me they wanted one. Um I I you know I did have a moment of of sort of panic thinking, oh gosh, like I didn't, you know, write this Dark Lake book intending to continue the story, but Gemma had sort of stayed with me. So I had started thinking about what would she be doing after the end of this book? Like I I knew in my mind it was really clear she wouldn't stay in the town. She needed to go, she needed to kind of do the thing that she'd never done. Um, you know, and she was sort of sort of suffering from like arrested development a little bit, so I needed to get her out of there. And I remember um I said to my publisher, like, I I want to write this book about Gemma in a different place. Is that going to be okay? And I think she was like, You've just got to do what's right for Gemma. And I was like, Okay, good, because that's what I'm doing. Um, so I I knew she needed to leave, and I knew that that was controversial because she's a mother, and you know, that kind of brings all this character sort of development and judgment along with it, which I thought was really interesting too. So that was definitely part of the the setting needing to change. Um and then the cr for me with Gemma books, it's really always what's going on with Gemma and what journey does she need to go on, and then what is she solving from a crime perspective that kind of complements that and helps teach her whatever lesson it is that she needs to learn. It's I mean, it's not that that sounds really smart and strategic. It's that happens half by accident, but that's clearly like what ends up being threaded together. And with that story, I kind of thought, oh, it'd be really interesting if she moves to this sort of big city, Melbourne, and and then is confronted with kind of almost the mirror of what she's dealing with, which is somehow being anonymous within a huge crowd of people. And that that crime is, you know, someone carrying out a murder in the midst of a giant film set with hundreds of people, and that's kind of how she was feeling in the city, sort of right there, but no one was noticing her, and suddenly she's this tiny fish in a massive pond as opposed to the other way around. So I don't know, there was just some parallels I think for me that worked well, and she was dealing with people that this time didn't have anything to do with her backstory, which I thought was important. I didn't want it to be like a home and away series where it's just constantly someone that she's dealing with from her past. I kind of felt like that that does start to get a bit tricky. Um, so yeah, like that looking back, that's how I remember it all kind of coming together. And the second book was quite fun to write because I did write quite a lot of it before The Dark Lake was published, and I think that was uh that was a good thing. Gave me kind of a bit of freedom to not be too worried about whether or not people like Gemma or or whatever. I didn't have that feedback loop yet. Um, I think that came when I was editing the book, so by then the draft was pretty locked down, and yeah, I think it was really important for her to have that total sort of shift in scenery and and and be by herself, I think, was was the main thing too.

Speaker 21:41

So at some at what point did you know that the publishers wanted a follow up?

Speaker 1 21:47

Um I think I it was only about six or seven weeks, I think, after the Dark Lake um contract came through, and then Alan and Umwin took It internationally, and it was actually the American publisher that ended up saying we want we want to publish it, but we want a two-book deal, we want it to be a series, and so they came back and said, This is so exciting, this is what's happened, and so we want that now as well. Um, and then they were like, You've got a year, and I was like, Okay. Um, so yeah, it was a lot.

Speaker 22:20

So theoretical.

Speaker 1 22:21

It was great, it was so exciting.

Speaker 22:22

Was the dark light so the dark light wasn't even out at that point, was it?

Speaker 1 22:26

No.

Speaker 22:26

No, wow.

Speaker 1 22:27

No, no, it was it was definitely it was still being edited, and I think it was kind of getting toward the end of being edited with the publisher, so it was sort of locked pretty locked down. And um, like I said, I I didn't have another idea for a sort of crime narrative, but I I had started to think about Gemma, and I sort of kept thinking, I kind of feel like I know what she would do next, you know, in in her world, and and that was in hindsight, luckily, because it it sort of allowed me, I think, to have that runway to just keep working on the story.

Speaker 22:58

Um I'm always interested in how authors approach research in novels. So for this one, um, you know, the details around film production, the way a shoot runs, the politics on and off the set, on and off the set. How did you tackle that? And did you get stuck anywhere research-wise, or how did you go about that?

Speaker 1 23:20

I th look, honestly, the second book was probably the easiest for me from a research point of view because my advertising kind of uh career experience is is the most relevant to that second book. And that's kind of it's also ended up being quite relevant in my other series as well. I think just the digital media world, I'm pretty familiar and comfortable, even when it's not exactly what I've done, it's sort of adjacent to what I've I've done. Um, and yeah, TV sort of uh advertising production is quite similar to film. And then I also just spoke to a few people that work in in production in film, made sure that I wasn't kind of getting any technical information wrong. Um, but yeah, that one was actually a lot of the knowledge I I had. It's it's the police knowledge for me that's always the most challenging, um, and that's where I've really got to kind of go, you know, first to like just desk research and what I can find out by myself, and then find an expert that I need to sit down and really like grill and interview almost to sort of work through what um I've written and how the narrative needs to change to accommodate fact and how much I can get away with because you know I'm very clear that I'm not writing a true crime documentary. I don't want it to be a sort of a boring sort of ordinary day of administration. I'm happy for it to be an extraordinary day of sort of slightly elevated policing, but it it obviously needs to make it needs to keep the reader engaged. And the second that someone starts to kind of go, this is ridiculous, you're going to lose people. So it is a kind of a fine line, I think, when you're doing crime fiction. Um, you don't want it to be boring, but you also don't want it to be bonkers.

