Lex.Btw.TheLines...
Lex.Btw.TheLines...
Unveiling "The Proposition": Romance Writing, Industry Shifts, and Creative Inspirations with Katie Ashley
The episode features an engaging conversation with New York Times bestselling author Katie Ashley, highlighting her transition from indie author to bestseller, her insight into the evolving landscape of publishing, and her success in the Mafia romance genre. Katie shares personal anecdotes about her writing journey, upcoming projects, and the emotional connections that drive her stories.
• Katie's experience navigating the current publishing landscape
• Discussion of her breakthrough book "The Proposition"
• The inspiration behind her Mafia romance series
• Personal account of balancing teaching and writing
• Insights into her creative process and character development
• A preview of her upcoming releases and events
• Shared laughter and reflections on personal experiences
Make sure to check out Katie Ashley's work and follow her on social media for updates and more engaging conversations about the world of romance literature!
outro
Hey y'all. Hey, you are watching and listening to Licks. Between the Lines, of course I am your host, licks. I'm so excited, especially about our co-host today. But before we get into it and I let her introduce herself, let's go through the trigger warnings. For the most part I try to stay in between the lines, but sometimes, if you have been listening, I tend to cross them just a little. So that is trigger number of trigger warning number one. The second thing is there may or may not be explicit adult language, depending on my emotions, how heightened I get. There may or may not be um sexual content discussed. There may or may not be talk of violence, because we're talking about a mafia romance. Of course there's violence in the book. So take these as your trigger warnings, um, if you decide to continue with us. Thank you and without further ado, I am going to introduce New York Times bestselling author. You know what I'm going to. Let her introduce herself.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am Katie Ashley and I'm a New York Times, usa Today and Amazon top three bestselling romance author.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited for you, like that's a big deal it is.
Speaker 2:You know, like when I hit it in 2012, there was something in our newspaper. It was funny that you had the same odds of hitting the lottery was going on. And so I said you have the same odds that we could hitting the lottery as you did the New York times. And I was like, oh my God, because I still couldn't believe it. And I was lucky, I got to make it a couple of times with different series and all, and it was an honor. Now it's so hard for Indies to do it. So I'm so thankful that I had my moment.
Speaker 2:Um to do it, because now you know you really have to. Um to do it, because now you know you really have to. They don't let Indies on the list unless you know a publisher is distributing them. So, um, I wish, yeah, yeah, and then, awful, like USA Today is pretty much the same way now too. Um, but when I started, you could be an Indie um, cause one week I was on the um, the ebook list, and I was on the trade like the print or whatever, and now they've taken it. Yeah, you know, pissed it, indies, I guess, for all of our independent success and everything.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I know that. So, that's a little piece of information that I did not know. Is there a reason why they?
Speaker 2:I want to say, like New York Times happened like three or four years ago maybe, and then USA Today was like the last holdout that indies could still do. And I want to say it's been in the last two years, maybe Because I remember thinking, oh, thank God I made a list, because now, you know, unless I went traditional, I don't even have the option. So, yeah, that part, that part sucks.
Speaker 1:But this is a recent change. Now I'm going to have to research. Um, it's a recent change.
Speaker 2:Now I'm gonna have to. It is a recent change, yeah, yeah, and it sucks. I know hd carlton made it the other day and she is distributing uh haunting adeline through a publisher, but like she still holds most of her rights, so it is. It's really exciting for another sort of like. She's still sort of indie and she's made it so you.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:I know they be see, we didn't make it five minutes and I'm I'm blowing out the profanity already, so you know, sorry look, at least it wasn't me this time first, because it's me everybody thinks I'm this genteel southern lady and then you know, with my accent, and then I just I don't know, it's always it's always when are you?
Speaker 2:from. I am from about 45 minutes North of Atlanta, georgia, in the mountains. I actually I live on two acres, so it's really cool. We have some horses up the road that don't belong to us, but we get to like go and pet them, and my nine-year-old loves that fact. So we're also still five minutes from a Target and a Chick-fil-A, so it's like I get the best of both worlds. It's like a little rural and then I don't have to feel like I can't get DoorDash or something like that. So yeah, that part helps. You know, it's like I like being a little bit out and then, but I don't want it to be um, you know, yeah, which book was it that got you on the New York Missile and Tom?
Speaker 2:The Proposition is the book that launched me, um, and I had um been in the young adult world. I'd had two agents, two almost book deals, um, and where they they went to the acquisitions meeting and died. And where they went to the acquisitions meeting and died. And so that summer well, that spring is when Fifty Shades had hit you know which. Now it's kind of hilarious that, because you know, we all thought Fifty Shades was like, oh, and now we're like, hey, we challenge each other. It's like, let's write an adult scene. Like you know, we've had kissing and some naughty stuff in our young adult, but nothing like that. So I didn't even have character names for the book. Then I wrote the office baby making scene and then it was like, ok, let's, let's write this. Because another one of my buddies she was a young adult but she put out an adult romance hit the USA Today, was like quitting her job. So I was like, damn, I got to do that too.
