The Bletchley Riddle with Ruta Sepetys & Steve Sheinkin!

Special guests Ruta Sepetys  and Steve Sheinkin join Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss their book The Bletchley Riddle.

Remember, you are bound by the Official Secrets Act…

Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister, Lizzie, share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they’re living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amid one of the greatest secrets of World War II—Britain’s eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley’s top minds to crack the Nazi’s Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother.

The Battle of Britain rages and Hitler’s invasion creeps closer. And at the same time, baffling messages and codes arrive on their doorstep while a menacing inspector lurks outside the gates of the Bletchley mansion. Are the messages truly for them, or are they a trap? Could the riddles of Enigma and their mother’s disappearance be somehow connected? Jakob and Lizzie must find a way to work together as they race to decipher clues that unravel a shocking puzzle that presents the ultimate challenge: How long must a secret be kept?

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Ruta Sepetys (Rūta Šepetys) is an internationally acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction published in over sixty countries and forty languages. Considered a “crossover” novelist, her books are read by both students and adults worldwide. Winner of the Carnegie Medal and honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Ruta is renowned for giving voice to underrepresented history and those who experienced it. Her books have won or been shortlisted for more than fifty book prizes, appear on over forty state reading lists, and are currently in development for film and television.

A former textbook writer, Steve Sheinkin is now making amends by writing books young people might actually want to read.

He’s the author of fast-paced, cinematic, nonfiction page-turners, including Bomb, Fallout, Undefeated, Born to Fly, The Port Chicago 50, and Impossible Escape.

He is also the author of The Bletchley Riddle, a middle grade novel written with Ruta Sepetys. The historical mystery is set in Bletchley Park, Britain’s top secret codebreaking factory during World War II.

Steve’s many accolades include a Newbery Honor, three Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, a Sibert Medal and Honor, three National Book Award finalist honors, and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He lives with his family in Saratoga Springs, New York.

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Transcript

Sarah Harrison: 0:11

Welcome to Tea Tonic and Toxin, the only book club and podcast dedicated to exploring mysteries chronologically, from Edgar Allan Poe to the present. We're discussing the best mysteries and thrillers ever written, as well as interviewing some of the world's most talented contemporary mystery and thriller writers. I'm your host, Sarah Harrison.

Carolyn Daughters: 0:33

And I'm your host, Carolyn Daughters. We aim to educate, entertain and reignite interest in exceptional and often overlooked authors who shaped the genre. Check us out at teatonicandtoxin.com and on our socials to find tons of great content and take part in the conversation. We love hearing from listeners, and we're excited you're joining us on our journey through the history of mystery.

Sarah Harrison: 0:57

Today's sponsor is Linden Botanicals, a Colorado-based company that sells the world's healthiest herbal teas and extracts. Their team has traveled the globe to find the herbs that offer the best science based support for stress, relief, energy, memory, mood, kidney health, joint health, digestion, and inflammation. U.S. orders over$75 ship free to learn more, visit lindenbotanicals.com and use code MYSTERY to get 15% off your first order. Thanks, Linden Botanicals! Carolyn, we have a really fun conversation today that I am excited about.

Carolyn Daughters: 1:37

I am, too. I love when we do middle grade mysteries and YA books. I just think it's so much fun, and it just changes it up.

Sarah Harrison: 1:46

And this one fits in so well with a lot of the historic books we've been doing today. We're really excited to talk about The Bletchley Riddle. It is a middle grade historical mystery written by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin and published in 2025 It's summer 1940. Year old Jacob Novis and his 14 year old sister Lizzie share a love of riddles and puzzles, and now they're living inside of one the quarrelsome siblings find themselves amid one of the greatest secrets of World War II Britain's eccentric code breaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jacob joins Bletchley's top minds to crack the Nazis Enigma cipher Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother, the Battle of Britain rages and Hitler's invasion creeps closer, and at the same time, baffling messages and codes arrive on their doorstep while a menacing inspector lurks outside the gates of Bletchley mansion. Are the messages truly for them, or are they a trap? Could the riddles of enigma and their mother's disappearance be somehow connected? Jacob and Lizzie must find a way to work together as they race to decipher clues that unravel a shocking puzzle that presents the ultimate challenge, how long must a secret be kept?

Carolyn Daughters: 3:07

Author Ruta Sepetys is an internationally acclaimed number one New York Times bestselling writer of historical fiction published in more than 60 countries and 40 languages. Her novels have won or been shortlisted for more than 40 book prizes and are included on more than 60 state award lists, winner of the Carnegie Medal, Ruta is passionate about the power of history and literature to foster global awareness and connectivity. Ruta lives with her family in the hills of Tennessee, and also author Steven is the renowned author of fast paced, cinematic non fiction histories, including impossible escape Fallout, undefeated born to fly the Port Chicago 50 and bomb. His accolades include a Newberry honor three Boston Globe Horn Book Awards, a sibbert medal, sybert medal and honor and three National Book Award finalist honors. Steve lives with his family in Saratoga, Springs, New York. Welcome Ruta and Steve. Welcome having us. Thank you.

Steve Sheinkin: 4:17

Thanks so much.