Speaker 2 25:07

No one wants to hear about the paperwork and the filing. Yeah. No, definitely not.

Speaker 25:12

And that certainly is um a thread, a common thread that we've picked up with other authors we've interviewed as well. Like as soon as you start slowing down and getting bogged down with the procedural stuff, yeah, you're right. You just sort of you lose your audience pretty quick. Um in 2019 you released the third Gemma Woodstock novel, Where the Dead Go, which takes Gemma back to Smithson and into a missing child case on the New South Wales Northern Coast. Um and again, another setting that I just felt like I knew really intimately as well. Um it's a quieter book, um, has some really strong themes, especially around motherhood and um guilt and dealing with family tragedy. You've said you've said Gemma's polarizing, um, and you really see that sometimes in the um online review. Some readers love her, some readers obviously get frustrated with her choices. Um I think you've probably answered this question a little bit already, but um, do you take much of that on board? Does that feedback shape um how you write her for um for the next work that you're working on? Um, or do you keep a bit of distance so she always stays true to who she is?

Speaker 1 26:19

Yeah, no, I I just I I don't mind the criticism, but it but I also don't really pay much attention to it either. And I don't mean that to say like that people are wrong or that they don't have really good points or that sometimes I don't agree. Because sometimes I do. I find myself going, Oh, actually, that's a really good point, or you know, I should have thought of that, or that would have made it more, you know, interesting, whatever. Like there's great feedback out there, but I think when it comes to character, it's a bit different because if someone's sort of saying, I don't like the way that this character does that, that's fine because I don't like the way a lot of people do things, and that's just how people are, you know. And I kind of think that when you're creating characters, you're not creating a book full of people that are all amazing, wonderful, consistent, that have no friction with each other. You're you're creating dynamics, essentially, and you want people to be rubbing each other the wrong way and making each other happy and then bitterly disappointed, and the stakes only become real when people are invested in each other, and that's when people can hurt each other, and that makes an interesting story. So Gemma is Gemma, and the only thing I ever really thought about with her character, and this was probably more with my editor and I sort of talking about this, was just making sure that once it was a series, she was on a journey that wasn't just self-contained in each book. She needed to sort of grow from book to book, so she needed to still be herself, uh, and that meant that she was sometimes going to be really irritating and do crazy things, and you would be like going, Oh, come on, Gemma, come stop it. And even me writing it, I'd be like, Oh my god. But um, she was growing in her own kind of way, and I think the Gemma in the fourth book is really different from the Gemma in the first book. Like she has grown up, you know, and she's still stubborn and she's still got this kind of um emotional sort of regulation issue, and she's very flighty and impulsive and so competitive, but she has grown, you know, and she does make different decisions, and she's more grounded and slightly more pragmatic. And I think that's um that's realistic too, hope you know, hopefully.

Speaker 2 28:39

Absolutely. Oh, yeah. And other than wanting to slap her, I just sometimes want to take in a corner and just buy her a wine and hey girlfriend, can we just have a little bit of talk about the choices you're making? Yeah.

Speaker 28:51

Um so thinking about your readers, and obviously with a character that does get a lot of people talking, what's the most interesting or unexpected bit of feedback you've had from readers? Um, something that's really stayed with you, whether it's surprising, funny, or just genuinely lovely.

Speaker 1 29:07

Oh, well, it's a bit I don't want to give spoilers away. I mean, I think there was there was a character that I killed off in one of my books that I got the most feedback about, um, because people really, really liked him. And so did I. And me too. Sometimes I regret that. Shh. Yeah, I know. So I, you know, I'd probably like to and there's a couple look, I've there's a couple that I've killed off, so it could be lots, it could be any of them I'm talking about. Um, but yes, probably that's been the feedback I've got the most, and it's it's nice in a way, I suppose, because it's people sort of people will literally email and say, I just wanted to reach out to say, I've just read this bit of the book, and I'm I'm I'm really sad. Um and I love it, but I'm really sad. And I'm like, wow, that is pretty great to be to sort of you know be getting that reaction from people so much that they want to tell me midway through the book how they're feeling. So I think I mean that sort of stays with you because you think, gosh, that's pretty incredible to have that be able to happen. Um I think just with Gemma, it's really interesting because I I haven't done this for a while, but uh way back when The Dark Lake first came out, I remember there was a couple of reviews um on Amazon or Goodreads or somewhere, and you know, they were basically the same review, like similar wording and whatever, but one person would say, you know, Gemma's crazy and and you know impossible and I can't stand her, and she frustrates me one star, and then someone would basically write the same thing and say five stars. And I think that has always stayed with me, actually, as probably the main reason why I don't worry too much about feedback on characters, because for for different people, they will literally have the same feedback but rate it at either end of the scale, and I think that's kind of probably when you're getting it right, you know. Um, so yeah, it's it's that it's that sort of uh polarizing kind of character that I do quite like. Um, and then you know, occasionally someone will just say, Oh, that person reminds me of my boss or my brother, and it's I really liked the way this happened, it felt really realistic. So I really like I really like it. I really like when people have feedback, and I really like when people come up to me and say, Oh, I didn't like this character, she drove me nuts, or I hated the way he did this, or why is she with him? He's so annoying, and I and I just sort of go, These people are all made up, it's so funny. So I love it, I love that. I think that's really special.