Speaker 2:So I started on the proposition and it's an agent had told me you know, you really need to write what you I told her about having to go to my great aunt's lingerie shower single. And she's like, oh, my God, that's hilarious. You should write that I'm like, no, I write to escape, not to write. You know, like having to be single and being senior. You know your great aunt unwrap handcuffs and stuff because there was a gag gift that was given and all this stuff my 70 year old great aunt's lingerie shower. That is in a book actually it called Drop Dead Sexy, but that's another story. But she was like, no, you should write, you know you're.
Speaker 2:And so at that time I was a 30, 32 ish gal and you know, wanting to get married and have a baby and all that. And so that's kind of what the proposition is. The girl's biological clock is clanging and you know her gay best friend says, oh, hey, I'll do it. And then he backs out and the company man Whore so it's an office romance, in case you guys are interested in genre who really wanted to sleep with her at the Christmas party, and she told him no, it's like, hey, I will offer up my DNA if you and I can conceive this child naturally. So that is the naughty proposition. And so they start baby making and it kind of grows into something more.
Speaker 1:Wait, what book is this?
Speaker 2:It's called the Proposition. Yes, and I put it out in October, like October 30th, 2012. And then, within three weeks, I was on the New York Times bestseller list. It was really. It was crazy and it was the most amazing blessing.
Speaker 2:In 2012, I lost my grandmother, who had been like my mother after I lost my mom when I was 23. And she had been my strongest champion in my writing. Every time I got you know an agent or almost deal, she was like I don't know if this is the book, but I know it's going to happen, it's all going to happen for you. And she passed away in May and I that was the only thing that kept me sane was writing, you know this book because I she was like a spouse, I mean, I was at her house every day. She lived five minutes from me, you know, and it was just so sudden.
Speaker 2:And so then that October, literally from May to October, after losing her, you know, I put the book out and I was a teacher and I quit teaching in that January sorry, at the end of the and that by that time, december, I could. In that January sorry at the end of the and that by that time of December, I could, could quit and you know. Then started going to signings and was leading this way, incredible, like amazing, blessing life, all because of this book that I wrote about wanting to have. That was my own desires of wanting to have a baby. My own gay best friend would not be the sperm donor I thought he was going to be, because that's a little bit of my own story later on of having my daughter and um yeah, so unfortunately I did not have an Aiden to have.
Speaker 1:That is my kind of book. I'm surprised.
Speaker 2:I didn't come across it. I mean it's, it's 2012. You got to be extreme OG to have probably read the proposition, but, um, yeah it it. It was such. You know, it's still when people say, well, what's your favorite book of yours, cause I've written almost 30 and I'm like, well, they're like children, you can't pick a favorite. I mean, each one brings something, you know, pulls on experience, does something. But, like I said, that book saved me in so many ways, you know, and changed my life in so many wonderful, amazing ways. And you know, kind of like I'm feeling about poison and wine in this series right now is it pulled me out of a terrible writer's block of people you know, kind of, you know, not reading me for a lot. So now that people are discovering it and enjoying it, it, you know, it feels a little bit like a renaissance, a rebirth.
Speaker 1:Because that's how I discovered you from poison and wine. How long had it been since? Was it like a big gap when you did poison and wine?
Speaker 2:I had a book come out in 2020, in January, right before COVID, and then COVID, you know, was like caca and I did not put out another one until, I think, 2021. It's called the actress and the aristocrat. It went on submission. It almost sold, it didn't, um, and it's for summary. I don't, I don't know what happened. People just did not embrace it and did not really read it.
Speaker 2:Then, to this past December, I put out the, the son of theositions characters who, I'm like, everybody always wants the son. You know, they want the second generation and I don't know if I just, you know, I didn't whore myself out like I did with Poison and Wine, of messaging all the. You know, I thought, okay, I think I have something with Poison and Wine and Mafia is really big. I thought my hook was, you know pretty good, of the fact that Katerina is, um, trying to escape her family, so she joins. She hasn't taken her final vows, but she, she is a nun, you know.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, oh, okay, so if this happens, you know surely? So I kind of put more into it than I did the pursuit. But yeah, there was like a four year period that I only put out two books and in reference, it'll be three books for this one year that I'm doing. So that's kind of the difference. So I don't know what happened. I always think about such a random I make the most random analogies, but I grew up on Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lynn.
Speaker 1:I freaking love this. Oh, my God yes.
Speaker 2:Her husband's like why don't you stay off the road? And she's like no, you don't understand. If you don't, you're not on the road, they forget about you. And that's not that my readers forgot about me, it's just the reading world changed so completely since 2020. I mean, tiktok exploded. People like I my first signing was with Colleen Hoover. We signed at a bar, we didn't even have tables like just the whole trajectory of even her career, like she's always been big in the indie world and then she got, you know, bigger, but then TikTok just took it to the stratosphere.
Speaker 2:And so just seeing the way TikTok changed people, I just it's like I want to go on and hold a sign and be like please make me go viral, I'll be the viral whore. That's fine, pick me, choose me, love me. But yeah, it just changed so much and I was just going through such an emotional, you know, kind of tumult with having such trouble writing and I have a rheumatoid TMI if you're a man listening or having a hysterectomy. But something in my brain chemistry kind of changed too. I feel like I have adult ADHD Squirrel. See, I'll do that. It's like how my brain works now is so very different and so I just feel like that.
