Hitting the LIST!

HANK: I just read SUCH a good book. I mean--it is riveting, irresistible, and a truly--I can say this because it's just us-- annoyingly fabulous idea.  

Let me fast forward. How much fun would it be to wake up and see your novel on the New York Times bestseller list?  

Wouldn't it be worth all the travails, ad all the editing, and all the second guessing?

With cheers and a standing ovation, we welcome the wonderful Julie Clark to Jungle Red.  Go right out and get his book. (Well, not right now, I mean, but after you read this interview.)

HANK: Okay, first things first. When and how did you hear about the NYT list?  And what happened then?

JULIE CLARK: We’d been monitoring sales pretty closely over the course of the week, and I knew that Wednesday was the day we’d know for sure. I tried to stay really busy. I was at Pages: A Bookstore in Manhattan Beach, signing their stock for an event we were hosting. Then I was up at Diesel Brentwood signing the orders that came in after my book launch there. I’d been distracting myself with house chores and was actually on my spin bike when my editor called with the news that I’d hit the list at #9. And after that it was a flurry of phone calls – to my agent to celebrate with her, to some close friends and of course my family. The following morning, I was able to do a Zoom call with the entire Sourcebooks family to celebrate with the other authors who’d also hit the list that week. It was tremendous, thrilling, everything you’d imagine it to be.

HANK:  So—your book is irresistible. I adored it.  Did you love it as you wrote it?  Or did it change a lot? Was there a time when you thought—whoa. This works! Tell us a tiny bit about the realization of plot success.

JULIE: I knew the idea was a big one, and a very compelling one, almost right away. In 2016, when I was talking with agents about representation, they all ultimately asked "what are you working on next?" When I pitched the idea of The Last Flight -- two women who trade tickets at an airport, then one of the planes goes down -- I got a gasp from every agent I spoke to. Likewise, as I was promoting The Ones We Choose in 2018, I'd answer the same question at book events, and I'd get the exact same gasp. I knew then that I'd better do everything I could to make the execution as good as the concept.

Writing it was incredibly hard, and there were plenty of times I wondered if I'd be able to pull it off. In mid 2018, I became tempted by a new idea, and wondered, after my agent had sent a draft of The Last Flight back to me once again telling me it was still not there, if I should maybe set it aside and work on something else. But I just kept plugging away, revising and rewriting for the entirety of a year before we sold it to Sourcebooks in a pre-empt in May of 2019.

HANK: How was writing this different from The Ones We Choose?

JULIE:  I had to do a lot of research for The Ones We Choose, since there is a genetic subplot that required me to learn about genetics. I consulted pretty regularly with a geneticist as well, to make sure I was getting the science right. With The Last Flight, my research was centered on law enforcement and flight regulations rather than on science. Even though Eva was a chemistry prodigy, I was able to stay away from diving into chemistry and chemical reaction research for this one!

 HANK:  This is SUCH a brilliant premise! Was there a moment when you thought of this idea? Just--ping? Or is it an amalgam?

JULIE: I’d been fascinated by the idea of whether someone could vanish…originally, I’d thought about a person who used something like 9/11 to disappear. But then I decided to pivot to a less sinister event and instead focus on two women who trade plane tickets. But I still wanted a disaster of some kind to lead the world to believe my main character, Claire, was dead. To see what she’d do and whether she could pull it off. Eva started out as a way to accomplish that, but the more I wrote forward in Claire’s POV, the more I realized that Eva also had an important story to tell, and that it dovetailed nicely with Claire’s.

HANK:  You would have been flying around the country on book tour now, sigh. But did writing this change your relationship with airport bars? Waiting areas? Air travel in general?

JULIE CLARK: The last trip I took was in January, to attend ABA’s Winter Institute, which was incredible. Even though the book was finished by that point and well into production, I paid close attention to how things worked, trying to imagine Claire and Eva among the travelers, trying to hide in plain sight. I paid extra attention to gates that felt crowded and chaotic, trying to imagine whether someone might be able to slip out of line….

HANK:  What it would be like to pretend to be someone else--I thought about this a lot, of course, since it's a theme in THE FIRST TO LIE. (Though the books are fascinatingly different.). Anything that you realize about the ease or difficulty of that?

JULIE: It’s really hard today with technology that tracks our every move. Claire had all of Eva’s bank cards, but it was challenging for her to use them because authentication is so inconsistent. Sometimes I need to show my ID when I use a credit card. Other times I don’t. Likewise, the old days of slipping a photo into a driver’s license and laminating over it are long gone! A person who wants a new identity will need to pay a lot of money to some very shady people in order to get one, and even then, there’s no guarantee it’ll be good enough to live without constant fear of discovery. I also was fascinated by the idea of identity…how well do people really know us, and I loved pushing Claire to become more and more immersed in Eva’s life the longer she lived in her house.