Carolyn Daughters: 4:20

So we, as we started this conversation before we were recording, which we inadvertently sometimes do. We are very sorry listeners. We started talking a little bit about how we found the two of you and how fortunate we are to have read The Bletchley Riddle and brought you both onto this podcast. So we're doing World War II mysteries right now. We're in the 1940s and we're about to move from these 1940s mysteries, The Ministry of Fear, for example. Into a more light hearted domestic mystery called Home Sweet Homicide, written by a prolific author named Craig Rice, and she was so famous in her time, Craig Rice was on the cover of Time magazine. So we're about to bridge these two. And then we found The Bletchley Riddle, and we thought, okay, this book has is a historical bent set at Bletchley Park in England, and the two protagonists, first person writers. The chapters, for the most part, go back and forth between Lizzie and her brother, Jacob. This is really reminiscent of the wit and intelligence of the characters in Home Sweet Homicide. And so when I saw The Bletchley Riddle, I said, Oh my gosh, we not only need to read it, but we have to bring Ruta and Steve on. Sarah, I'll let you add in a couple thoughts there.

Sarah Harrison: 6:02

I do have a thought I wanted to add. This checks even another box, because our book after that, whereas we're reading Agatha Christie's very first historical mystery book, Death Comes in the End. The Bletchley Riddle just was the perfect tie in to everything. And I don't think I read a historical mystery before. Ruta, you read a lot of these, right? Tell me about your research process. How did you get into historical fiction, historical mysteries?

Ruta Sepetys: 6:39

Oh, well, growing up as a kid, I loved mysteries. I loved Nancy Drew I even loved local mysteries, reading the newspaper for what was going on and trying to come up with my own twists and plots and what might be happening in these in criminal cases and things like that. So I was always drawn to it. And then my first novel Between Shades of Gray really explored underrepresented history, and through releasing that book, I saw how powerful that can be when you give voice to a piece of history that's that hasn't been shared through a novel and reaching a larger audience with that piece of history. And I loved it so much that I quit my job and to write books full time, which for your listeners, I don't recommend that. Don't from your career to the curb, but I did, and I just really, I really love it, so many aspects of it, the research. I really do believe that I am a researcher first, and it's what really drew me to work with Steve Sheinkin and wanting to work with Steve, because I believe we're both researchers and investigators at heart. And so Steve, I'll throw it to you. In working on The Bletchley Riddle, was our research any different than it normally is?

Steve Sheinkin: 8:09

No, really, we are proudly research nerds, and that was essential to this story. The funny thing is, from my perspective, it was a little different, because I've done so much narrative, non fiction, so the you start with the same amount of research, but there's no, obviously no making up of characters and dialog. So that was that was different. But in terms of grounding the story in a real time and place, we really wanted to be very realistic in terms of the world the summer of 1940 what was going on, what was at stake for our characters. And so that involved a lot of research. And the great thing about a collaboration is that we could, we could split it up, pick up the character that I write is a code breaker and a mathematician, so I could focus on, well, what are the things that he would know? What are the books that he would have read in the 20s and 30s, and try and catch up to him, which I'll never do because I'm not a math teacher, but I have to play one on TV, so All right, what can I do? And I know Ruta, you read and listen to memoirs of people who did this job, of these teenagers who were messengers inside, inside Bletchley Park.

Ruta Sepetys: 9:27

I had a small moment where I decided, well, Jacob's a code breaker, and Lizzie is a rule breaker in The Bletchley Riddle. But I really do need to understand code breaking. And Steve had mentioned this book that was written, I believe, in the 30s, secret and urgent is that it was written. This was a handbook that people used for codes and ciphers. And so I found a used copy online, I ordered it, and I thought, Okay, I'm really going to get into this. I could not get through one chapter. It was so over my head, and so I said it to Steve, and I said, okay, okay, pal, this is for you and your character. But we did. We read books from the time period. I tried to listen to interviews with women who were young women at Bletchley Park at the time. Listen to radio broadcasts. Time periods have a certain poetry of phrasing. And I wonder if you guys have found that too now that in reading these books from the 30s and 40s, prose styles were a bit, actually quite different and that was important to us. But as Steve mentioned, we chose this very specific time frame of the Battle of Britain, and we did not deviate from that. And maybe that's a whole other question about the challenges that we had because we made that commitment to not deviate from it.

Carolyn Daughters: 10:59

I'm interested in knowing more about a couple things. So Ruta, how did you come to a place where you wanted to have a book with two different authors? And then Steve, what was it like to write fiction, and what challenges did you have there that maybe were outside your norm in writing?

Ruta Sepetys: 11:22

Well, I'll peel back another layer. I haven't always been a novelist. The job that I kicked to the curb to pursue this dream of being a writer, I worked in the music business for 22 years, helping songwriters and artists and rock bands, tell stories, but through music. And I bring that up because it was a lot of collaborating, and I realized really quickly, wow, the amazing things that can happen when energies are combined. So I love collaborating, so it wasn't necessarily something that I had in mind saying, I'm a writer, and I want to co-write a book. But Steve and I were in New Orleans at a library conference, and we were on the same panel, and I think it was the first time that I was even in the room with Steve Sheinkin, and I was, I was pretty star struck, and we were at opposite ends of the table. It's an audience of librarians. They're a lovely audience. And the question came, and it said, Okay, if all of you, if you could collaborate with any writer, living or dead, who would it be, Ruta? And immediately I said, Oh, he's alive. It's Steve Sheinkin, and he's sitting there. I pointed down the table, and then I had that uncomfortable feeling of, oh my gosh, this guy doesn't even know me. I admire his books so much that when my book, Salt to the Sea came out, and the publisher said, Well, if anyone could blurb this book. I was like, Steve Sheinkin and could you please ask him? And so then I had to, like, look down the table to see if he was going to be like, oh, you crazy lady or Steve. What were you thinking when I just all of a sudden said, I want to collaborate with the Steve Sheinkin. And ultimately we ended up with The Bletchley Riddle.