Speaker 2:You know, it was just such a hard time. And then to get this series idea to come really out of nowhere, rereading my favorite series Black Dagger, brotherhood Z is my favorite, if anybody loves that series and I was rereading his book and Quinn and Isla's story just came to me so strong but I was like, oh no, that needs to be the second book. He's not the leader, he's the enforcer. I got to. And so then that's how that book, you know, came to me and it was just like, oh, I felt like it was such a.
Speaker 1:And I was wondering who you were going to write after Callum. I was like, first of all I wanted to ask how did Poison and Wine come about? Like how did you get a nun? Even though she went a nun and she's from like the mafia family. But I was like how the heck did she get from the mafia family to run from her dad to a nunnery? And then this Irish, like where did this come from?
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, I am part Irish, so I love all things Irish and so I actually. When I thought this would make a good mafia book, I started reading a lot of mafia. Shout out to Cora Riley. I love her books. They're actually Italian, they're not Irish, but I loved her series. In fact I'm signing with her at authors in the bluegrass and I have nerded out and like ordered way too many books on her pre-order form. She's going to be like Katie pre-order form. She's going to be like Katie Ashley's, ordering what the heck Totally loved her Love Silent Vowels by Jules Ramseur Neva Altage, I think, is her name. I don't know how to do this.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to pronounce her name, but I freaking love Jules.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, love her books, love her books. I've done rereads on Cora's book. I've done rereads on hers. So once I started getting into the I was like, okay, I'm going to. You know, you're always supposed to read what you're going to write about.
Speaker 2:So I started reading some mafia and there was one book I want to say where a priest was really some kind of and I was like, oh, I should do it where, you know, the girl is really forbidden. You know she's not supposed to be. Either she's been hidden away in convent or she's chosen to live in a convent. And the Sound of Music is my favorite movie too. So it's kind of like bringing all that in. I was like, oh, what if there's a girl who tries to escape? She knows her father that she can't. There is no escape because even if she changes her name, they'll drag her back and everything. But what if he fears God enough that she can get away with being a nun and he won't screw that up because he does fear, you know, eternal damnation or whatever? So that's kind of where that part of it came.
Speaker 2:But, like I said, in Z's book, in Black Dagger Brotherhood, he's a scarred hero. He doesn't like to be um, and then bella is like his angel and he wants to save her and um, through her he just I mean, it's just a beautiful book. I would recommend it. I won't spoil too much. But, um, no, bella is not a stripper, that came. Isla is a stripper, just on her own, like that. That came from them owning the club and then and all of that.
Speaker 2:But, um, their idea really came first. But I knew that shouldn't be the first book in the series. I was like, okay, he's going to be the enforcer, where he has to do the bad, a lot of the bad things, and he's seen a lot of darkness, but she's going to be his light. We've got to get the leader in there. So that's kind of where callum's book came in, is like, okay, he's going to be the leader and you know we're, we're going to combine my love of irish people along and mafia along with italian mafia. So that's kind of where where that came up.
Speaker 1:Yeah I wanted to ask are we going to get a chance to see them go back to, like the motherland, or are we going to see them like take it back, because I know a lot of people say that there's a lot of like irish or italian and it's based in like the states and stuff. Are you gonna get a chance to see them actually like one of them to move back, or or? You know the story. I'm really looking for the sister yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I know you haven't had a chance to read dust to dust yet. So there is toward the end of the book, where quinn goes back to belfast. He doesn't want to be in boston anymore because of whatever you know, he can't the the obstacles with isla or whatever. So he is in he. He makes a stopover to see her in dublin, though, and there's a really cool scene that just came out of nowhere to where she really gets, where mave is in it, and she gets to be very kick-ass. And originally, like I I said in the back of the poison in wine, I did not mean for mave and and rave to be together. It was something where I wanted him to be pissed off at the reception. So the brother was going to ask to dance with her and it was just going to be a nice moment, and then it was just like no, these two are are supposed. There's something supposed to be with them, because the chemistry was chemistry.
Speaker 2:Chemistry was chemistry. You'll hear authors say the characters do what they want to and it sounds hokey. I'm way serious. It really does do that, because that wasn't even really supposed to happen. I mean, she was always such a driving force I was going to have it, because mafia men are such assholes that that that Callum and Quinn and Dara or dare, um, we're going to be a family and then their dad's side piece chicks family was Callum and Maeve and and Eamon. And then I was like I knew her, her, what happens to her? Trigger warning her sexual assault is so important to all the brothers? I was like, no, they, what happens to her trigger warning her sexual assault is so important to all the brothers? I was like no, they, they need to be a full, they need it, doesn't need to be a side piece, because mafia men are like that. They just they. You know a lot of them and so they have you know. Yeah, so I nixed that they are not faithful.
Speaker 2:No, but my men are my men are very faithful and all that. But, um, so, yeah, it became where they are this all, one family and everything. And then now I've lost where I was going with all that. Before I said what I did about the family part. See, adhd, I swear it's, it's like as an adult I have it so much. Uh, you know, I feel for my former students because I never understood it and, god almighty, now I do. But, yeah, um, oh, but going back to the motherland, yeah, he is, excuse me, she's in dublin in school. You'll see her and quinn in dublin and then in mave's book. Definitely there will be a time where they they're in dublin and then maybe belfast, but um, is there a timeline for mave's book?
