Book Club Meets: Rekindling intimacy in marriage, with Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees

0:00Dum, dum, da-dum-dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. Hello, hello and welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton. An 81 hit, but recorded on here as the opening track because it was having a total revival in the Brighton's sixth form indie discos in 89. Right away... Today, You and Me, You and Me, You and Me by Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees. Leaving me feeling anxious and happy and nostalgic all at once. and suddenly so bloody young again it makes me want to weep. Because we had it all back then, didn't we, Jules and me? We had everything ahead of us. We hadn't screwed anything up. It's like I can feel the music pumping right through me now, like it's somehow charging my very soul as tears of loss and something like homesickness stream down my cheeks.

0:50I can't stop looking at the tape's twin spindles as they keep on turning, staring back at me like a pair of hypnotic eyes round and round and round. and round and round. Then I'm jolted by a thunderous crash and a blinding flash of lightning obliterates the square of black night sky framed by the shed window and I feel my whole universe shake. Next thing, what the hell? It's me turning round and round and round, faster and faster, like I'm going to break in a hideous whirlwind of coloured lights and rushing wind and all the while with filled bloody oaky singing don't you want me over and over again until twisting, pulling back, desperately trying and failing to fight against the tide.

1:36I'm sat down, screaming into that churning, kaleidoscopic typhoon's shrinking black eye. This was our Happy Place Book Club read for April. And firstly, it's important to say that Josie and Emlyn are actually a married couple and they've written this book together, which is so cool. So look, in the book, Adam and Jules have been married for 25 years and are stuck in a little bit of a rut. Now, the concept of this story is genius. Adam stumbles across some old mixtapes he and Jules made for each other when they were young and falling in love. And when they play them, they get to travel back in time to different moments in their relationship.

2:17Now, will remembering the passion they used to have get the future of their relationship back on track or will it just spark absolute chaos? This book has such heart, I cannot tell you. I adored it and so did you. As ever, we've all been talking about the book on Instagram over at at Happy Place Book Club. This is Helen. Hi, Helen. Hi, fan. I saw the April book pic on Instagram of you and me, you and me, you and me. And I don't know about you, but I love a good book cover. I'm generally not a reader of magical books, but I had to go and buy this book. I grew up in an era of mixtapes and trying to record from one tape deck to another.

2:58It would be so cool to travel back to see my younger self. I keep wondering if there is an old tape player in the loft. I really cheered on Adam and Jules and I hope the story had a good ending. No spoilers. It certainly made me think about what ifs in my life. What would I change? And I really don't know, especially when children are involved. Such a fab feel-good book, which I actually think would be a really good movie. Anyway, I'm loving your podcast and lots of love. Helen, I agree. Can you imagine what a brilliant time-travelling movie that would be? So fun. I think we need a time-travel movie.

3:35We haven't had one since, well, about time. I mean, I'm sure there have been other ones. I can't think of any. Back to the Future, that was way, way, way, way back. We need this to be made into a film. Lizzie says, love the book, read it in two days. moving and funny makes you consider how decisions however small can cause a massive change what a brilliant read oh my god without a doubt and Yvonne you finished this in one day by the pool in Spain is there a better way to read I think not you say fantastic authors mind-blowing story got me so thoughtful and so bloody grateful for life on life's terms where it is right now I wasn't saying that 48 hours ago funny how great fiction can affect your feelings 10 out of 10 what a beautiful review thank you for getting in touch and letting us know what you think of our books each month this is exactly what this book club is well all book clubs are about but that's what we love hearing from you as I say Josie and Emlyn are married so it was really interesting finding out how writing together works on a practical level as well as just how much of the book is autobiographical.

4:44Not the time travel bit, obviously. You don't need a passport to taste the world's most luxurious beef. Just head to Benihana. Introducing the Wagyu of the World menu. From the rich flavour of American masami ribeye to the bold Australian New York strip to the legendary melt-in-your-mouth A5 Japanese Wagyu, this is the finest beef on the planet, expertly grilled right at your table. Why settle for an ordinary steak dinner when you can taste the world in one bite? Only at Benihana. Book your table at benihana.com.