HANK:  Oh, yes, so perfectly psychologically insidious.  Did you know the ending before you started?

JULIE:  Yes, I typically know how my books will end very early on. I might not know how I’m going to get there, but I like to have that last chapter/last scene in my mind to work toward. With The Last Flight I knew, almost from the beginning, how it would resolve.

HANK: Have you always wanted to be a writer? How did that happen?

JULIE:  I’ve always written for myself. Not just fiction but journaling and lists and ideas…it’s very therapeutic for me, and something I do every morning immediately after waking up with a large mug of coffee. I didn’t start writing seriously for publication until I was well into my forties though, and didn’t publish my first book until I was 48!

HANK: Got to love that. (I was 55!) So where did you grow up? What books did

you read as a kid? Do you still think about them now?

JULIE:  I grew up in Santa Monica, California. At that time it was a sleepy beach town, and I had a lot of freedom as a teenager. I'd pack a beach bag every morning of summer vacation and walk down to the beach, where I'd hang out with friends, swim in the ocean, and read. I absolutely loved the Trixie Belden mystery series. Anne of Green Gables was also a beloved series I read and re-read over and over again. But I pretty much read everything I could get my hands on.

HANK: Yes! Trixie! And there was one series about Donna Parker—maybe be she was student body president? I learned a lot from her, inI fact. About the benefits of planning ahead.  Anyway--How are you? How has this hideous pandemic changed your life?

JULIE:  It hasn't changed my life too much, other than limiting my ability to grocery shop on a whim. I'm a dedicated introvert, so most of my free time has always been spent puttering around the house, reading, cooking, working on projects. My kids are the same way. So for the three of us, we're just doing more of the same, while being a little extra mindful when we leave the house. It's really impacted my promotion life though. Releasing a book in the middle of a pandemic is not ideal. My book tour was canceled. I lost out on a trip to New York for Book Expo. I am slated to appear at several book festivals throughout the fall, which have all moved online. So it's been a big adjustment, not only in scheduling, but also expectations. The lovely thing about it, though, is that it's allowed people from all over the country (and world) to attend events that never would have been possible had they happened in person. So I see that as a benefit.

HANK  You are so wise, and brave--and there's no question they'll ALL invite you back. (And hey, you DID make the Times list. Hurray!)   And we're delighted you're here today!  Finally: What’s the best or worst advice you’ve ever heard? Or—what would you tell to a new

writer? Or—what have you learned through this?

JULIE: It's cliche, but to publish a book, you really need to write every day. Even if it's only for a couple hours. Staying in that world in your mind every day is so critical. I read somewhere that the best way to publish is to 1) Think of yourself as a worker and 2) Show up at the job. It's literally that simple. And read read read. You don't need an MFA to be a successful novelist. What you need is an ear for how language must sound on the page, for dialogue and pacing. You can get all of that if you read widely, outside of and within your genre. Read brilliant books, but also read the bad ones. That way you can tune your ear for what doesn't work, which is as important as knowing what does. 

HANK: Yes! So agree. (Once you know what doesn't work--just don't do that!) Reds and readers, SO much to still find out from Julie--so ask away. She's West Coast..so she'll be here soon!  And let's all congratulate her. And, reds and readers, remember air travel? What was the last flight you took? 

And a copy of THE LAST FLIGHT to one lucky commenter!

Julie Clark is the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight. It has earned starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, and the New York Times has called it "thoroughly absorbing". It's been named an Indie Next Pick, a Library Reads Pick, and a Best Book of 2020 by Amazon Editors and Apple Books. Her debut, The Ones We Choose, was published in 2018 and has been optioned for television by Lionsgate. Julie lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches and writes full time.

        

Reading Royalty!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Trumpets, ruffles and flourishes: we have true royalty visiting Jungle Red today! No, not who you might be thinking. We are so honored to host the incredibly talented Heather Gudenkauf, who exploded onto the scene with the groundbreaking THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE,  then continued to enthrall readers with a string of bestsellers, and now is out with her brand new book, her  eighth, THIS IS HOW I LIED.

It is fabulous. It is seductive, and sinister, and simmering, and surprising.  It is—Fargo meets Kinsey Milhone. But actually? It’s pure Heather Gudenkauf. And more about that in a minute. But first:

Like all of us, even one of her main characters, Heather started out as a reader.  Sometimes— reading books she wasn’t quite supposed to read. We’ll all talk—but as I said. Heather first.