Steve Sheinkin: 13:24

I was so glad that you were called on first, because I was still thinking, like, should I pick Jane Austen? I was trying to think of something witty to say, and you just answered honestly. So that was a much more valuable answer

Carolyn Daughters: 13:33

The living or dead, then for you. You were like, well, Jane Austen, I could go back ...

Steve Sheinkin: 13:39

I could impress these guys with something. But the thing is, that's the first I was just as much an admirer of rude and we were both had read each other's books. That was the first blurb I ever got asked to write. So it's funny that you had that feeling, and I did, too, as I go. Wow. All right, great.

Sarah Harrison: 13:57

I was gonna ask you that, did you write the blurb?

Steve Sheinkin: 14:01

That was the first one. So, but, but it made sense. So, so it was so clear to me that it made sense because of our there's so much overlap. It didn't matter to me, so much fiction/nonfiction. It was more like just a love and a passion for finding and telling little known stories and bringing forward young characters who really make a difference in these really impactful moments in time. And so we didn't have an idea, but I knew that we would eventually, if we started thinking about it, come up with something that we could get excited about.

Ruta Sepetys: 14:38

I remember calling home from the panel before I got on the plane, to let my husband know what time the flight was expected to come get me. And I said, By the way, I was on a panel with Steve Sheinkin, and my husband said, Oh my gosh, that must have been so exciting for you. And I said it was. And you know what? I told him that I want to I told the audience that I want to write a book together. And there was this awkward silence from my husband, and then he said, Don't mess this up. Like, look, if he always no, I forgive me. I said, I want to write a book with Steve Sheinkin. And he nodded at me, like, yes, this could happen. And my husband said, don't mess this up.

Carolyn Daughters: 15:21

Amazing.

Sarah Harrison: 15:22

Already written the blurb I want, okay, I need timeline details. Had you already written the blurb at this point?

Steve Sheinkin: 15:28

Yes, several years before. That's right.

Carolyn Daughters: 15:34

How did you both get to Bletchley Park? As if you could expand on this setting and what drew you to it, I know you've both been there together, and you've toured it, and now it's, I have a bucket list, and it's got a lot of a lot of places on it, and now I want to go to Bletchley Park. And I hadn't thought about it before, but honestly, it when I was reading this, I thought I've read quite a bit about Bletchley Park over the years in fiction and nonfiction, and until The Bletchley Riddle, it hadn't occurred to me I can go there, like what drew you both to this book and like what energized you about this setting. Ruta, I'll start with you, and then we'll go to Steve.

Ruta Sepetys: 16:18

Well, I'll probably flip it to Steve quite quickly, because when we decided that yes, collaborating was possible, we weren't quite sure what that would look like our first idea, or first thing we talked about was doing a fiction and nonfiction treatment of the same topic. So imagine a book that split in half, and the first half is fiction. You flip it over, even the cover, it's got a different cover on reverse. And then the next treatment is non fiction. And then what? As we were discussing it, Steve mentioned something about fiction, and you guys, when I thought, wait a minute, we can pull Steve Sheinkin over to the dark side of fiction. Then I wouldn't let go. Then I thought, we're doing this. We're collaborating on a novel. So we both have these handwritten journals where we write all of our ideas. And we had to take that vulnerable task of opening up our idea journals and swapping ideas. So Steve, then what happened?

Unknown: 17:26

We had long lists of things that we went back and forth on ideas and some of them may have worked. Some of them were probably terrible.

Ruta Sepetys: 17:36

They were good. They were just in.

Steve Sheinkin: 17:40

It's all interesting. It's all interesting. But I can tell you, I had this on my on my list, in a very general way, code breaking World War II spies, Bletchley Park as something that I wanted to write about. But I just hadn't figured out exactly that we were going to write The Bletchley Riddle. I did assume if it were just my own project, it would be non fiction. That's usually what publishers want me to do. But then when we started this conversation, that jumped to the top of my mind, because I thought, What a great setting, what a great place you do absolutely have to go. Have to go there. It is a magical place. It's like Wonka's factory, but for nerdy code breakers, it's amazing. And what really well, one of the things I won't speak for Ruta, but I know we've talked about this that sold us on it was, was how influential young people were, that there were, there really were math mathematicians and linguists still in their teens, who were recruited from universities straight into Bletchley Park, there really were 14 year old messengers that played this really vital role of delivering these top, top secret messages, running all day from one hut to the mansion to another hut to a cottage. And so these young people played a huge role in it, and we realized right away we could take advantage this incredible, true setting and the stakes just couldn't be higher, and still tell a story authentically through the voices of young people.

Ruta Sepetys: 19:15

Steve was really excited about the topic, which got me excited, and he had already done quite a bit of preliminary research, or just, actually, I don't even know if it's fair to say, research, Steve, you are probably just doing leisure reading because you were excited about the topic. And during our conversation, Steve brought up the fact that many people think that the Brits broke Enigma, but it was actually he shared with me that there were three Polish mathematicians that were involved, and that really turned my ear. I said, Wait a minute. For someone who loves underrepresented history and hidden heroes, I said, Wait a minute. Tell me about that. And it was. Really this Polish angle and this underrepresented history that, for me, that sealed the deal. That's I knew then that I wanted to do the project.

Sarah Harrison: 20:12

That's really interesting. I have so many questions about The Bletchley Riddle and many other things. First of all, Ruta, where did you work in the music industry? when Los Angeles, Angeles and Nashville,

Ruta Sepetys: 20:29

In Los Angeles, and we're talking late 80s 90s, which could be a whole other kind of book, but because of non disclosures, that that won't ever happen. But so like late 80s, 90s, and then around 2002 I also moved to Nashville and set up an office in Nashville.

