It’s an inescapable fact that all writers have a touch of the vampire in their make-up – an in-built compulsion to make use of people, situations, places… It’s a trait that can verge on the anti-social, if not the downright discourteous. The origins of 'A Dark Dividing' are two-fold – the book was really born during a drive to the Welsh Marches, with a feeling that this might be a good setting for a story... This countryside where boundaries seemed blurred, and where there were unexpected pockets of history and where the English place-names began to slide into Ll and Mawyr and Bryn... Lovely. So now let’s wait for a plot. Dentist's chair Plots turn up when one least expects it, of course, and quite often at inappropriate moments. Traffic jams and the cheese queue in the supermarket, or the dentist’s chair. | " ‘We were never separated,’ said the dream-figures. ‘Why should you be?’" | | A Dark Dividing |
But the plot for 'A Dark Dividing' unquestionably formed while viewing a TV documentary about conjoined twins. Among the interviews and case-histories, and the fragments of folk-lore and history, was an intriguing story from two boys who had been successfully separated. Siamese Twins Now in their early teens, intelligent and articulate, they described the psychological effects of their separation, and talked about the famous 19th century “Siamese Twins” – Chang and Eng Bunker, who lived their entire lives conjoined, and were exhibited as freaks. After their own separation, these modern-day boys both experienced vivid near-nightmares, in which Chang and Eng stood by their beds, and threatened to return the boys to their conjoined state. By this time I was already frantically scribbling notes. Because what if a story could be made linking two pairs of twins – both born conjoined, but born a hundred years apart…? White-hot speed 'A Dark Dividing' was written at white-hot speed, with the present-day sections told mostly from the point of view of a rebellious journalist – Harry Fitzglen, one of the nicest anti-heroes I ever had the pleasure of creating! *******
Excerpt from the book: "'Simone picks up atmospheres... I think she's a bit telepathic as well,' said Angelica. 'I suppose it comes of being a twin.' In a voice carefully devoid of all expression, Harry said, 'She's a twin, is she?' 'Yes, although I don't know what happened to the other twin.'" ******* The earlier parts – the opening years of the twentieth century – are told through diaries written by an incorrigible Edwardian flirt, Charlotte Quinton. But it’s the twins themselves, both in the present and the past, who are the real heroines of the book. | 
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