THIS IS HOW I READ

  by Heather Gudenkauf

In my new novel, This is How I Lied, fifteen-year-old Eve Knox is a reader and she loves books with happy endings. Unfortunately, we learn very quickly that things don’t end well for Eve. We only get to know her through the span of one day, but there are a few things we do learn about Eve. She’s a caring, patient sister and she’s a reader. Eve devours books. 

The last book she is reading before she dies (this is not a spoiler – we learn Eve’s fate right away) is The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. I did not choose to place this book in Eve’s hands by accident.

When I write my books, I like to leave little clues about

myself within the pages, often leaving references to things have some significance in my life and for This is How I Lied one of those Easter eggs was The Thorn Birds.

I have a long, storied history with The Thorn Birds. The novel was scandalous. It’s a saga about of the ill-fated (and unethical) romance between Meggie Cleary and Roman Catholic priest, Father de Bricassart. It was also a whopping 700 pages and by far the longest book I’d read to date.

“What are you reading?” my mother asked in shock when she caught me reading her well-worn paperback copy. I was twelve and she was used to me reading the innocent Sweet Dreams series that had titles like P.S. I Love You and The Perfect Match.

“The Thorn Birds,” I responded distractedly, my eyes still pinned on the pages. “It’s really good.”

“You probably shouldn’t be reading that,” my mother said plucking it from my hand.

“But this is the second time I’ve read it,” I protested. “I read it last year too.” My mother sighed and handed it back to me.

Like most libraries, our public library had two distinct sections: the children’s room and the adult section. They also had two types of library cards – one for children and one for everyone else. When I was little I remember sneaking over to the adult side. It was like stepping into a mysterious realm. The lighting was dim, the air heavier and hushed compared to the busy, bright and noisy children’s room. I roamed the tall stacks looking at the thick volumes that I wasn’t allowed to check out. 

I was always drawn to books that I probably shouldn’t have been reading: Carrie by Stephen King

 Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner

 The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson, to name a few.

Finally, the day came and I graduated from the children’s section. Clutching my newly minted library card I went in search of the perfect book. I can’t remember the exact title I checked out that day, but it most likely something that would have given my mother heart palpitations. 

To her credit, my mom never censored my reading choices. When she was a child, the library was a respite for her an escape from her complicated family life. Though my parents gave me an idyllic childhood, she knew how drawn to books I was, could appreciate the need to while the hours away lost in in another world no matter if the content was a bit too advanced for me.

What about you Red and Readers? What forbidden books did you sneak off the shelves?

HANK: I am laughing so hard. Of course! I sneaked Marjorie Morningstar, I remember it perfectly. 

And Ten North Frederick. 

And then, I terrified myself with On The Beach. Who know it was about nuclear winter? Yeesh! 

And then all the James Bond books. 
Under the covers, with a flashlight. 
But I have to confess. I've never read The Thorn Birds. And I did not watch the TV show. Should I?

 And I wonder, too. How about you all? What were your sneak reads?

And hurray! A copy of THIS IS HOW I LIED to one lucky commenter.

Heather  Gudenkauf 

Heather is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Weight of Silence. Her eighth novel, This Is How I Lied was released on May 12th. She lives in Iowa with her family.

 This is How I Lied

Twenty-five years ago, the body of sixteen-year-old Eve Knox was found in the caves near her home in small-town Grotto, Iowa—discovered by her best friend, Maggie, and her sister, Nola. There were a handful of suspects, including her boyfriend, Nick, but without sufficient evidence the case ultimately went cold.

For decades Maggie was haunted by Eve’s death and that horrible night. Now a detective in Grotto, and seven months pregnant, she is thrust back into the past when a new piece of evidence surfaces and the case is reopened. As Maggie investigates and reexamines the clues, secrets about what really happened begin to emerge. But someone in town knows more than they’re letting on, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep the truth buried deep.

What Would You Do with a Billion Dollars? by Kate Carlisle

JENN McKINLAY: I'm thrilled to have my bestie visiting today! And because she won't brag on herself, I will. Check this out: A trifecta of bestsellerness!!! Have you started the Fixer Upper mysteries yet? Don't miss out!

The latest Fixer-Upper Mystery, SHOT THROUGH THE HEARTH, came out on October 29, in paperback and ebook. Coming soon in audiobook. Read chapter 1 for free at www.KateCarlisle.com.

And now here's Kate to tell us more about her latest bestseller!

KATE CARLISLE: What would you do if you had a billion dollars? A billion. A thousand millions. Would you quit your job? Would you start a business? Would you move to a different town, a different part of the country, a different country altogether? Would you have more than one home? What would you do for your family and friends?

