Over 34 years, Nicci and Sean have penned 27 thrillers together – under one pseudonym

Sean French, 66, and Nicci Gerrard, 67, have been married for 34 years and written 27 books together, all thrillers, under the pseudonym Nicci French. They live in London and Norfolk.

Sean French (left) and Nicci Gerrard. “Until I met Nicci, I’d never written more than 1000 words,” says French.Credit: John Davis

Nicci: We met in 1991 at the The New Statesman [magazine], where I’d just got a job as deputy literary editor. My marriage had broken up and the childminder had handed in her notice; I turned up towing two tiny children aged one and two and Sean was there writing his column.

We went to lunch, talked and talked and became a couple bewilderingly fast. He was so sweet with the children, and what bowled me over was it never felt as if he were taking us on, just that he felt lucky to be welcomed into our little world. We met in March, I was pregnant by June and we married in October. We had two babies quickly, so there were four under five.

‘One of the lovely things about Sean is I never get to the end of him.’

Nicci Gerrard

I became the breadwinner and Sean was the rare dad at the school gates who wrote at home. He told me once he’d never, ever met a deadline; if he had one looming, he’d find something else to do like making bread. I discovered later this was true: I’d come home and smell baking.

One of the lovely things about Sean is I never get to the end of him: he has a prodigious memory and everything connects. He’s an enthusiast. He’ll come into a room and interrupt to talk urgently about something he’s just read. He properly needs time on his own while I’m more gregarious; at parties, he always wants to leave before me. He lives in his head; I’m more turned out to the world. I love change; Sean wouldn’t change the paint on a wall. I interrogate things – where are we headed? What needs to happen? – but that’s not fun for him. I think I hold him to account more; I’m not nearly as nice as he is.

We try not to have gender divides, but we do. A lot of the emotional labour is done by me; I carry it around with me – you know, which of the children needs to be worried about?

My father lived well with dementia for many years until, in 2014, he went into hospital. There was norovirus, no visitors were allowed, and with no one to talk to him, keep him mobile or hold his hand, within weeks he’d lost all his capacities. We took him home thinking we could get him back with love, but he was lost and died nine months later. It was like a wrecking ball that went through the family. Sean helped so much just by being kind to me; he was my safe place.

Once the children started uni, we went to Lucca [Italy] for four months. It was such a carefree time and that’s when we began reading to each other: all of Shakespeare’s plays – Sean is good at accents – then Dante with the Italian on one page and the translation on the other.

We go on a walking holiday every September to plan the next book. Then we write, alternately, always in this third voice, and edit each other as we go. We don’t summon the person and humiliate them – and we’re not allowed to question or change what’s been done in the edit. It’s not a power struggle: the abiding principle of the endeavour is trust.

Sean: I was 30 and Nicci 31 when we met and moved in together almost immediately. It was like a fever: certain members of my family thought I’d gone completely insane. I went from an unencumbered life, getting up at 11 in the morning, to dealing with two small children.

Those early years were the hardest: living in a house we couldn’t quite afford, waking at 2am wondering how we were going to pay the mortgage month after month. Nicci had started a new job and was pregnant; I was freelancing and not doing all that well. It was really frightening, vertiginous even.

We agreed I’d try writing books; I worked like a lunatic, using every spare moment not taken up with childcare. Now we look after three of our grandchildren one day a week and, by the end of it, I’m absolutely shattered.

I can be a real time-waster and slacker. Until I met Nicci, I’d never written more than 1000 words; I’d signed contracts for books and never delivered them. Nicci is the most driven and capable person I’ve ever met; I don’t think she has ever wasted a moment in her life.

We have really stupid arguments. I agree to do something and then I look around and she’s doing it herself. If I say something that’s a bit sarcastic or sharp, she can overreact: “Well, if you think that, why are we married?” I say, “Hang on.”

‘We’ve been in each other’s heads for so long, but we’re still discovering things about each other.’

Sean French

I’m incredibly conflict-averse. When we’re in the car, she shouts at other drivers; I tell her she’ll get me killed one day. Or she’ll bring up a topic with someone that you’re not meant to mention. Her approach is, “Let’s get to the bottom of this.” I’d rather stay on the surface.

Although we’re so different, we both have a strong sense of how scary and vulnerable life is and it informs the stories we write. In the autumn of 1994, we had our first idea for a joint book. We’d both read about recovered or false memory, where someone in therapy recalls abuse that may or may not have happened. It was such a compelling, disturbing idea; we thought if we don’t write it, someone else will. So we began, writing in tiny, snatched moments. That book was The Memory Game.

When Nicci was 25, she edited a radical feminist journal. If she’d been told that, 10 years later, a man would be rewriting her prose, she would’ve been enraged. Then here’s me with a career as a female writer. But I like the anonymity. And I think I write better as Nicci French than I do by myself.

We’ve been in each other’s heads for so long, but we’re still discovering things about each other. One of the darkest parts of our recent book, The Last Days of Kira Mullan, is how an apparently loving relationship can be coercive and controlling. I was genuinely alarmed by Nicci’s ability to portray male hypocrisy and cruelty. The idea of where she could’ve gleaned these creepy insights rather disturbed me.

The couple’s next book, Tyler Green Will Never Be Free, will be out at the start of 2026.

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