5:22Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

5:46Josie and Emlyn, welcome to Happy Place. And thank you for being our Happy Place book club pick. We're so thrilled. Oh, not as thrilled as us, Fern. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's such a great book. Now, this is the actual hardback copy, but I got this really special proof copy that had my name on it, which I was so buzzed about. And in a genius stroke, when you take this cover off, you've actually got the tape. The tape, the cassette tape. Yeah. Remember those from back in the day? They've had a resurgence. I mean, cassettes are back. They're trendy again. We love them. And books are trendy again.

6:19Books are looking better, I think, in the last couple of two years. And they have done forever. Hardbacks are just lovely, collectible things again. They are. And 10 years ago, it was just a bit meh. But they look gorgeous now, yeah. I can only hold a book. I don't want, no diss to Kindles, or an audio book even. I need a book. I want to see the cover. I want to feel it. I want to dog ear the pages. I want to write in the margins. I love books. Me too. I've got the worst habit, which is I rip pages on books. So it'll end up looking like it's been through a shredder because any line I like, I'll rip the line where it is and I'll fold over the top of the page.

6:53What? That is wild. Which drives Joe slightly nuts in bed because it's quite noisy as well. No, no, this is not, this is only, not only does he do this in bed, but then he'll nudge me awake and go, listen to this book. And then, then he'll finish the book and he'll close the last page and go, that was brilliant. And then he'll go, you've got to read it now. I'm hoisted into my head. Why would I read it? You've told me all the good bits. And you've torn all the pages out. The rip is extreme. You could just underline it. No, honestly, I think it's because it's tangible and you've done it. And then if I want to find that line, I can find it.

7:22I can honestly, my brain can kind of know which bit of the book it's in. And then I can go, I can kind of see on the page. I think in my head it's down or up. So I can find it pretty quick. I'm definitely into the sort of graffiting of books. People can be quite precious about it. But I love going to my bookshelf, pulling out a book and looking at what I've underlined or what notes I've written or pages I've dogged. I think that it does draw your mind back to the bit that's impacted you the most. Yeah. And you co-own. I think you co-own as a reader when you buy a book, you co-own that story. Yeah.

7:53Because you're putting your imagination in kind of as much as the writer has because you're the one making all the hard work of seeing it in your head of these words. So I do think you should rip away and scrawl away. My problem is, is that I love a book and I evangelize about book. Because for me, the reason that I'm a writer is because I love reading so much. And actually, I think there is no greater feeling than that escapism. And actually, when I discovered that you can get that from writing, I was hooked. But when I love a book and I finished it and I've really enjoyed it, I go straight out and I press it into the hands of a friend or my sister or someone.

8:28And so I've only got the rubbish books left on my shelves. I don't have any of the good ones because they never come back to me. And then people say, some people come around and go, oh, what have you got on your shelf? So interesting. You know, what do you read? And I'm like, no, no, none of those. Don't look at those ones. Don't look at those ones. All the good ones have gone. Yeah, I do. I give books away. And you do have to just let go because they're never coming back. And people will say, I'll bring that back when I've read it. They don't. No. Only my mum. She's quite good at giving books back.

8:56Anyone else? No. Don't see the light of day. Never again. They're gone. Let's talk about your brilliant book, You and Me, and you and me and you and me because this story is so brilliant I read this I think it was in the summer last year I got a very early copy yeah and I instantly loved it for so many reasons one of them is there's time travel which I want to dig into with both of you because time travel is hard to write I think never done it but I'm assuming it is and also it's heavy on the music which is a massive tick from me and it looks at the intricacies of long-term relationships which I think is always fascinating um you write as a married couple which you've obviously done before whose initial idea or thread of an idea was this well it was been knocking around for a while to be honest and when we wrote come together which we wrote back in the day before we got together we were very we had a lot to say about being 20 something singletons in london we felt very clear about that stage of life and we've never really wanted to write anything autobiographical since because we've had kids and we've wanted to, you know, protect their privacy.

10:03Yeah, and we had come together on a top shelf for years. It's quite racist. Let's never do anything honest again. Let's just write novels with plots about people that are nothing like us. So then we were kind of chatting. We're going, it would be lovely to write again because we've written parodies before, quite a few parodies ago. We haven't actually done a juicy novel together. But how would we, we want to tell a story about long-term love because so many rom-coms, you know end at the bended knee or you know somebody running across town going oh you're the one but actually the fun stuff happens after that so we wanted to talk about long-term love but we didn't want to do a straight narrative so there were a lot of conversations yeah about how we would do it and a lot of our chats over the last two three years i think and a lot of our chats with friends have been about those kind of what ifs you reach that stage when your kids are growing up they're about to leave home it's a really recognized there are very few recognizable stages of life and this is one you kind of go wow the kind of hands-on parenting is dwindling and it's kind of like and then the the inevitable thing is you look at you kind of look at yourselves again and you have you have the time to do it and you kind of you know we've been through lots of ups and downs in our kind of relationship in our life and it was very much this sort of thing a natural thing of you would you've done things different what would you have done do you think you could be happier or not.

11:23And once those conversations were sort of coming along, it's kind of funneled into this thing of, hey, we might have something to say again. Yeah. I mean, that's an interesting question to ask yourself and your partner is certainly if you've been married for a long time, had kids, been together over the course of decades, what might you have done differently? Do you have regrets? And to be able to have a conversation that isn't loaded or full of defensiveness, that is full of curiosity as to like, you know, what if? What did you stumble upon or what did you learn about each other in having those chats?

11:54Well, we wanted to make it as authentic as possible. And so we had to really drill down and be very honest with each other and go, well, what if, what would you do differently? To be honest, Fern, it was free marriage counselling. Yeah, I bet. I mean, it really was because we really had to drill down, didn't we? And we decided that everything was going to be on the table, you know, for our characters. So everything from their sexual relationship to, you know, their regrets about stuff that they hadn't passed, that they hadn't taken. So we kind of looked at that stuff. Other things, how love changes over the years, what it kind of means, what parenting is, all this kind of stuff.

12:27So, yeah, we were kind of sort of aiming at that, weren't we? And just wanted to make it feel real. But we also, the most fun we'd ever had before this was writing Come Together because we didn't know each other. We were showing off to each other. We were writing these alternate chapters, his, hers chapters. And there's definitely a part of me over the years that has craved that intimacy that we had in that sort of first year we met each other. And, yeah, we've written parodies, but they're the kind of things you can write down the pub in 20 minutes. Yeah. And so there is that insane brain melt that you get together, which is really exciting.

13:01But I've definitely somebody over the years have felt more and more I want to get that back. And I love Jo to bits, but that is something really special. But I did feel we'd lost. So it was a kind of really exciting way to do that. And still wanting to impress each other? To make her laugh. That was my riff with this, was very much to make her cry and make her laugh. And that excitement of handing over a chat to somebody. Yeah, I bet. And the joy of the writer, as you all know yourself, of the hell of not having feedback. And suddenly, oh my God, I get instant feedback. Yes. What a joy. Yes. It was honestly like discovering old magic when we started writing.

13:41We had so much fun writing this book. It was a dream. And we gave the first chapters to our agents and they said, we love the idea, but you're going to have to write the whole thing. We were like, oh, okay. This is real. Because actually, how on earth are you going to resolve it? We need to see how it is because it's more of a multiverse book rather than a time loop book. There's lots of time loop books that just go over and over the same day. but each time the characters come back, they are coming back to an alternate universe, which is almost the same, but not quite. So it took quite a lot of planning.

14:15So we got a massive roll of lining paper. I was going to ask this. On the dining room table. And we planned it out and then we divvied it up into chapters. But of course, because we're writing alternate chapters and the reader is getting a different point of view each time and know much more than either of the characters know at any one time, that's where the comedy comes so and it's a gift that keeps on giving so then we had the opportunity to kind of really surprise each other with each other's chapters which was really fun fun i mean we're yet to talk about the mechanism for this time travel or this multi-dimensional situation which is mixtapes where did that come from it's a great idea well it's mixtapes now but originally i had a much worse idea which is i wanted it there used to be these old adverts on tv for Zanussi, which was the appliance of science.

15:01And in my head, I'm not very good with scale, basically. And in my head, I thought, wow, time is circular. A washing machine goes round and round. And it's like a rewind or a fast forward. What if they've got an old washing machine in the garden shed that they climb into and it switches on and it takes them back in time? At which point, Jo pointed out, this isn't a very practical thing. I'm not writing my character going into a washing machine, darling. No, that's not a good idea. That's a flat no. That's a flat no. But it was a bit like a search for a device because the story, we knew the story.

15:32The fun bit, we wanted a fun device to tell a long-term relationship. So that was going to be time trouble. We thought this is a great way for them to go back and, you know, to revisit parts of their relationship. But we also, we're fans of loads of things, you know. So there's Richard Curtis's About Time where he just goes into a cupboard and it's really nicely done. Yeah, I love it. He just walks into a wardrobe, comes out and then there's, what's the Christopher Reeve book on it? Somewhere in Time. Somewhere in time where he looks at a photograph, puts on 1920s music and sort of goes back. So initially we thought we're going to get hold of our old, we dug out all our old Sony sort of digi tapes from the kind of noughties when the kids were little.

16:05We're looking at these, which is another story. It's actually lovely, but weirdly depressing as well. But we sort of thought we're not going to do that. And then we started writing without the device. We started writing the characters. Oh, right. And so the device ended up really coming from them because they are a bit autobiographical. we're a family we've got four record players at home joe joe basically when when when we've been get together about six months joe bought me a whorlitzer a broken whorlitzer which has worked a month of our relationship and so we're a house full of music so adam and jules as we were writing these first chapters wondering how we're going to get them to go back the pages were full of music the pages he's a hoarder and so suddenly it's like it's gotta be music and then mixtapes but we made you know we were the we had iPods and we made playlists for each other and we had all of our all of our memories are tied up with music yeah of course and so it was so obvious and the more we went into it and we created a playlist on Spotify to go with the book the more we were like oh well that's an obvious choice and that one and so we used some of our a lot of our own music, but also music that is about time travel and is about kind of regrets.

17:21And so there was so much to choose from. But we would be in bed at night and I would go, oh my God, we haven't done Talking Heads. That's got to go on. And then we named the chapters after the songs. So it's just been, and then again, music gives you that nostalgia, doesn't it? It is time travel. Like nothing else, it is time travel. I can listen to, like when I do my radio show, which is all 90s, there's some songs where I'm literally in my teenage bedroom and I can smell things and I'm like feeling the feelings and it's like, oh my God, what is this? You know, it does it for you. So it's just such a clever mechanism to get the characters back there.

17:56It's amazing because it fulfilled, if you're yearning for that feeling at a better time, you turn to music, that's what we do. And Adam in the book, they have a spectacular row, Adam and Jules, and it's one of these things where it's kind of, it's a marriage breaking row and he ends up in the shed on his own and he's there and there's an old Sony machine and he finds an old mixtape that Jules has told him to throw out and he's he's been furious about this yeah it's like throwing us out throwing our mixtapes out so when he pops this in he realizes that he can go back kind of to the first the first time they met with the first tape and for the duration of the tape that's how long he gets to sort of be back in his body kind of observing but then starting to exert an influence as well.

18:39And for us, it was that joy of fulfilling that yearning of going back. Really brilliant for writing. As anybody, you know, knows if you want to write period pieces in writing, you bang on to music. And then you're there. And like you say, we do, we kind of, we've all soundtracked our lives. Yeah. Through music. Me and my friends will sing along. We know all the same songs. Yeah. Our kids have their own set, but they also, we have family songs that we all sing together. And we've got music from them as well. And me and Joe have our own soundtrack as well. So it's been really... Des Ray, first record we played.

19:13Yeah, that was the song I put on the radio for you in Radio Essex on the day we got the book deal. Well, you dedicated a song on the radio. And we weren't going out. And we weren't going out. That's quite a bold move. That's quite a statement. That's quite obvious. That's quite obvious what you're saying there. I love it. I mean, both your characters promise to not make changes when they revisit past moments, but both break that promise if that isn't giving too much away to people that haven't read the book yet. So I think it also gives the reader some moral questions to ponder, like, would you mess around with the past?

