Meet Nikki and Kirsty. Sisters and co-authors from beautiful New Zealand. I recently finished reading their latest release titled 'The Missing Wife - Life' A lighthearted story of adventure, new found friendships, and starting over.
Lets find out more.
Tell me about yourselves
Nikki:
I live in a large crumbling house with my two cats. Writing saves me from becoming a crazy cat lady.
Kirsty:
We grew up in Tauranga and I love swimming, kids and animals. I have 2 cats and three dogs. I trained as an early childhood teacher before I had my three children. I now volunteer with Radio Lollipop at my local hospital in West Auckland. I enjoy baking and I’m always dying my hair new colours.
How long have you been writing?
Nikki:
I’ve always enjoyed writing but we started writing our first book 'How to Marry Harry' during the 2020 lockdown and it was so much fun we just kept on going after that.
Kirsty:
I wrote children’s books when my kids were little and then Nikki and I tried our hand at writing for TV before settling on novels during Covid.
What do you like to read?
Nikki:
All sorts! Classics like Jane Austen. But also John Boyne, Liane Moriarty and Bethan Roberts. I’ll give almost anything a go and I usually have several books on the go at any given time.
Kirsty:
I like a real mix of fiction. Anything from comedy like Janet Evanovich and Marian Keyes to darker books like 'Room' by Emma Donoghue or 'Lovely Bones' by Alice Sebold. I also love romance books from authors like Kylie Scott, Marianna Zapata and Alexis Hall, and classics like 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.
What inspired ‘The Missing Wife - Life?
We love to travel together and one day we were discussing the idea of us going on a road trip, and then discussing who we could stand to be confined in a van with - turns out, not so many people made that list. Then we imagined doing it with someone you barely knew, and who appeared to be vastly different to you.
What was it like working with your sibling?
Nikki:
It’s not the first time we’ve worked together. At one point we were both working in our family business at the same time - but didn’t have to work that closely. With writing, we plot everything together and spend hours discussing and debating ideas over the phone but we write separately, which works well for us.
Kirsty:
We work really well together. We think so alike that we tend to be in agreement on most areas of plotting and it’s great getting to read each other's writing, like reading the story yourself for the first time.
Are you planning on writing any more books together?
We are. We plan to write as long as we can – until we run out of ideas or it’s not fun anymore -or one of us kills the other. I guess we could still try to write from prison, but I don’t think we’d enjoy it very much on our own..
Are you working on anything at the moment?
We just spent two weeks in a camper van travelling in the Australian outback as part of our research for our fourth book, a rom com about a group of cousins on an adult scavenger hunt. Hopefully there will be more travel stories to come. Anything for an excuse for research.
What does literary success look like to you?
Having people read and like our books is a pretty big part of that. Being able to entertain people. Providing readers with an escape - and that doesn’t have to mean something heavy and serious. If someone says they laughed out loud or enjoyed reading our book, that’s so satisfying. We feel very fortunate to have the chance to try and achieve that, and have the finances to self-publish.
We’d love to make a best seller’s list but rom-com is so underrated, that might be an unrealistic expectation.
What would be your spirit animal and why?
Nikki:
I’d like to think it would be something mysterious like an arctic wolf, but it would probably be a sloth, given my ability to sit in one place for hours in the same position. I try to convince myself that it’s a skill.
Kirsty:
I’m going with a sea turtle. Not the most elegant of creatures, but I love the water and I think they’re determined and strong.
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
Kirsty
I love to travel, hike a little, try new food, drink the odd cocktail, and try new things. Sometime I go a little crazy and jump out of a plane or swim with crocodiles, that sort of thing.
Nikki
I like a mix of solitary things like reading and social things like being around people whose company I enjoy. Either of these could potentially involve cocktails and food.
A big thank you to these two lovely ladies for sharing their great sense of humour with us. I look forward to reading their next book. If you would like to check out their work, click on the links below:
