I was on a jaunt abroad to South Africa in 2000, on a book tour, staying in a very posh hotel in Johannesburg. The photographer arrived first and she was blonde, then the journalist, also blonde, and I thought, this is great. Jennie and I got on, it was a nice interview; she was interesting, funny. After talking about the book, the conversation moved on over coffee. I was being driven to Pretoria after that by the publisher’s rep and as we were getting into the car she said “You know, I think that woman likes you.” I looked back, thinking, nah, not really, although it was very nice. It would never have struck me.
Jennie wrote a very nice, flattering piece. I realised I’d spelled her name wrong so I sent her a hardback copy; she sent a thank you. Then she came here – she has family in Ireland. We met for a nice dinner in the Clarence, went for a drink afterwards. I think that was the beginning . . . after that, we would email quite a lot. I probably didn’t want to admit to myself that I liked her because it was going to be difficult. She lived in South Africa, she had two kids . . .
Then in 2002 I said to my publisher, any chance of going back to South Africa? Jennie met me at the airport, I stayed with her family. There was a spark but at that stage we had more of an extended friendship. She was going on a travel junket to Malawi and I tagged along. We had a very odd five or six days – there was a famine there – but we got thrown together, and that clinched it, we were done and dusted. We just clicked, it was meeting somebody you could be friends with.
In 2004, she moved here. There was a period of adjustment: I’d been living alone, liked time by myself and what I knew about kids was what I remembered from the playground. It was sudden rather than gradual parenthood. There were a couple of years when I found it very hard to work. I probably felt slightly guilty that I’d uprooted Jennie and the boys. And I think for Jennie it was very difficult.
I've written 21 books in 15 years – I have come to realise that I am slightly a workaholic, a little bit obsessive. Jennie and I wrote Conquest together: it was difficult to work out a modus operandi at first, there were rows; it was back and forth, like a tennis match. But Conquest needed a female ethos, Jennie was always the natural choice as a co-author. It was a different and better book because Jennie was involved.
Jennie is very generous emotionally, very giving. We started as friends and there’s nobody I’d rather be with.
Samuel Johnson V the Devil by John Connolly – the third in The Creeps series for 12-14-year- olds – has just been published