19:49It's a really, it's a tempting thing. Yes, you can make that promise, but when you're back there and you're offered the opportunity to make things better in the future, would you do it? Have you thought about what your own reactions to that would be if you were put in that situation? In a way, Adam and Jules' reactions in the book are yours because because we sat there and so if this was a thriller obviously you kind of go right we're going to go back and assassinate this person and change world history but actually joe and i were going what would you do and our first thing was i mean joe joe may be like come on we've seen back to the future we know what happens adam and jules would know they've seen the polaroid fading with their kids on it so we decided our guiding star for them had to be don't change things because if you change things you might change your kids and that's the golden rule so they go back with this golden rule in their head going okay we're not going to change big things but of course it's tempting and then we're going well what would we do and and that that is a that is a changeable scene because once you've done one thing it's like a lot of things in life once you've given into a little temptation yeah it's a lot easier to give into the next one totally and it's also that thing where they it it creates this instant deceit between them even though they're sharing this very secret thing that they're doing which they're sort of pretending doing for a while is making them closer.

21:04Yeah. Actually. They make it like date light for a while. Yeah, yeah. They go down with a bottle of wine, let's go time travelling. Yeah, yeah. It actually then becomes quite pernicious and dangerous. And it was a really interesting look for us at Nostalgia, because as Emily mentioned earlier, we got all our old videotapes out. And when I made those tapes of my babies and small children, I thought one day, one day in the future. I'll look at this and I'll just remember my beautiful parenting and how wonderful it was. No, it was fucking awful. And also because I am the most irritating film director of all time.

21:43Do not let me make a movie because I'm really bossy. I'm like, come over here, do your trick, do your trick, sing your song. I'm like, so irritating I want to stab myself in the head with a fork. But not only that, I am quite that bad. I'm filming this inanimate baby asleep right and I'm not filming my mum or my dad or my friends I'm just filming I can see my mum's feet it's like lift the camera I just want to see her face one more time please and then and it made me feel quite depressed because also it changes your memories because I don't have you Emlyn's got an encyclopedic elephant memory for everything I have a shocking memory so I don't but then the memories I do have that kind of sense of a time and a place was kind of trashed by that and I I think nostalgia can really stop you in your tracks.

22:32Yeah. And we're at a stage where our kids are leaving home. In fact, we are two weeks. We're 10 days into the empty nest. Wow. How's that going? That's a big moment. I mean, there's an enormous amount of mugs in the cupboard. I mean, there's keys. Who knew? But you're weird. You can buy just two pieces of chicken from the supermarket. Wow. Things can do in it. But there's also a lot of leftover food. Anyway, we digress. But anyway, yes, nostalgia is quite a weird one and can really stop you if you look backwards too much. I've had a many of jewels in the book very much at that point of being stuck when we meet them.

23:08We've called their surnames Hole, A, because you can make a very silly joke about A, which is obvious. But it's also because they've kind of dug themselves into this hole for various reasons. And it's something I've been through over the last 10 years where you kind of go, oh, I was really good at doing that. why have I done that? Why have I made these decisions professionally, all this kind of stuff? And we wanted them to be at that point where, like we were a bit going, are our best days behind us? Is this it? And they're at that point. And then we want to sort of move them forward to where they actually got to re-examine those times and go, hey, were they as good as I remember?

23:45Is my memory telling me the truth? And what can I learn from this about maybe how we've lost intimacies. How do we get those intimacies back? And hopefully by the end of the book where they're a couple who are starting to have dug themselves out of this hole and are starting to look to the future again with some hope. It's such a cracking idea. You don't need a passport to taste the world's most luxurious beef. Just head to Benihana. Introducing the Wagyu of the World menu. From the rich flavour of American masami ribeye, to the bold Australian New York strip, to the legendary melt-in-your-mouth A5 Japanese Wagyu.