Speaker 2:because when I tell you I'm like oh, it's november, it's her and ray were together dancing at the reception, I was like I need this, no it's november, like that was, her and Ray were together dancing at the reception. I was like I need this. No, it's November. Like that was not supposed to happen. I originally had my agent pitch this series because I'm like, okay, maybe I need another pub deal, I need something to feel like I'm back amongst the writing world. And so it went out, actually because I only had written three chapters and so in the traditional world a lot of times you can sell on three chapters and sometimes you can't. So I, they, they tried it with just my original publisher, penguin, and they were like, no, we're not really sold on Mafia. And so it came back to me and my agent was like, if you'll finish it, we'll, you know, we'll go out with it again, we'll, we'll sub it to, you know, all the publishers, not just my, my old editor or whatever. And I was like, yeah, I really need to get a book out. So I'm gonna continue, I'm gonna go ahead and write it. And now I forgot, oh, the reason with the books. Yes, so when it went on, god, so they're gonna be like that lady, she's on something.
Speaker 2:But, um, when it first went out, I had to out, you have to outline the next two books or tell them what it's going to be about. So Quinn's book was always number two and Dare's book was supposed to be number three Like that was the way it was supposed to be. And then everybody was just like, oh my God, is Rafe and Maeve going to get a book? And it was so wonderful too. You want people to embrace your book and you want them to care enough about your characters. I mean, it would really suck if people were like I just don't give a shit if they get a book, you know, or I don't care which one. But everybody was so much that I put the author's note in the end because I got feedback. And they're like, oh, we really want to read this book.
Speaker 2:Well, I talked to my beta partner. She's been with me since March of 2013. So she's read everything and I torture her all the time with things. And she was like I really think you need to do Rafe's book next. And I'm like, yeah, but if I did DARE's, then I'm making them wait and I'm dragging them along. She's like, nah, I would, I would go ahead and do it. And then you know, because in a way and the blurb will come out DARE's book is he's a womanizer, he does not want to get married, he doesn't want to be in an arranged marriage, and so it's going to out that, um, it might be a secret baby one or a secret child one oh, my mom, a secret baby, yeah yeah so, and then she has to.
Speaker 2:She did not want any part of the mafia world with him and so she left. And so now she's come back to help because she's got a kooky, crazy, stalkery boyfriend and he's like, okay, fine, but you're gonna have to be with me.
Speaker 1:And then he's angry because she had the baby already, or like is the baby a couple years?
Speaker 2:no, no, it's going to be there. Yes, it's there, I know. So that will be. Let's see that one comes out in November, that will be in February. Yeah, dara's book will be February, but Rafe and Maeve's to cut a long story short is November, and that's how you know. It ended up happening this November. Right, because once I saw that's another thing too when I talk about the Loretta Lynn thing that I lost myself on a minute ago.
Speaker 2:But if you don't stay prevalent in this world, that's why so many authors are releasing every month, every two months, every three months people do forget about you because they're just so used to. It's not like back in the day when authors would you know, stephen King would put out a book a year. Danielle still would put out a book. You have to stay so relevant. So, like Loretta, I got to hit the tour bus and start putting out, you know, several books. And in between, there somewhere, I really do want to get the why Choose Hockey. I have 10,000 words of it. It's gotten done. I know exactly what's going to happen. And my agent was like, ok, if you finish this, we'll go out with it too. And so I'm just kind of debating because I don't, you know, with traditional publishing they could accept this in March, but it will come out for another year or two and by then people could be tired of of why choose? I don't know, I mean it's.
Speaker 2:I guess, it's been a pretty strong for the last two years. Um and hockey romance, that's the thing. That's, that's the part of it. So she had. Actually my agent had checked in with me the other day and I was like, well, you see, I got these two mafia books done, cause I need to get them out. I was like, but I swear I think I'll have it to you by Christmas. Publishing kind of shuts down during the Christmas holidays and so it wouldn't really go out on submission until January. But I'll have to see if I get it done. That might be something I want to put out myself. But don't tell Jane that is Jane Distel. She's amazing, she's at a Distel in Godrich.
Speaker 2:She's also Colleen's Hooper's agent, so I can sound cool saying that we have the same agent but, that's how I get to feel relevant with everybody, cause they're like I know, oh my God, do you know Colleen Hoover? I'm like, yeah, I've even texted with her before and they're like, oh, it's like like at the pool, like we, we belong to a pool. And so the little lifeguard there had the book and I was like, oh, you know, I know where I'm going to. And that was the year I went. I signed another one at Book Bonanza and I was like I'm going to be signing with her. Oh my God, I'm like I know. It's like I get to be secondhand cool just from you know Colleen's stuff. So, yeah, did you go to her premiere? I did not go to the premiere, I was supposed to sign at Book Bonanza this year. This is what. This is. What is the Katie Ashley? Look, so I had signed the very first year. I think I've signed there three times.