Sarah Harrison: 20:52

Okay, awesome. That's so fascinating. But both really creative endeavors that switched from and to.

Ruta Sepetys: 21:02

Both Steve and I, that was something we didn't know, that we had so much in common. Steve started out as a filmmaker, which I'll let him explain. But I do want your listeners to know that people who are considering a career pivot Steve and I are real. Poster children for that, that that is possible. We had that in common, too.

Sarah Harrison: 21:29

That's awesome. Steve, I do. I do want to hear, I'm going to ask you a two part question that are unrelated, but I do want to hear about your filmmaking background, and then I want to hear a little bit about some of the historical mystery books we were discussing earlier that you were you were reading to prepare for this.

Steve Sheinkin: 21:49

The film thing is, well, really the big picture is, is similar to what Ruta said, just my own version of it is. And this is true for anyone who's thinking about trying to try to be a writer or do anything in the arts, you're going to have a lot of twists and turns and do a lot of crummy jobs on the side and, and so we have many years of those kinds of stories. But really, my initial dream, kids often ask this when I visit school, did you always want to be a writer? And I guess I did, but I didn't think of it that way. I really wanted to make movies with my brother, and we thought we would be a brother movie making team, and we tried for a few years. We made a feature film that that lost us all our money, that that we financed with credit cards, and it was a terrible flop, but it was really a great learning experience. So I'm so glad now I can say, I can laugh about all the bad reviews and say I'm glad we did it, because it was such a learning experience, and convinced me that I wanted to do this kind of thing, storytelling for a living in some form, some way. And then I got jobs working in the educational market and writing for textbook companies, which led me into actually writing good versions of history that kids actually want to read without being forced, and that led me into narrative nonfiction. And so they're different, but to me, they're not really all that different. All along the way, of course, I read. I just, whenever I'm reading, writing a book, I'll try to find a few example texts, from if I'm writing a thriller, I'll read, I'll pick out some of my favorite thrillers and read them again and again for the language and the mood and the style. And it just helps. And so for this one, for The Bletchley Riddle, I did pick up a lot of books, especially books written in England in the late 30s, because I wanted for the for the feel and the language, to the language that the just the colloquial expressions and just the way of phrasing things. It's it is quite different from how Americans speak, and then you add in, like Ruta said, The time difference, which really is quite a unique and different glossary. I actually made up a list, a dictionary and of terms and words that I would try to try to use, and I probably didn't use 10% of them, but I had them all with me, open on my computer all the time. What if I could use that phrase? I wonder where I can get that in.

Sarah Harrison: 24:25

What were some of the books that you read? Or what ones did you really felt like you drew from for the time period?

Steve Sheinkin: 24:36

I really focused on mysteries and thrillers from England in the 1930s and, of course, that's, you're into the Agatha Christie era too. I mean, you could, you could find plenty of her books that came out in that time she wrote a book. This is, this was not one of her classics. It's called, I think it's called. N or M, do you even know what I mean? You guys? Are you the professionals? You should know this book.

Carolyn Daughters: 25:06

I do know that book, and I'm not. I cannot confirm that that's the exact title, but I know what the book is. So I'm gonna say that is the book.

Steve Sheinkin: 25:18

Published in 39-40 I think so that's perfect, and I got a lot of good phrases from it. And what's really funny about that, and made me think, Oh, I'm on the right track. There's a character, and it's a seaside mystery, murder mystery, not none of her famous detectives. There's this. There's this guy in it called Colonel Bletchley. And so it's just very, very it just fell off fortuitous. I know this is right. I'm on the right track. And incredibly, when the book came out in 1940 the British Secret Intelligence Service interviewed, they went and questioned Agatha Christie and say, Why did you use that name? Because she has no business to know about Lux de Park. And she didn't she. She just said, Well, I thought it sounded rather unpleasant, so that was a real I just sometimes, you're like, Ah, I'm on the right track here.

Carolyn Daughters: 26:21

Definitely. I've never thought about writing a book with another person before, but there are all these different layers of complexity that are surely part of that process. I read an interview where Ruta you had mentioned that you are a pant sir, which I think is basically fly by the seat of your pants, is, I think, what that means, and that, Steve, you're more potentially, and you'll, you'll tell me if I'm wrong, more structured. And then I also read that, okay, you guys, like, would get this idea about a chapter and just start writing. And there was like, an urgency, or like an immediacy behind what you were doing. How did you work together to write The Bletchley Riddle? Like, I want to, I actually want to, like, be able to picture how the process of how you did this.

Ruta Sepetys: 27:18

Steve was the one who brought up process, and I had worked on my own for so long, and my process was just reading for a year or two about the topic, because I spent five to seven years on each book. And then I go to the site where this happened, and I do field research, and everything's in my head and my heart, and then I just sit down and I pants it to be a panther. And so when Steve asked what my process was, I said, my process. He said for writing. And I literally thought he meant, your ritual, or your routine or and so I said, Well, I light a candle, and we were on a video call like this and his face, if you could, he just said, Know, your process. He started mentioning, three-act structure. I'm literally googling three act structure, I'm on with Steve Sheinkin, right? And it became quickly apparent that my kumbaya camp fire. Let's see where the spirit takes us. Wasn't going to work. And then when I asked him, he told me about his process, which, to be honest, I was mortified and frightened that it was not only so structured, but and for a mystery, almost like a murder investigation, this massive board with cards and note cards and then pictures and all this stuff in front of him from the time period, Steve jump in like, right? I mean, and so we're navigating this, and all I can hear in my is my husband, do not mess this up. So I'm thinking, okay, I think I can do that, Steve.