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24:40When you were passing the manuscript between each other, was there ever a moment where either of you read the other person's chapter and said, no no that can't happen but that's a no change that um there are there are a couple of things where he he nicked a joke no you nicked a joke and i was like no that's my joke and he'd go yeah but i've done it better so those kind of rounds um so yeah some some things but we was quite nice sort of surprising each other so there was one scene that i wrote where jules goes back for bath time and when i and it was on the kind of plan that she would have this lovely moment where she goes back and she looks at her babies and they're in the bath and she's we hear her thoughts like arjules from the now and she's going back and she's looking at her baby she's looking at the gorgeous but she can hear the thoughts of her younger self and her younger self is not is ignoring the children in the bath she's crossed the adams at the pub and he hasn't come home and she's texting and she's like she wants to go and drink and she wants to not do the witching hour and I observe her and I wrote the scene of her being really cross with her children and not paying any attention and being a cross that she has to read them a story.

25:53Whilst modern day Jules, her heart is breaking because she's like, if I would give anything to have that back. That bit really hit me reading that bit. And it was really, I wasn't expecting to write it like that. And you certainly weren't expecting to read it. It hit me as well. I actually cried reading that. And it's one of those really odd scenes because if you wrote that in a plan, and as you were asking earlier, we really did have to plan this book. Yeah. If you wrote that in a plan, you just wouldn't do it because it's kind of on the surface, it looks like a really unsympathetic thing to have a character think.

26:22And the reason I find it too, because it's kind of like it's raw. It's really, and we did want the book, to be honest, but that bit was almost too raw for me to read because it's kind of like, no, do you know what? That is what young parenting is like sometimes. Yeah, it's fucking hard. It's brutal. You're learning as you go. It's brutal. You're knackered. There's all this stuff going on and there are inequalities and rage that comes with it so yeah so there were bits that because i had like my son turned 13 a couple of weeks ago so naturally i was like looking at all of these toddler videos and baby videos on my laptop and like i can't remember him like that and oh my god look at him and he's so adorable and then i had to check myself and go yeah but he was also like running off the bed and ended up in in a and e because he's being a lunatic or was refusing to get in the bath the point where i would cry because i didn't know what i meant to do when the kid just won't get in the bath like Like all the stuff that you forget because you're just looking at the cute little videos that you've got there.

27:13So, of course, you can be cross at yourself retrospectively like, oh, I should have just been a bit more relaxed or whatever. But you're exhausted. You're overwhelmed at that point when you've got young kids. You may be trying to work like I was at the time. And, you know, you do have to check yourself when you look back. But then equally, you know, you do underappreciate it in the moment because you're consumed with the task at hand, which is practically exhausting. And life. And life. But also that's sort of like, that's the real kind of lesson of it. And it was a real lesson of her that Jules learns in the books that it doesn't have to be perfect.

27:50No. And actually. It can't be perfect. It can't be. And the fact that it's not perfect is what makes it good. Yeah. And I think it was a really liberating thing to write, certainly for us, and to really discuss, is happiness is learning to love what you already have. And when you really think about that, that just makes you kind of go, oh, yeah, actually it's fine. I don't have to be perfect. It's fine. I'm fine as I am. It's great. God, yes, absolutely. It's absolutely fine. And I think in this day and age where everybody looks at Instagram and thinks everybody else is having a perfect life, there isn't a perfect life.

28:25It's just rubbish. And then, you know, which is why we love The Happy Place, because you are keeping it real for us. We really do try. We really do try. Was it hard to switch off from this idea? Because when you know you've got a good idea, there's no better feeling. As creative people, when you're like, oh, God, this is so exciting. It's all consuming anyway. But when you're writing as a duo and you live together and you're married and you're with each other most of the time, can you ever just talk about other things or switch off from it in in the moment when you're when you're writing it i think not with this no no it was all consuming we gave ourselves a really nice gift at the beginning which as we said right we're just going to use our voices in this and the characters aren't us but there are definitely elements of us in there there are definitely elements of our life it's set in bright and the the pubs and the cafes and everything in there you walk out of our door they're kind of there so because we were using our authentic voices if we were having a chat in the pub and joe had said something about what it used to be like parenting yeah i'm gonna nick that i'm gonna i am i am gonna put that in the book so we were we were doing that awful thing and if anybody's married to a writer or any kind of creative they they will know it's hideous if they've got a notepad by the bed they're waking up in the middle of the night.

