00:00Good afternoon. Always lovely to speak to Kate Moss. Now you've just said it. I think it's a
00:06summer holiday reading. The paperback of The Map of Bones comes out July the 31st. Now this is a
00:12conclusion of an epic, truly monumental piece of writing. And as you're saying, the final moment
00:19was writing yourself back to the beginning. Now the paperback, how do you feel about the paperback
00:25coming out? Because it's a different market, isn't it? It's a different market. The paperback
00:29is absolutely for people who would love something fantastic to keep them holiday company on their
00:35holidays. They might have heard of the books, they might have wanted to read them, but don't
00:40particularly want to shell out on a hardback. You know, hardbacks are expensive, and also quite
00:45cumbersome to carry about the place or read in bed. You know, they fall in your face and you're
00:49knocked out by the book. You know, my books are big and chunky books. But this one, it's been,
00:55I can't wait for it to be out in paperback, actually, because I know that particularly
01:00younger readers are much more attracted to that format. And it is a story, it's kind of a feminist
01:04adventure story, really. It's a detective story set partly in 17th century, what will become South
01:10Africa, in 19th century South Africa, around two towns, Stellenbosch and Franschuk. And it is the story
01:16of Suzanne, who is a Huguenot refugee, a French refugee, fleeing persecution, and something terrible
01:22has happened to her. And she goes in search of an ancestor in her family, a notorious pirate queen,
01:29Louise, who'd arrived in the Cape in 1622, 23, and vanished without a trace. So it is a detective
01:37story. It's about women telling other women's stories. And for me, when I finished it, it was the,
01:42it was the really the end of an era, because I first went to South Africa in 2013. And the idea
01:47for the series of novels came to me when I was there. And I've been writing my way back to get
01:54to that same graveyard in the town of Franschuk. And it was very emotional, actually, when I got there.
02:01It was so interesting, I was suggesting that you might feel bereft at the end of such a monumental
02:05project, but the energy is then focused on moving on, isn't it?
02:09That's exactly right, Phil. It's not it's firstly, you finish the book, but then you're out promoting
02:14it. And I love meeting readers. I love hearing readers thoughts. And so I enjoy all of that side
02:19of things. It keeps it going. But also exactly, as you say, once the dust has settled, I'm thinking
02:24what next? What's the next book I'm going to write? And you know, the research that I'm going to be
02:29doing. And you know, that so that actually is where the energy comes from, that this book is done.
02:34And yeah, it's been a long period of work. But I've written other books in that time as well.
02:40I've written four other books during the time. So it's not that it's been the only focus of my
02:44work. And of course, a play as well, you know, four books and a play. I'm wearing my T-shirt,
02:51my Brit school T-shirt of the taxidermist daughter. So, so that's the thing you, you don't put all your
02:57eggs in one basket emotionally, if you like, when you're writing, you've always got your eye on the
03:01next thing and the next thing you're going to do. But even as you move on, you must allow yourself
03:05to sneak back a glance and think, well, that's quite some achievement, isn't it?
03:09Yeah, yeah. When I see them, we've got brand new paperback covers for the whole series. So the
03:14Burning Chambers, the City of Tears, the Ghost Ship, and finally the Map of Bones. And when I see them all
03:20on a shelf in a bookshop, they look really great, you know, and you think, wow, that that's a lot of
03:26words. So, you know, certainly more than half a million words. And I think, yeah. And as I remember
03:32when I was much younger, and my children were younger, and we had one of those very old home
03:36computers where you had to put three pages of paper in at a time, you know, it took forever.
03:41And my very first book, which I know you've read, Becoming a Mother, because that's how we first
03:46met each other and started to talk about that. And I can remember my daughter, who was about two and a
03:52half at the time, as the paper came out, she said, did you write all of those words? And
03:56that's kind of what I feel when I look at the whole Joubert Chronicles, the four books in
04:02one go, I think, yeah, I wrote all of those words.
04:06Well, so fantastic to come full circle. As always, Kate, absolutely lovely to speak to you.
04:11Congratulations.
04:11Thanks, Bill.
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