What is it about?

You know, I always ...

You know, at the center of all my writing, I think, are, are love stories, even when they were thrillers.

And so with this one, actually, it ...

The origins came from a, you know, experience in my own life, which is I'd been together with a partner for a long time and, uh, you know, after not 20 years, but something like 13 years, we discussed whether we should get married.

And, you know, when we met, marriage wasn't a possibility.

We were both guys.

Mm

it's completely straightforward to write a gay romance for general readership?

I think it's a really interesting question because the example I thought about when I was writing this book a lot was how much I loved When Harry Met Sally as a as a movie and I was really fortunate to get to meet Rob Reiner just say because he wanted to adapt a book and I didn't think I was the writer to do it but I remember going in and just saying I love what I love lots of his movies but I I love When Harry Met Sally.

I must have watched it, you know, as many times as I watched Jaws or, you know, I mean, loads of different movies as a kid.

And that premise, you know, can men and women be friends? It's not really one that translates in the same way to gay couples, I think.

I mean, I think lots of gay couples...

it doesn't work for a reason and they stay friends.

I don't think it becomes as naughty, but I don't, you know, I still watched it and thought this is a really interesting explanation, exploration of love stories.

sure you're not going to get burned.

We just don't always refer to it as genre.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, sh- yes, I mean, I think the question is a very smart one in the sense that it was very different to take away lots of the, um, lots of the thriller elements and just have the love story.

And you are right in the sense that, um, some of thoseBig genre pieces like Versace, the reason they're, I think, so good is because they have amazing characters at the center of them and a real sense of heartbreak.

And actually, lots of the police stuff got whittled down in the edit.

That was not what stayed.

What stayed were partly 'cause you had such an amazing cast, but it was just those emotional impacts, and it was really, you know, particularly in the final episode, which is meant to be this giant manhunt for Andrew Cunanan in Miami, actually the things that really played and remained in the episode were, you know, Judith Light's monologues in the, in, in, in, on the camera.

And, and it- people want to feel the emotional connection to everything, and so that's the kind of the sweet spot for thrillers where you're combining it.

Um, are you still pulled into both worlds? Are you wanting to go back to the, the film and television space and, and explore that more as well?

Mm.

Which is true.

I mean, I think if the, if...

You know, the reason I think Child Forty-Four and one of the reasons it was successful is that central relationship between the Leo and Raisa is really powerful because it's this, this man who thinks his wife loves him, and in fact, his wife is with him because she's afraid that if she said no to his proposition, she would be arrested.

It's such a devastating reveal.

And one of the interesting things, looking back on the reason I love writing Child Forty- Child Forty-Four so much is even though I don't have biographical experience of living in the Soviet Union, and I'd visited Russia after the fall, but I hadn't, um, kind of lived under that political regime.

But I had grown up in the closet being terrified of being outed, of saying the wrong word, of, of wearing the wrong clothes that would give away my sexuality.

Mm