A billion is such a big number, it’s hard to wrap one’s brain around. Let’s say you did everything I listed above. Even if you were wildly extravagant, you’d probably still have, oh, nine hundred million dollars.

I think that once you got past the irresistible self-indulgences, you would realize that you have more money than you could possibly need in a lifetime. Then you might start thinking on a grander scale. After you’ve taken care of yourself, your family, your friends, and your community, eventually you might start to think about how you could effect real change in the world.

What would you do with a billion dollars once the newness of wealth wore off?

This was the question that inspired my latest mystery novel, Shot Through the Hearth. In it, contractor Shannon Hammer has been hired to renovate the Victorian farmhouse of and build a barn for a young retired tech billionaire, Raphael Nash.

The size of Rafe’s wallet is matched only by the size of his heart. After moving to Lighthouse Cove and falling in love with Shannon’s friend Marigold, Rafe starts the Marigold Foundation, with the lofty goal of eradicating poverty and saving the environment.

Rafe had the vision, the intelligence and the energy to bootstrap himself from humble beginnings to being one of the wealthiest men in the world. Now he intends to put all of his talents toward saving the planet for future generations. As the book starts, he tells Shannon that he’ll be hosting Future Global Survival Con in their quaint seaside town. Here’s a taste from chapter one:

“I’ve already booked a few dozen speakers,” Rafe said. “We’ll have demonstrations and lectures and workshops on all sorts of future-forward ideas from every area of business, education, arts and sciences, space, communication, food and farming.”

“You’ve already lined up all these people?”

“Yeah. Well, most of them are friends, so it wasn’t too hard to twist their arms.” He sat forward in his chair, getting into the subject. “We’ve got an eco-fisheries expert whose passion is tide pools. And another, my friend Julian Reedy, is a world-renowned plant expert who is determined to prove that plants can communicate with humans.” He grinned. “Oh, and wait ’til you see the Stephanie vine. She’s this huge, fast-growing plant that moves and grows in reaction to human pheromones. She’s extraordinary.”

“Stephanie is . . . a plant?”

“Yeah. You’ll see. It’s very cool. And another buddy, Arnold Larsson, is a pioneer in the field of smart mice studies.”

Mice?I shivered. One of my deepest, darkest secrets was that I was deathly afraid of mice. But I wasn’t about to mention it here and now.

“Everyone who comes to the conference will be invited to submit a grant proposal and give a short presentation on how they would change the world. I’ll be awarding a number of grants to help them finance their projects and ideas, put their words into action.”

But while Rafe’s goals are noble, with that much money up for grabs, not everyone’s motives will be altruistic. In fact, someone will die. . . 

ABOUT SHOT THROUGH THE HEARTH

Contractor Shannon Hammer is measuring murder motives in the latest Fixer-Upper Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of A Wrench in the Works and Eaves of Destruction... 

Shannon's good friend and retired tech billionaire, Raphael Nash, is loving his new retired life but he can't stay unoccupied for too long. He's started the Marigold Foundation that helps fund small companies and individuals who do humanitarian work around the world. It's an exciting time in Lighthouse Cove as Raphael hosts the first ever global conference inviting big thinkers from every area of industry to give presentations on eco-living. 

Raphael's old business partner arrives in town with a grudge and a plan to steal him away from his important new passion project. Shannon knows her friend has no intention of giving up Marigold and is proud of Raphael for sticking to his guns. But when his former associate winds up dead, all signs point to Raphael. 

It's up to Shannon to hammer out the details of the murder before her friend gets pinned for the crime... 

Question of the Day: If you had a billion dollars, what would you do after you had taken care of yourself, your family and your friends?

Kate Carlisle is the New York Timesbestselling author of two ongoing series: the Bibliophile Mysteries featuring San Francisco bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright, whose rare book restoration skills uncover old secrets, treachery and murder; and the Fixer-Upper Mysteries (as seen on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries), featuring Shannon Hammer, a home contractor who discovers not only skeletons in her neighbors' closets, but murder victims, too.

A Family Dilemma

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I’ll never forget the day my mom called me, all upset, and, I’ll admit, enraged. She was very unhappy with me, to say the least, because she’d decided that I’d modeled Charlotte McNally’s gorgeous but hyper-critical mother after her.  And moreover, that this person had gone to Boston to have a facelift. And now, she complained, everyone would that that was her.

I explained my way out of it, and ended by saying—Mom, it’s fiction. Charlie McNally is fictional, and Mrs. McNally is fictional She’s not you.

And there we left it.

Mom was right, of course, but I never admitted that.

Families can be tricky. As the wonderful Bryan Reardon explains.

THE PERFECT PLAN?