Steve Sheinkin: 29:12

I think what's really funny about this is that when we talk about the process, we disagree about what we did when we were writing The Bletchley Riddle And I think we did more pantsing, and she thinks we did more plotting, and we really did some of both. But it's true that when I do, especially when I do non fiction or graphic novels, that they really are like scripts. I really do use that, that screenwriting technique of creating storyboards, and yes, at least TV detectives do it. I don't know if real detections actually do the murder board, but it's just a great way of plotting out a story. And I use index cards and move them around like a puzzle until it all makes sense and the plot really flows. And I think that's partly personality. I think you're right to bring up the plotter versus pants or thing, but it's also working in non fiction, where. You can't just invent your way out of a jam or come up with a really great twist in Act Three. You can. You're not allowed to. So you have all the pieces. You can only use the pieces that exist, and then you have to the creativity. Isn't how you put them in order. How do you tell that story? So I just assumed we would use that, that process for fiction. But I was, I don't think we did. I think Ruta thinks we did. We did, since I'm talking now, I can tell you what I think we did, and you can jump back in Ruta, but we a lot of it was done. Some of the planning was done during covid. And we don't live in the same city anyway, but we would just jump on Zoom. We had a really rough idea of the of the overall odd, really, we just focused on the next few beats of the story, like our Jacob's going to do this, and I'll leave it at this really exciting moment. Then Lizzie will have this adventure and leave it here. And if we could come up with two each of those, so four chapters, essentially, that was a great week of work. Then we could both go and write those chapters and exchange them, and then do that again and again, have those meetings every week or two for the months that it took to write a first draft and just to prove that we didn't plan everything. I mean, the central mystery, this isn't a spoiler. It comes up right at the beginning. Lizzy is supposed to go to America, where it's safe, that she escapes her handler and comes to see Jacob, very much uninvited, from his point of view, at Bletchley Park, because she's they don't know what happened to their mother. She's disappeared, and they the kids have been told that she's dead, and Lizzie refuses to believe it, and that's really the central mystery in the story, and we didn't know the answer ourselves until we got to it writing those chapters.

Ruta Sepetys: 31:48

However, maybe we didn't know at the outset, but as Steve said, we had these Zoom sessions that I refer to as the epic plotting zooms for The Bletchley Riddle. They were, Steve, am I exaggerating if I say they were three hours more, three and a half, you know? They were three, four hours. And we would go through and decide every single thing that was going to happen. So I would leave the zoom session with Lizzy. Will do this. She will do this. She was a beat sheet, which was an outline I had never done that I didn't know. But then when we were writing the ending, we got together, and I will never forget, because where I was when we both came up with that idea and of what the ending was going to be. We were throwing things, batting things, back and forth. And we had this process that if one of us loved something and the other didn't, we just come up with a better something that we both loved, which was really, really fun way to do it. But when we started to get on this idea, and then the banter went back and back and forth, back and forth, and we came up with that idea together. It was so super exciting. But Steve, we absolutely plotted out the whole darn thing, like talking about because we had a list of exactly what we would write down, like I almost could hear the character in my head speaking it. So we plotted the whole thing, and I learned that I grew so much from that.

Sarah Harrison: 33:18

That's really perfect, though. That makes total sense, I feel like, and it's really neat that you guys are so opposite in process. As soon as you do something in the other direction, it feels like a lot more than what you're used to, whether it feels a lot more structured or a lot more unstructured.

Ruta Sepetys: 33:38

What's so interesting to me is, though the structure versus unstructured, I think it's opposite. He's more of a structured writer than I am, but then I am so like tidy and structured about everything else about and Steve is much more relaxed and natural and organic about everything. And I'm much more. So it's, it's, it's just been a really great mix. And juxtaposition, which I really think is essential in any kind of art. It creates that friction that makes something interesting.

Sarah Harrison: 34:20

That's cool. I noticed that the so the back of The Bletchley Riddle, I'll say, for our listeners, has a lot of cool additions, questions, brief interviews, photos, that sort of thing. And I noticed how positively you guys spoke about having a collaborator. And I thought, well, that's really neat. I feel like it would be hard to have a collaborator, and I think you solved it in a really interesting way. It sounds like Steve, you primarily wrote Jacob. Ruta, you primarily wrote Lizzy. Is that correct? But they're so seamless. You must have passed back and forth so frequently, because it's just if it's not replaying a scene, it's picking up exactly where it left off.

Steve Sheinkin: 35:01

That's where these sessions came in so handy. We would plot out the next few the next few chapters, scenes, really, and then so we both knew what to write and but we wrote entirely on our own, so we didn't try to collaborate on actual scenes or even sentences. Then we wouldn't be friends anymore if we had done that. It's why every band breaks up after. It's magic for a little while, and then it's not. But I think that was a smart way for us, at least a smart way to do it, to come up with separate voices. And then the challenge of that is that you become each other's first editor. So you have to be a little bit tough about that and hopefully establish early on that you're you can say anything. If you think something's not working, you should definitely say it. If you think, if I think my character doesn't sound like Jacob in Ruta's chapter, then I have to, I have the right to go in and change anything Jacob says I certainly didn't understand or couldn't reproduce Lizzie's voice until, really the end of the writing process, I thought I started to get it. And so just be totally open and not offended by those sorts of critiques.