Speaker 2:It's an amazing event. I mean you know everything goes to charity, everything is so well run, but you know Colleen's whole family's there, like the last year I was there, I got to hug her. I was in the elevator with her mom and so I was like, oh my God, let me hug you. Um, so I always love signing there. Well, this, I was like, okay, I'm going to take this year off, because we just thought it was going to keep on going, you know. So I was like I'll do 2024 instead of this year. So then we hear they come out and say okay, so last year was the last book bonanza, we're not doing it anymore. I'm like mother trucker, like if I'd known that I would have gone. And then what do they do? They pile everybody up on buses and take them to go see the damn movie. And I didn't even get to do that.
Speaker 2:Well, dang, yeah, jenna Bush was there the year I was there. So I was telling my bestie who's my daughter's godmother she went with us last summer because I'm paranoid and my daughter travels with us, like I don't like to leave her behind. So she was going to. So Christy kept her while I was doing all my stuff. So she was like, oh my God, jenna, you know today's show is so exciting. So I called her. I was like Christy, I hate to tell you this, but yeah, blake Lively was there and took everybody to the movies. You're like that's my luck. I always that always happens to me Like I'll choose to do stuff, but it was an amazing experience when I got to do it and you know, I was so grateful, like I said, colleen and I I mean she was already out when I started. She had started publishing in 2011.
Speaker 2:But I remember reading Slammed and you know, loving it and seeing her success and Abby Glines and a couple of other independent authors, because back then, self-publishing was like you had the scarlet letter. You did not want to self-publish. It was the last resort. The last resort and at that time I had an agent and I wanted to be in bookstores and things because I had this Southern literary Christian fiction which is, you're going to say, really did you, katie? I've read you. Are you sure you had one like that?
Speaker 1:I was going to say you had a Christian book.
Speaker 2:I had a Christian sort of Christian fiction, but it was funny because it was always I'm always the Goldilocks. It was too Christian for that, the Goldilocks, it was too Christian for and this was my young adult too it was too Christian for the Christian for the secular publishers and too religious for the other, or whatever, or not Christian enough. Anyway, it's basically like a tequila. It was like a tequila mockingbird, fried green tomatoes. Southern depression era novel.
Speaker 1:Hold on when I told you, I wrote everything. Look, we're going to take a quick commercial break and as soon as we get back from this commercial break, I want to talk about this Christian fiction, because what, coming from the mafia queen, I know we're going to be right back. Y'all Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3:It's about tradition, value and community. We're Creed and Creed and we're proud to call Northeast Louisiana home. Katherine and I raised our family here, we worship here and we serve here. It's an honor to support the community that has given us so much Tradition, value and community. That's Creed and Creed. If you've been injured in an accident, call Creed and Creed today, proudly serving this great community for over 25 years.
Speaker 1:Okay, guys, so we are back and I'm ready to dive into this Christian fiction.
Speaker 2:I know it's so shocking, but if you look at all my books, there's faith in all of them. I am actually Baptist. There's a lot of Catholicism in, obviously, in Poison and Wine and Dust to Dust, because they're Irish Catholics. The same in the Proposition he's an Irish Catholic and there's usually some reference.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be preachy, I'm not that. I mean I am a naughty Christian, if I'm anything, you know. But because I drink, I curse, you know all that kind of stuff. I write books with no, no words, as my nine year old says. But, um, this book was, it's called the road to Damascus. It was kind of like, um, an ode to fried green tomatoes and kill mockingbird, the green mile. Uh, stephen King's book, it was set in the depression. Um, it was all in a serious note. Because it's set in the depression, it was all in a serious note. I mean I grew up where race was an issue and I wanted to write somewhere where there could be a utopia where we all got along. You know, we're not got along, but everybody was accepted as they. They are, and that what heaven really is, where there is no, no color, and you know all of that. It's just, you know. So you know I wrote this and I wanted it to be. You know, a nice little. You know have symbolism and literary devices like that.
Speaker 1:I taught so was there like interracial dating in there too.
Speaker 2:There, wasn't there. It's basically, you know it's the tried and true. There's a man who's accused of crime he didn't commit, and you know it's the tried and true. There's a man who's accused of crime he didn't commit and you know it's this girl who lived from the mountains and a rich cotton baron and they get together and it's her trying to teach him, you know, the value of life and meeting this man along the way, who's been through such terrible things because of this cotton baron's family, because of this Cotton Barren's family. And you know, it was just, it's a romance, that's what that was so hard, it was so hard to sell, because it's a romance but it's also like literary fiction and it was just, you know. But it was also, like I told you on the break, I mean when you were like Christian fiction.
Speaker 1:But where does the whorehouse take place?
Speaker 2:Chapter two Well, jackson is a wayward man. He's at the whorehouse, he has to meet Sarah on the road to Damascus, you know. So, like I said it was, I'm still very, you know, I'm proud of it because it was, it was the first thing I ever wrote. I was nearing 30 and I was like you've always wanted to write a book. I was been a teacher I wasn't coaching cheerleading that year and I was like the summer, by God, you're sitting down and you're going to write a book. And so I started and it was. I still look back. There was some TikTok the other day. That was like what are your most amazing writing experiences? And just thinking, I mean, I would stay up all night writing. And it was like I was in that community, that that beautiful place where everybody, you know, could love each other and it would be, you know. And it was an amazing summer and nobody wanted to publish it. So I did.