29:42It's just this awful. There's two of us doing it now. And then I'm thinking, well, what's she writing down as well? Is it going to be the same chat that we had earlier? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Try to get in there first. It did become, it became immersive. It did become immersive, but it was not without its problems because we realised that we have very different styles. So I am really fast, mainly because my mum, bless her, made me go on a touch typing course when I was 17. Which was possibly the best thing she ever did. I wanted to go to Paris with my boyfriend. I was furious, sullen, horrible to her about the whole thing but I learnt to touch type at the speed I can think accurately.

30:23Love. Right? So I'm very fast but I'm a fast thinker anyway and I will just write really, really fast. Is this leading to Emeline is slow? Emeline is really slow. Okay. So I will finish my chapter and I'll hand it over and I'll be like, come on I want the feedback now. No, no, no. Have you read it? He's like a puppy. I'm you, Josie. I'm the same. And then he takes ages with his chapter. I'm like, yeah. And you don't want to lose the creative flow. You want the book back so you can start your bit again. So how did you? It is a nightmare. I think Joe can write kind of a 4 ,000-word chapter well in four days.

31:00And it will take me kind of two and a half weeks to still not be happy with it. And so Joe had a lot of kind of sort of standing around time while I'm, you know, creating my masterpiece upstairs. To be fair, though, I managed to fill my time. I'm sure, I'm sure. There's never been more sea swimming done. Oh, heaven. And do you think you learned anything new about each other during the process of this? As you say, it's not you, but there's intimate parts of your brain that you want to put forth with these characters and things you want to explore with the time travel element. Did you go, oh, I didn't think you thought like that?

31:38Yeah, I think for me, I mean, Joe and I have been on very different kind of writing journeys since we first got together. So Joe's writing journey has been one of writing a book regularly and getting paid. That's how I would describe Joe's writing journey. Mine is writing lots of books and occasionally getting paid. Right. So for me, I've had sort of guilt over the years over, I mean, I famously spent three years writing a book that didn't shift. So for me, I've had a thing where I wasted those three years. What was I thinking? And so almost looking back over time and going, of these 25 years, I've wasted seven of these years because I was pursuing projects that didn't come.

32:20But you really feel like that? Yeah, I genuinely did. That didn't come to fruition. And one of the nicest things about this book is kind of Adam sort of looks back at different aspects of his life. That's been a waste of time. I should have done this instead. And what I've realised is that all those things that you're doing that you think don't lead anywhere, one, you're enjoying doing them. That's a great thing in itself. It doesn't kind of matter where they go. But B, they do all add together into this kind of mush that leads you to where you are now. So, for example, even writing this book with Jo, I can say was only made possible due to all the crap books I wrote.

32:55I agree. That's why I think you should never have regret about any of it or feel like anything's a waste of time because it's not. No. I don't think it ever is. And so I think that made it – I think it really, for me as well, was about kind of like looking at the past and at a stage where I've been feeling very anxious and worried about my kids leaving home and was I a good enough mother, all of that is just gone because I kind of managed to process it out through writing about it. That's so cool. And I do feel that because we've been on this adventure together, doing a book together, which has just been so much fun.

33:30And doing all of it together, like doing this together, doing all the stuff that's happened with it has been so much fun. But it also feels like we're back to us and we can do our own adventure again. So we're going off traveling and we're doing really great things just together again. And it feels like a whole new relationship in a way. It's so exciting. A whole new world. There's a song. There's a song coming. Watch out. Well, I'm going to ask you about music now because obviously you both have your music preferences and we can read about a lot of those in the book, which bring up all sorts of brilliant memories for you.

34:02This doesn't have to be memory related, but we're making a Happy Place playlist with songs that just make you feel great. Would you pick a song that you've written about in the book or would it be something completely different and you can have a song each? Oh, that's a good one. Mine's easy. It's kind of Don't You Want Me, humanly. Great song. I think the only reason Joe and I are writing together is because of that song. It was one of those duets. I remember hearing it. My sister was really cool. She's a couple of years older than me. And she was this really cool kid in the 80s. And so I used to nick all her sort of now, you know, tapes and all this kind of stuff.