Carolyn Daughters: 36:15

But also learning. So if you're editing each other, or you're reading each other's drafts, and probably iterating, I would guess, multiple times maybe you guys were super fast, and it was only one or two times, but you're iterating. You're learning about the characters in The Bletchley Riddle from reading each other's chapters, and, like, putting a lot of things to the test. I would imagine, like, Does this feel real for Lizzie? Would Jacob have done this or said it this way? And so I would think it's a really interesting way to not only learn about the other character that's being authored by the other person, but also more potentially, about your own character that you're writing. Is there any truth to what I said.

Ruta Sepetys: 37:01

For sure, not only about our own character that we're writing, but our own, oh, writing the way we naturally lean went in our writing, meaning that I was leaning dark, dark, dark. And Steve, would say, ah, this might be too heavy. And then I was Steve, what was the comment that I was always saying in the margin when I would read your stuff?

Steve Sheinkin: 37:32

It was always the same. I mean, it was always, this is Oh, this is great. There's always something positive first. So this is great. But what is Jacob feeling? They say you should get out of your comfort zone as a writer and this is definitely true, we both got out of our plotter pants or comfort zones. But also for me, I'm doing nonfiction. It's great if I can find out what someone was thinking or feeling at the time, but if I, if I can't I, I can't make it up. So it just wasn't something I've had a lot of practice doing. I could, I could write a really fast plot, and I could explain how Enigma works, hopefully in an interesting way. But what's Jacob feeling while he's doing it? Who cares? But of course, you do care. And so I had to really get better at that.

Ruta Sepetys: 38:25

And I had never written middle grade mysteries before this.

Carolyn Daughters: 38:28

I was gonna ask that. So, my gosh, so middle grade, how do you shape the story for a middle grade audience? And as an adult, I loved the middle grade story. So it's one that speaks beyond the middle grade. But how did you do that? And then I know historical accuracy was really important for both of you. In The Bletchley Riddle, Winston Churchill doesn't march into Bletchley Park saying hello to everyone, for example, like you, you really tried to stay true to what was happening at a point in time. Can you speak? Can maybe Ruta you start and then Steve, you pick up and talk through middle grade and historical accuracy?

Ruta Sepetys: 39:10

Yes, I love middle grade. When I first began dabbling with writing, I was still working in the music business, but my first book that I wrote was a humorous middle grade mystery. I love middle grade. I love that age of a reader. And I think because I reflect on how books impacted me as a middle grade reader, they made me laugh, they made me gasp, so I loved that. Unfortunately, the humorous middle grade that I wrote, I was informed was not funny and was really no good, and it was and it was derivative and so but the agent that I had submitted it to, I had submitted a couple pages of my first novel Between Shades of Gray that I had been dabbling with, and he said, Look, your authentic voice is in Upper YA historical fiction. So, but I feel that maybe I have the heart of a middle grader, and so for me, it, honestly, it came so naturally. I heard Lizzie's voice in listening to all of the recordings of these women who had been teenagers at Bletchley Park, I felt like I understood their pluck, and their courage and for the World War II effort. For me, it actually felt like it came naturally. Yes, I was trying to kill all the characters constantly, and, oh, and now this person's dying, and seems like no one's dying.

Sarah Harrison: 40:42

No one's dying.

Ruta Sepetys: 40:44

No one's like, no you're gonna die and no one's dying. But Steve, talk about you had experience in middle grade, so you were much, I think better experience to go into this project.

Steve Sheinkin: 41:00

I have but, but not in middle grade mysteries. So we're both again. That's another way we both jumped out of our lanes in in a positive way, I would say. But also I just, I'm not so concerned about who The Bletchley Riddle is for. I understand that's important for marketing, but I'll try to write books that have really complicated stories and plots and lots of history mixed with science and all this stuff and as long as you tell the story clearly and with a fast pace, I think it's accessible to that younger age, but not just exclusively for that age. So it was, it was, but it was a new thing for me, and also breaking another rule, as having my narrator is 19, that's not, that's not typical of middle grade at all. And, and we could have this, this goes into your historical accuracy should be a fudge it, and say he's just a 12 year old genius who recruit. And there are plenty of middle grade books like that, like spy school, which are wonderful, but it's just we wanted to be we wanted our world to be very realistic. And you joke about Winston Churchill, but it absolutely happened for us, because He did. He loved Bletchley Park. He thought it was so fascinating. He got blurred. He got the special box every day with the juiciest tidbits, and he loved to read up on it, and he did come to Bletchley. And so we thought that'll be so great. What a great final chapter, if he comes and shakes Jacob's hand and Lizzie's and says Congrats to all of them. But it just wasn't at the right time. It was a year after our story ended, so we had that conversation. And the funny thing is, I, since I'm the nonfiction guy, and I thought, well, this is fiction, let's just make it up. And Ruta, I wish you could see the look, she just shook her head very sternly. Said, Oh, no, we can't rearrange events. Even in a novel, we cannot do that.

Sarah Harrison: 42:59

That's fascinating. You guys are touching on some stuff. That's actually a bit of a question for me. And I think this is my own unfamiliarity. But okay, so middle grades, it sounds like you can't kill all the characters, and your narrator is not usually, what are the rules like? I'm not familiar with all the gradations of upper-young adult middle grades. It sounds like there are certain constraints in these different gradations of books. Tell me how that works.