Speaker 2:When I this, the whole point of this, going back again, squirrel, was the whole self-publishing thing. So I had an agent at the time and I was like, look, I, you know my late grandmother, she wants me to. She wasn't dead then, sorry. She, my grandmother, was like wanting me to put it out Cause she was just the first time she read it. She's like honey, this is where I get my vices from. She while we were sitting on her back porch while she's smoking you know, front, front seat Baptist woman and she's out there smoking. She's like you're going to be on Oprah and Larry King. This is amazing, like her belief in me was just so. You know, so many people go through where their family doesn't support their writing and she was just telling everybody, I mean. And she's like I want you to put this book out if you can't sell it At least.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read your books. Grandma had read the books. Who did your grandmother read the books?
Speaker 2:Grandma read the book. But, ok, so he wakes up in a whorehouse. Now when they get married and they have some smacks, it's all closed door, because I remember her saying because my grandmother was this little bitty lady but everybody called her big mama and I was like what do you think the church is going to think, you know, if I put out this book and it has, you know, he's at a whorehouse and he's drinking and he's you know. They're like, well, that just happens. And I'm like, okay, it just happens Whatever. But, like I said, her belief in me was just so amazing and so I ended once again, I'm trying to reel it in the whole reason and so I self-published it.
Speaker 2:But my agent was like you cannot put this book out under your name because you are on submission right now and if they go and look at these sales and see that you aren't selling much, it's going to hurt your chances. So when I say how self publishing was the dirty word in 2011, it really was. So Abby and and and Colleen had had been, they'd put out their books and I saw, hey, it's not the dirty word, they're, you know, doing pretty. They're decent, you know. So that's why we decided you know, we're our group of friends were like we're going to write this adult book. It was I don't know if you've read Emily Snow, michelle Valentine and Kelly Main I'm thinking of I'm having to do their pen names because they're different names when we were in the young adult community. But we all got together, you know, we were our beta readers and we did this.
Speaker 2:We decided to write the book, I decided to write the proposition. So when you read the series and you read the office baby making scene, that was the first thing I ever wrote. They didn't even have names. It was basically to see if I could write a full on scene. So that was that. Yeah, that was the first. And I told my grandmother about it and that that a couple of weeks before she passed away, I was like big mama, I'm writing this book and it, it, it doesn't have closed door scenes. And she was like, oh, you know, if you're Southern, you know that they, they, god, or that term. And I was like I know.
Speaker 2:And she was like, well, okay, and you know, I know she was definitely looking down, or has been and has enjoyed my career as wild and yes, even you know the craziness of um, and so whenever someone her age or, like my mother, my late mother's age, is like, oh, I read your books, I'm like I usually tell them if you want to read my books, read the road to damascus, that's my safe out because I'm like it might have slight cussing, um, you know. And then it does have. I mean, it's a darker book, there's lynching and there's you, there's all kinds of horrible things, because the South's history is pretty horrible and it is. And so, yes, but you know, like I said to you, you know, I, I it's still one that I'm proud of.
Speaker 2:And then I started writing Young Adult because I wrote it. And then I, I saw I read Twilight, I became under the Twilight, whatever that was curse, uh, you know. And so that's when I started writing young adult and I met a lot of great people in the young adult world and had my first um agent. And then my second age, like I, when I wrote my, my motorcycle series. I get to say that I already have some separate, six degrees of separation. My agent that I had at the time for young adult, lee Feldman she was the one who read and represented Cold Mountain. Charlie Hunnam was the weird albino guy in Cold Mountain.
Speaker 1:I was like how did you go about getting your agent?
Speaker 2:Uh, back in the day it was that you emailed them, um, your like a query letter that said that was basically a summary of your book and like the couple of pages. So the first book I queried was road to Damascus. That did not go very well. The first one, the young adult, was the guardians, which was like a twilight kind of thing, but it was angels. In high school, see, I was, I was still on the semi religious path, still with that. And then I lost my first student, um and I, in February, and I started. He was a male student and, um, I started thinking about how men grieve, along with my own grief. We lost two friends like six months apart in high school to car accidents, and so I wrote this book called Don't Hate the Player. That's about this young guy who's been friends since kindergarten with this basically douchebag guy who's always the bully kind of guy, the most popular guy, but he accidentally, um, blows himself up on a train.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know if you've ever seen, uh, drop dead gorgeous, how that's kind of a um, oh gosh, denise richards a lifetime oh well, well, denise Richards, and it's kind of like a spoof of like beauty pageants, but it's also it's like I guess when I wrote Don't Hate the Player, it was kind of like a Heather's thing where there's humor but it's dark and it's I was kind of going for a dark humor vibe.
Speaker 2:So Jake is like the school man whore and everybody dated him and slept with him, and so when Noah is helping his dad go through his room they come across a diamond ring, and so there was some unknown girl that Jake was in love with and planned to propose to, and he was also changing, he was making his. You know, he was doing better, he was volunteering, he was doing all these different things to be a better person than Noah was kind of like what is going on with him. And so it's kind of the story of Noah Grieving his best friend's loss Even though at times he was a real douche bag to him and then also, you know, coming the girl, trying to figure out who the girl is and then hoping it's not the girl he's falling in love with too.