34:37And I remember her prancing around and Phil Oakey, I thought, was the business. I remember the dance routines that my sister was doing. You could just copy what was on top of the pop. But for me, that was the original duet. It's this thing of two voices it's also got a killer bass line and i remember when joe and i first decided to write come together when we were kind of 20 27 that was the touchstone we were talking about it's a it's a it's a romance with a boy talking and a girl replying yeah and then and it's the friction and the sparks between it so for me that's it great that's a really good one i think grew in the heart just because it's that we had to include that bass line in the in the book and every time I hear that riff I am like happy up buzzing I am up bring me my platform boots I am off to the dance floor get me a gin and tonic let's go yeah so yeah there's I mean there's so many songs that we we really loved and we really included in the book that were just magic to us some magic to the characters but yeah i think they're two very happy songs yeah i love them and where are your happy places or might be a joint place oh we have quite a few um one of our happiest places is brighton beach where it's just down the road from us and i see swimming all the time we walk with dog there all the time so that's really special to us but i we also have a house Mallorca and which we call camping with bricks and um there is a house is a generous word it's very very shabby has it got a roof well it's just it's got a leaky roof okay great leaky roof okay um but it's sort of in this really wild magical garden and there is a mountain and there's a bench outside the back door which i sit on in the morning and just watch the garden come to life and it and and the smell of the eucalyptus and the lemon trees and the olive trees and there is and the hot ground and it feels like all of the pieces of me coming to land there.

36:37I remember the loveliest thing I've ever seen with Jo. Jo was ill a few years ago and we went out there on a holiday afterwards, after she'd had some treatment and just sitting there. And it's like watching an explosion sort of coming back together. It was really nice. It was just like, wow. And then the kids are kind of, you know, pressing about and falling over. And it's like, we're good. We're good. The show goes on. It's somewhere with no technology. The circus mistress is back. Yeah, I love it. But it's somewhere with no technology, no screens. It's very nature. We sit and we watch the sunset there.

37:14And it's somewhere really special to us. So I love that. I love being somewhere that's just completely natural and back to nature. I mean, I'm quite a townie. And hot. And hot. I mean, I'm not great at the countryside. You like the countryside. We always have this. The kids were leaving home. Emily goes, so I've done some research. I found this island in Scotland that we can go to. Oh, God. That is remote. Where we can just go and there's no technology. It's remote. And Roxy, our middle-class side, is he trying to kill you? That's what's happening. And I'm like, okay, yeah, no, I could do it maybe for a month maybe.

37:53But I'd miss everybody. So I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure about total isolation. I think I'll probably embrace it whilst I was there. I think Brighton's a very good meal ground. And you've got the expense of the sea, so you can escape all the craziness. And you've got a buzzing, vibrant, arty, creative town behind you. It's fantastic. I love it. Well, look, I'm so happy that your book is our Happy Place Book Club pick. I know that our readers and our listeners are going to just dive into this story, have pure escapism, but also learn a lot about themselves, maybe about their relationship if they're in one.

38:23I just know that it's going to be so enjoyed. And I got so much from it. So thank you for writing it. And thank you so much for being on Happy Place. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. What lovely, lovely humans. And how weird is this? We had a bit of a chat afterwards and one of their daughters lives on my street. What coincidence. So I've told them to tell her to come and say hi to me next time. And I can wax lyrical about how much I love her parents. Brilliant humans, brilliant writers. What a book. Perfect escapism if you're looking for a good fiction, if you haven't yet read the book. all right what are we reading next well it's by caro claire burke and it's called yesteryear oh this book holy shit this book the premise of this novel is so good trad wife influencer natalie is in her words perfect at being alive she lives in a beautiful traditional farmhouse her husband's a handsome cowboy her kids have lovely manners she makes homemade jam and everyone's incredibly jealous of her life online.

39:29What those followers don't know is that obviously she has a whole team of nannies and producers and industrial grade ovens behind the scenes making all this possible. Then she suddenly wakes up in the past living an actual traditional wife life. The twist in this book is wild. You will not see it coming. If you want to get properly involved in the Happy Place book club I really hope you do then you can find us on Instagram conveniently at happy place book club okay back in a couple of days with another brand new episode of happy place which you're going to love until then a massive thanks again to Josie and Emlyn and to you love you bookworms

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