Speaker 31:36

And assuming we are talking about the same character that is no longer with us, and I'm pretty sure we are, that was heartbreaking, I will have you know, absolutely heartbreaking. Um, and you know, the the setup, and and I I was curious, I wanted to ask about this character, but then also didn't want to sort of do anything that was going to create any spoilers for anybody that hadn't read it, so I'm I'm glad we're talking about it.

Speaker 2 31:58

Yep. I'm I'm gonna change the subject so we definitely don't accidentally spoil anything. Um, but I agree, I think um the stronger reactions that you evoke in your readers means you've done an absolutely amazing job because they've actually yeah, sat up and paid attention and kept reading. So I think it's awesome.

Speaker 1 32:18

That's what that's what I tell myself anyway, right?

Speaker 2 32:20

Absolutely, yeah. That's these are the best sort of books for book clubs. I mean, two different book clubs and another online book chat, and the books we enjoy talking about the most are where people disagree because it's actually quite boring if you like the all like the same book. So it's about the the conversation that it sparks, which is great. But moving on, now I want to talk about the housemate because this is where we meet Ollie Groves for the first time. So, again, another fantastic debut for a new character. Um, so I think it was a cracking setup, got me hooked in straight away because you've got three housemates who vanish, one turns up dead, then you've got Ollie, who's a reporter who's trying to sort out what everything is going on. Um, from page one, she's kind of a really sharp operator, very different from Gemma, practical, no nonsense. She's really good at reading people, not sort of that easily rattled. Um, yeah, so what made you decide to um start with a new character? Um, then when you were writing, did she feel like just a one book character, or did you think there was more Ollie that you could write about?

Speaker 1 33:26

I think I I feel like I was always going to write a book about journal a journalist because I just am obsessed with the news and with journalists, and I am I wish I had been one, I think. So this was my this was my way of kind of getting back in there and also gave me a really good excuse to make friends with lots of journalists and make them talk to me about their job. So I think that I was really drawn to the idea of uh crime sort of solving within that 24-7 news environment. And I think also I was probably at a point where I was worried that I could only write Gemma books, and I wanted to challenge myself and and make sure, I guess, that I could write something else. So I think for both for both those reasons, I sort of ended up, you know, homing in on this story um about these three missing housemates, and I really like cold cases as well. So it was just kind of all the ingredients that I liked just thrown into a pot, and I was like, right, I'm gonna write a story here. Um and I I did deliberately make it third person, uh close third person with Ollie's voice, because I think again I was so used to sitting in Gemma's head that I just felt like I would struggle to differentiate to differentiate the characters if I wasn't sort of more observational when it came to Ollie. So that I think was probably the right call, and it made the book feel really different for me to write because I wasn't doing the I, I, I, you know, in Gemma's head and all that sort of thing. But um, yeah, it was hard. Like I think it was difficult, and just had to find my way with a new character. And as you say, she's a bit more grown up, she's a bit more practical. Um, she's still inserting herself into situations and all that sort of stuff, but she's she's just a little bit less flighty and um emotionally sort of frustrating. And yeah, I really liked kind of creating this this new world, and I love the media part of the sort of story and the the news cycle and that that kind of invisible pressure that she's dealing with. I think that's really interesting. It sort of feels like a race against the clock, but with words, which I don't know, maybe as a writer, I'm just like, I get it. So it was really fun. And did I think it was going to be a two-book story? No, not until like literally four years later when I realised that I had another idea that was sort of in the world of journalism. I started writing it as a straight detective story, but very much around this news sort of narrative, and then got a few chapters in and realized I I wanted to have the perspective of a journalist, so thought, I know who is free, I'll call Ollie in. And so it turned into a dual narrative sequel. So yeah, I haven't been great. My record with um planning out series in a really smart strategic way when I write the first book has so far not been how I've rolled. So yeah, maybe that's just my thing. I don't know.

Speaker 2 36:39

Oh look, I think um we just we just roll with it. We're just excited about you know what you do next. But I I loved what you said about how drawn you were to journalism because it's just taken me back because I actually started journalism at University in Queensland myself, but in the first semester I worked out that Leigh Sales was in my year, and she from the start just looked like she was going to be an amazing journalist, and there was no way that I would say, yeah. So I I quite quickly moved on to um PR and just general communication. So I think, yeah, I think it's great that you can be um journalist adjacent in your career. Yeah.

Speaker 37:14

That's amazing. Well, that's the end of part one of our conversation with Sarah Bailey. Be sure to join us next week for part two.