Speaker 1:Wasn't the girl he was falling in love with too.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was Jake's tutor. So, yeah, the good girl, the good, whose dad's the pastor, pastor Dan, so yeah, so, as you guys can see, I have a, you know, a book collection that's almost as ADHD as I'm talking right now, but when I say I've, I've written everything, yeah. And then the young adults, you know. But then the proposition series happened, and then I did music of the heart. Then the Proposition series happened and then I did Music of the Heart, which is a rock star series. I ended up Penguin, who turned me down on Don't Hate the Player when it went run out on submission, with Lee Feldman, who did Cold Mountain. They were the ones that ended up picking up my motorcycle series, vicious Cycle.
Speaker 2:All Roads Lead Back to Charlie Hunnam again. And I guess Fifty Shades, you know is, has such a part in my career because I would have never written an adult novel had it been probably, I don't know for the big, huge swarm that was the Fifty Shades craziness, oh, I know. And then Charlie, you know, was supposed to play Christian. So I started watching Sons of Anarchy because I wanted to see who this, even though I really wasn't really a fan of Vicky Shades, but I started watching it because I'm like he's going to be Christian Grey.
Speaker 2:And everybody was like, eh, and then damn it if I didn't come up with a motorcycle series idea. And that's where Vicious Cycle, redemption Road and Last Mile comes in. You know it's authors get the. You know, like I said, the ideas come from the strangest places sometimes. And so I did that series. And when I decided to do the Mafia I was like, oh Katie, I don't know if you can really do Dark. And I'm like dumbass. You wrote a motorcycle series. You know the kid watches her mother get her throat slit. In the preface, the prolog trigger warning.
Speaker 1:Sorry, violence, I'm just mad that I have not had the chance to come across and read these dang on books. Like everything I'm, trying to like take notes. I bet people are going to be like what the hell is she doing?
Speaker 2:I'm putting this shit in my phone. Yeah, because I'm just, you know, kind of hitting all of them and like when I say, and no, you're not coming, you can say hello real quick and then go. This is my child who has snuck downstairs. Fix your top. This is Olivia. Hi, olivia, hello, mommy's talking about her books. We got a late start so you got to go back upstairs. I love you.
Speaker 1:We're almost done. I'm gonna wrap it up with mom. She kind of looked for you like where you at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because my office is actually downstairs in our basement and so well, it's finished, thankfully, and so I could hear the steps, just like you heard before, and I was like, oh crap, she's coming for me.
Speaker 1:Are you a full time author? Are you working somewhere?
Speaker 2:I had been full time for eight years and then I, when I went through the dip, um of not putting anything out, I went back to teaching. Yeah, I'm actually high school special ed now, so, but I do, I do teach English. Yes, but it's so funny because, well, for two years I was a parent, my daughter's school, and then I was like, okay, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm doing everything that I did as a teacher, I'm going to go back full because I'm single, um, if I had a man, um, maybe I could be doing this full time. But single people's health insurance when you have autoimmune diseases really sucks. So that was really part of why, you know, I went back as, like, I gotta get some decent health insurance because I'm going to, you know, be bankrupted from um, cause I do um infusions twice a year that are, I want to say, eight or 10,000 a pop. So I had, yeah, rituxan, anybody else on Rituxan out there? Um, so I, I, yeah between that part, but I, I'm thankfully very um. Besides, like, the fatigue, the mind fatigue, I'm, I'm fine physically, thank goodness. I've been very blessed. There's a lot of people I got diagnosed at 36. Um, and actually I mentioned rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker 2:Isla's mom passes away from it in dust to dust and she talks well, actually she doesn't sorry there's something else that happens, but she has it, um. But she talks about how, um, you know her, her mom, she would see her mom in so much pain, and that's kind of the reason why their financial situation is the way. When she loses her parents is because her mom had been like an insurance adjuster. She had to quit her job, she couldn't get on disability and they ate into their savings. So that's why she's going to have to go be stripping to pay for her college, her grad school. So that's how she ends up in Gwen's club.
Speaker 1:What's the baby brother name? Kellen? Are we gonna see Kellen? You said Dare was the one that's gonna. When is when are we gonna get Kellen's story?
Speaker 2:Kellen will be after Dare's story and he is in Dust to Dust a lot there. He's having trouble with what happened and what he had to see, and so he kind of seeks out Isla. She first thinks he's there to try to get her to do more than she wants to and he's like no, I just want to pay to talk to you. I can't talk to anybody else, I'm a mafia man, you know. I can't see a therapist and when you, yes, and so you know she's lost her parents, um, in a car accident. Um, her dad had a widow make her heart attack and her mom unbuckled to try to help get the car, and so that's how she ends up dying. She would have made it like, because isla was in the car with them too, but she, um, you know, survived and mom would have shannon buckled her seatbelt, but that's, that's something within. But yeah, kellen is he always. He just came out on the page just so I loved his name comes from, uh, another OG goddess, uh, sc Stevens. She wrote uh, kellen Kyle, um, and I have always loved Kellen. He is one of my favorite book boyfriends.