Ruta Sepetys: 43:32

I think it begins with the age of the reader. So middle grade is probably, there's a certain age, and you can have upper middle grade and younger middle grade. But in case of The Bletchley Riddle, let's say Steve middle grade would be we have fourth graders reading the book. I think children's publishers hope that you'll take great care in writing, if you're writing about war, to write it in a way that that isn't traumatic for young readers, that inspires curiosity for them to discover and uncover. Wait, what was this secret code breaking factory, instead of where I'm coming from, from an upper young adult, if you think about it, high school students, they're reading adult books. They often age out. They're not interested in reading YA anymore. That's beneath them. So I can push a little bit deeper into emotional content, into harrowing World War II content. And I'm just used to that. I'm used to really going for that, that emotion. Because for me as a reader, at that moment when I feel something and I connect to something, all of a sudden a statistic in history, it becomes a human being and I become invested. But that might be a little bit intense for middle grade. Steve, what do you think?

Steve Sheinkin: 45:05

That's true. Middle grade mysteries are so much more about adventure stories and ya, it gets into darker themes, and obviously relationships and sexuality and things that's really a big cut off, not just the language, but the content that you would that you could or couldn't cover in in middle grade. And actually, when we pitched the idea to publishers, and we both primarily work with different ones, so we pitched it to a couple publishers, and people saw it differently. One of them right away said, why perfect? Why? Because I think that Ruta is so well loved in that field. Let's just, let's just continue along the lines of what she's beloved for doing. And we just didn't see the story that way. We saw, we saw it as an adventure story which is, which just feels middle grade. For those, those readers like Ruta said the fifth, sixth, seventh grade, that just that there's a magic to that sweet spot of an audience that wasn't going to expect this, this really sweeping romance in it, though, could we have done the story that way? I get so it's just not how we saw it.

Carolyn Daughters: 46:28

With middle grade, I'm always thinking that a lot of the subject matter and many excellent middle grade mysteries is challenging. It can be set during a war, for example, or there can be death in it, but a lot of it has to do with the range of emotional understanding and response of the characters. I think that has to maybe, in many cases, more closely align with the age of the readers. It's not that you can't have tough subject matter, it's that you can't deal with it as bluntly as you might with an older group. So I felt like The Bletchley Riddle could definitely work for somebody who's in fourth grade, and it worked for me, who is way beyond fourth grade, and I've that is also a challenge with a lot of books, right? Because a lot of books work for a particular demographic, but don't work outside them. And this one, I felt like it really translated well, like I was turning the pages, Sarah, I think you probably felt the same way.

Sarah Harrison: 47:39

That's where I've always struggled. There are books that I like to read, but I don't know whatever made them what grade they were in. If you were talking, for example, about Home Sweet Homicide, which is super clean, but I believe it was written for adults, but it does have kids solving the mysteries.

Carolyn Daughters: 47:59

They're the main characters.

Sarah Harrison: 48:01

So this, again, was really interesting in terms of the London Blitz, World War II. But it was very fun.

Carolyn Daughters: 48:13

Two middle grade books that come to mind for me are the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, right, which we've everybody has read, and which I've been reading aloud to the child of a friend of mine, chapter by chapter. But also, when I was in sixth grade, we read Johnny Tremain. And if you've read Johnny Tremain, I mean, the punches are hard in that book. Like that is a very challenging book. But also I felt that the way that information was presented, that as a sixth grader, I could be challenged by it. Think about it. I still think about it, but not overwhelmed, as if the ideas presented and the emotional response to it were so far beyond what I was capable of. So I think part of it is with great intention, addressing challenging subject matter. And I feel, Ruta, like that's what you and Steve did here in The Bletchley Riddle.

Ruta Sepetys: 49:19

Thank you. That's such a such a lovely compliment. Some authors, they'll say, Wow, so you really like as you're writing. Do you, or do you make certain changes because of the audience and, as Steve said, We honestly just want to tell the best story we can and the story that both of us would have loved to have read when we were young. We loved mystery, we loved adventure. I as a young reader, I did like a touch of romance. I tried to put this friendship between Lizzie and Colin in there, and also friendship. Lizzie and Marion, and then Nigel, the even younger boy. And so I think we were just trying to thread and weave together the best story we possibly could from the history

Sarah Harrison: 50:13

On the subject, like, it's really cool. Each you wrote separate siblings. Steve, you mentioned you have a brother. Ruta did, where did you draw on? Sort of the sibling dynamic aspects of The Bletchley Riddle. How was that come up with?

Ruta Sepetys: 50:30

Oh, I love this question.

Sarah Harrison: 50:31

I have really an in and out tension.

Ruta Sepetys: 50:34

Thank you. I love this question. I'm the youngest of three. I'm super close with my siblings, we have a natural rhythm together when we're together, they can finish my sentences, and vice versa. And then when I met Steve, I learned that he, too is really close with his siblings, and we adopted this kind of sibling dynamic. See, would you say that's fair?

Steve Sheinkin: 51:07

That part of it was really very natural. I have a brother and two sisters on the second of four, and that dynamic of being very close but also capable of driving each other crazy. We drew on that for sure, and have fun with it. I mean the fact that when the story begins again, Lizzie shows up. Jacob wants nothing to do with her at that moment. Yes, he loves her, but he's got so much work to do. He's under so much pressure, and now she's showing up not only that, he lives in this tiny, tiny room at an inn, and she's moving in, apparently, with him. They have one bed. They literally have to take turns using sleeping, using the bed, and that only worked because Bletchley Park was going 24 hours a day, so they work different shifts, but the opportunities for driving each other mad were wonderful for us. And there was it was funny. We were able to create funny scenes, but also very tense scenes between them that that probably felt very natural to our own sibling experiences and then our own becoming of what step brothers, sisters, I don't know. We started to feel that way amongst ourselves.