       By Bryan Reardon

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

             George Bernard Shaw

 

Is that good advice for a writer? I wonder. Recently, at a book festival in Michigan, someone asked me if I write a series. The easy answer was, 'no.' When I thought about the question, my mind made a new connection between my first two books, and my third which comes out this year. The first book is about a school shooting. The second about the bombing of New York's Penn Station. The third book about an abduction. They've been categorized as thrillers, but that never felt 100 percent accurate to me. 

When I got past the action of the concepts, I realized that the three had something much deeper in common. Not a series, but a trilogy of thematically themed stories, all focusing on family.

THE PERFECT PLAN (June 18, Dutton Books) is the story of the two brothers. Together, they seem to have survived a horrible childhood. People see them as strong, resilient and fiercely loyal. That's on the surface. If anyone looked too closely, though, they might see the cracks. They might catch a glimpse at their skeleton.

The older brother, Andrew, is a rising politician, running for office. The younger, Liam, is dangerous and unpredictable. Their story begins with Liam stalking one of Andrew's campaign staffers. When he abducts her in a parking lot, things get worse. Liam seems to taunt Drew with behaviors that seem out of control. 

But, when it comes to the Brennan brothers, things are never how they appear. Their family secret runs deep and dark. And by the end of their story, it will be dragged into the light.

It is in their back story, that I realized this story focuses on family. The brothers grew up in an abusive home, the children of an alcoholic mother. I dove deep into that portion, painting their childhood as vividly as I could. But there is a very real danger in doing that. See, as a writer, if you write about family, your family is automatically going to think you are writing about them.

I certainly don't write about my family. When you plot a story, you need your character to be a certain way, make certain decisions, all to further the arc. If I was to actually write about my family, I doubt too many people would want to read it. My life is normal. Boring. Certainly no one has been abducted. So, I make stuff up.

But…..

Here's where it gets dangerous. Although no one in my stories is an actual real-life person, I can't say that about some settings, or incidents. In The Perfect Plan, some of the story takes place in the backyard of my childhood home. My brother did teach me to tie my shoes. There are a few real-world nuggets thrown in there. I find myself doing that to help me ground the story. Make the characters more believable. The problem is, if some is true, then people might believe all of it really happened. When you write the kinds of books I write, that is not a great thing.

As writers, it can be scary. We are putting ourselves out there in a very real and vulnerable way. As our stories unfold, we might come across a choice. Use something that might resemble a person in our lives. Or shy away, afraid of what they might think.

 Right or wrong, I have chosen the former. It is a risk. There are still people in my life that don't speak to me because they think they were in my first book (though they weren't). But I do it because it works for me, despite the risk.

The funny thing about family, though, is that we tend to keep it all locked inside. On the surface, everything looks great. Just check our Facebook pages. But that's never the whole story, is it? We do anything we can to keep that skeleton locked away. We certainly don't let it dance in front of the neighbors. And I find myself asking the same question over and over again. Do we really know the people we are closest to? And, more interestingly, do they truly know us?

HANK: Yup, that’s a tough choice.  Is what’s best for the book what’s best for the real people? And how do we even know?

What do you think about using your real life in a book? Or—even more difficult—appropriating someone else’s?

And a copy of THE PERFECT PLAN to one luck commenter!

(And yesterday’s winner of  A LONG WAY DOWN  is Margaret Hamilton! Email me your address! Yay!)

THE PERFECT PLAN 

From New York Times bestselling author Bryan Reardon comes a tense, twisting story about two brothers locked together in a dangerous game—and an unforgettable tale of a family’s dark secrets.

Liam Brennan teeters on the edge. Early one morning, he snaps, kidnapping a young woman who works for Drew Brennan, Liam’s older brother and the upstart candidate in a heated election. This sudden, vicious attack appears to be the beginning of an unthinkable spiral. But when it comes to the Brennan brothers, nothing is what it seems.
 
To the rest of the world, Liam is the troubled problem child who grew up to be his brother’s enforcer, while Drew has always been the perfect son and a charismatic leader who has his sights set on the governor’s mansion with his charming and beautiful wife, Patsy, by his side.
 
Now, as Liam tries to stay one step ahead of the authorities and his brother, every passing minute provides a deeper glimpse into the brothers’ past, long hidden behind a picture-perfect suburban veneer. With the threat of the truth surfacing, Liam and Drew are driven toward one final, desperate act...

 Bryan Reardon is the bestselling author of Finding Jake and The Real Michael Swann, and now, THE PERFECT PLAN (from Dutton.).  Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Bryan worked for the State of Delaware for more than a decade, starting in the Office of the Governor. He holds a degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with his wife and kids.