Books / News
Friends co-write bestselling debut fantasy novel
A Bristol-based author has united with her longtime friend to co-write a fantasy romance novel.
Becky Hunter and Katie Ellis Brown’s book Blood Bound has been authored under the duo’s collective pseudonym Ellis Hunter.
“Through spending time together we discovered our shared obsession with fantasy books, and it was a little later on that I sent Katie a message saying ‘we should write a dragon book together’,” recalled Becky, when talking about her friendship with Katie culminating in writing a bestselling novel.
Becky Hunter and Katie Ellis Brown met more than a deacde ago when Becky was taking on Katie’s former job as Publicity Manager at a firm – photo: Becky Hunter / Katie Ellis Brown
Becky continued: “It was inevitable, really, that the novel would centre around female friendship, and that was one of the very first things we decided on.
“The two protagonists in the novel, Astrid and Skylar, are each incredibly strong in their own right, and rather than pit them against one another, we wanted to show what can happen when women lift each other up.”
Becky, who lives in Mangotsfield and moved to Bristol nearly three years ago, enjoys writing from cafes around her area.
“There are a couple of cafes near me that I visit semi-regularly when I’m finding it hard to concentrate at home – The Crafty Egg in Fishponds and Good Lyfe in Downend. When I lived in Clifton, I used to love working at the Coppa Club. Since getting a dog, I do find myself writing from home more often so I don’t have to leave her, but I’m always in search of a good dog-friendly cafe nearby,” she added.
When writing together, Katie explained, the duo each takes a point of view they will lead. Katie writes chapters from Astrid’s point of view and Becky writes chapters through Skylar’s eyes.
Becky added: “We plan out the whole novel together, chapter by chapter, so the ideas all come from both of us. We spend a lot of time on the phone or on WhatsApp, talking through ideas, and we have a very unruly Google Doc with all our notes on it.
“We upload a chapter at a time onto our shared document, then read each other’s work before writing the next chapter. We are always learning and talking about how to improve the way we work together. We are trying out different things as we write book two in the series and look ahead to book three.”
Published by HarperCollins, Blood Bound can be purchased from bookshops and online at: wwww.harpercollins.co.uk/products/blood-bound-ellis-hunter
Main photo: Katie Ellis Brown
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