Ruta Sepetys: 52:32

Definitely, and that even I remember two points. We wrote The Bletchley Riddle and were concerned about the length, and so we decided, well, let's really trim this. Let's really go in and cut a bunch. And because Steve is a plotter and had all of the cards on the murder board, he could envision exactly how we could cut and paste The Bletchley Riddle back together. And I became like, bratty, and I don't understand this. And I was near tears, and he said, like a big brother would let me show you, can I? And I was like, okay. And I was really concerned about it. And then when we went on tour together as well, there were just moments that felt so sibling, like, even my sister said, Oh my gosh, my siblings call him Shanks. They're like, Shanks, he's like, your brother and I was, I know, and I think he has a cold right now, and we need to make sure to get him some vitamin C, like, just naturally going into this kind of rhythm, which is so great, because coming out of the music industry, man, I saw some collaborations that went south, that went that were really bad, and again, make great stories, because the drama was so was so intense. But fortunately, that didn't happen with us. Even though we our agency, because we're represented by the same agency, we had to sign a collaboration agreement. A collaboration contract? Steve, remember that?

Steve Sheinkin: 54:08

Yes, it was. That was that was new to me. And I just didn't even think about it very carefully. I just said, this seems like it should be fine. I was sort of naive about, about that aspect of it, just assuming that, that it would work.

Ruta Sepetys: 54:25

Yeah, we didn't tell you.

Sarah Harrison: 54:26

Had the process conversation, and then you're like, I signed the contract.

Ruta Sepetys: 54:30

Exactly. I didn't learn that Steve had I was that collaboration agreement, you know? He said, Yeah, I didn't really read it. I figured you'd read it. And I said, Oh my gosh, what are you talking about? Yes, it said this, this, and this, and arbitration and all the So, yeah, it was quite a different process. But fortunately, we didn't need it.

Carolyn Daughters: 54:51

That's awesome. I have one more question about The Bletchley Riddle. Sarah may have something else.

Sarah Harrison: 54:57

We're almost at time.

Carolyn Daughters: 54:58

I'll be fast. So fast. So this what part is just a compliment. Steve, I love the shirt. I love the Bletchley Park tee shirt Steve is wearing. Very cool. I can't wait to go. It's, it's been added to my travel list. But just quickly, each of you, if you could just, what do you want? If there's something that readers are going to take away from this story, what do you hope it is just your gut response? Steve, I'll start with you.

Steve Sheinkin: 55:32

My gut responses is curiosity, and that's an answer I would give for other books too, but this one as well, there we put a lot in there. There's mysteries and puzzles and codes. They're detectives, there's spies, there's even buried treasure, everything I love in one book altogether. But I know everyone has different tastes, but if readers come away entertained, great. And then even better, if they come away saying, I wish I knew more about X, whatever it is, something in the book, some spy we mentioned on three sentences, or the buried treasure, mystery that's in there, or these other things, these characters that are real, they'll be only mentioned once or twice. That, to me, is, is the greatest takeaway that they then go and continue the nerdy detective work that that we did to create The Bletchley Riddle.

Ruta Sepetys: 56:28

I have two takeaways. First, do not underestimate the brilliance of young people. I mean, what these young people were capable of and what young people today are capable of, do not underestimate and my second thing is, this mantra that I have, that what determines how history is preserved and recalled, that we might know a lot about Bletchley Park, but there is so much that we don't know, and the dominant narrative might not be exactly correct. And I want readers to find that real, Hidden History and find the truth.

Carolyn Daughters: 57:07

Love that.

Sarah Harrison: 57:09

That's awesome. And just to close, let folks know where they can find you and what you're working on next.

Steve Sheinkin: 57:19

You can find me just my name, Steve Sheinkin, and you could find my website and other sites that way. And I always post things, the stories that I'm that I'm working on, and little tidbits from my research that I love to, things that don't fit into the books I'm working on, but I have a couple of, well, one's nonfiction, one's a graphic novel. The nonfiction book that's coming out in May is called Diamond fever, and it's a, it's a Western True Crime Story, really great paper story from the 1870s built around a diamond mine, and this desperate attempt to control this diamond mine, and it was a huge story in 1872 and has been completely forgotten. I love what Ruta said about keeping alive these lesser known, these lesser known bits of history. It's just a great it's not a dark crime story. It's really quite funny. It's like something you would get on a great podcast and with these really colorful characters. So that'll be the next thing that it comes out for me.

Ruta Sepetys: 58:30

And for me, you can find me@rutasapetis.com I met on Facebook at Ruta Sepetys and on Instagram at rutus, a Petty's author, and I have a book coming out May 26 it's an adult historical mystery. It's called a fortune of sand. And I am from Detroit, and I unearthed this mystery in Detroit. I'll just briefly say the book follows the daughter of an auto Baron who discovers a web of lies within her own family. And it just asks the question, how far will a dynasty go to keep their secrets? And so if you imagine Downton Abbey in Detroit, but with a family of Talented Mr. Ripley's.

Sarah Harrison: 59:19

Wow, that's the description. I love that. Well, you guys have been fantastic, I think also our first double interview. So thank you for coming on together. It's been a lot of fun, fascinating book. We hope people check it out, and there's so many interesting tidbits in there to find.

Carolyn Daughters: 59:41

Thank you so much. This has been so much fun. Thanks for having us.

Steve Sheinkin: 59:46

Thank you guys. This was really fun.

Carolyn Daughters: 59:49

Thanks so much for listening to our episode on The Bletchley Riddle. Please help other mystery lovers find our show with a like, subscribe, share, or rating. It's totally free, and it means the world to us.

Sarah Harrison: 59:59

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Carolyn Daughters: 1:00:23

Thanks for joining us on our journey through the history of mystery. Until next time, stay mysterious.