Speaker 2:I think I read him in 2011, 2012 too, and so it just happens that Kellen is a good Irish name too, cause at first my beta reader was like Callum, kellum, what you know, callum and Kellan. This is getting confusing. I'm like, no, they're, they're at opposite ends of the spectrum, it's going to be okay. And finding Irish names too, um, that you don't have to. Um, I've read a lot of them that I have to go to the YouTube and figure out how to say them. Some of the Italian ones are like that too Definitely Russian. You have to figure out. They don't have a pronunciation guide.
Speaker 1:You got to figure out how to say them If you've read any of Serena Ackroyd I had before I went and looked at the, because sometimes I have a tendency to just flip through and get to the actual book, like the first chapter one, and so I have been pronouncing the people name wrong this whole time.
Speaker 2:I forget which one. I was reading Lillian Harris and she had, oh gosh, the girl's name is Eru, I believe Eru, and it's like E-R-I-U or Uru, and then the sister's name is Isolta, or Isolt, because there's an English, there's a Welsh in there too, and so when I went to the thing, I was like, oh God, and like Russian names, like Kirill is really Kirill, and like all these. I'm like damn it, I'm just been massacring these names. So I think, when I put and some people I know I've heard a review and someone was like Isla, and I'm like, oh no, it's Isla, you know. It's almost like I need to put her name in there too. That that's how you say you know Isla.
Speaker 2:But in some of the I'm trying to think if it was some of the Italian, I mean, I've had to Google them all. There's a YouTube channel If you need them. It's called how to pronounce names, and they've got this guy that gets on there and tells you how to say it, because I have been really even the little online things that tells you how to pronounce man. That doesn't help me. I have to go and actually have to hear it.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely going to have to go and listen to the YouTube. That's why I like to listen to some of the audio books and stuff, so I can actually hear how the names are pronounced and even some of the language, how sometimes there's a little language in their native language and stuff. I'd be butchering.
Speaker 2:I, I was lucky. I, by a fluke, I ended up with a proofreader who was from um, who was irish, and so I had been sailing saying gaelic. When they say like, instead of saying oh, he said this to me in irish. I said gaelic and she was like no, we say irish. I'm like oh, okay, so um. Thankfully she didn't say my slang or my my was too crazy and I was like oh good, or like you know, I always laugh and you can feel this being in Louisiana, like when you see movies of people in the South and they're always sweating profusely and like I love a time to kill. But Matthew McConaughey is like soaked through and I'm like the South, we're not like this, you know.
Speaker 1:It's not. And then what really be getting me about the movies and stuff be the accents. I'm like, yes, nobody talks like that now my grandmother.
Speaker 2:That generation was kind of a throw-off like the savannah, where you don't pronounce your oz, darling, because I told you I did a. Um, uh, I wrote in penny reed's world, um, in the green valley. She was a librarian, it was set in tennessee and at book bonanza Chris Brinkley heard me read a scene. He's like you know what you should totally do the audio book for this. And I'm like you know I was a theater nerd, yeah, but no, I thought he was just being nice.
Speaker 2:And I got back home he was like no, I'm serious, go find a studio and do it the fake accent sometimes to make her aunt sound different than just her. And then it was really hard, you know, like lowering your voice to be the man I mean it was. It was really wild. But it was also another one of my top things of getting to do was to voice your own book. And obviously I couldn't do these books because I'm too Southern, I can't. I can't do the Irish. I code switch a lot. If I hear people talk a certain way, I'll do that yeah.
Speaker 1:Honey and I'm too country to be doing holiday too. For the most part people be like where you from South Louisiana, and then they're like we're not close to.
Speaker 2:I never think I have an accent and then people are like, oh no, you have an accent I. Then people are like, oh no, you, you have an accent. I'm like, okay, whatever. Um, you know, and and it's also who I'm with, if I'm trying to be with like people who speak very, you know, but if I'm with my family, some of the you know I'll, I'll start letting that draw really come out and be real country, you know, because that's where I'm from, because I'm real country.
Speaker 2:I mean, like I said, we got mountain people in my family and I was laughing the other day because I was like it's kind of absurd how many deliverance references I have made in some of my books to the movie Deliverance and and and Hillbillies and things like that. But um, and I always laugh too because this one I was actually doing something with this before I came on.
Speaker 1:Wait, the new movie Deliverance.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, the old movie Deliverance with like Burt Reynolds and it's like about Hillbillies who who kidnap and kind of do something to these two guys and it's, yeah, it's about these really backwoods scary people. But this book for some reason drop dead sexy. I'm trying to get in there has sold rights in Germany, foreign rights in Germany and Israel. This book is a Southern sex comedy mystery about a victim who dies, a very mild mannered pharmacistist who dies, who has defalia, which is two penises I was gonna say why does that sound so dirty?
Speaker 1:what is this so?
Speaker 2:he has this, and so I'm thinking how are these people in germany and israel reading, how do you even translate snake handling churches? Um, I'm trying to think what else is in there that they have that is so a nudist colony, like? I'm like, what are these people thinking of the south and other countries when they read this book that I mean it was, it was so fun to write and I had a hilarious time doing it, but it it's. I always ask my agent. I like we're not selling my other like this is the one that they won.
Speaker 2:The Southern sex comedy, where the girl has been in a sex drought because her first attempt at sex ended with the guy with a latex allergy and his thing blowing almost blowing up the second one. The guy came and went on top of her and so she's been in this drought. And so she finally decides when she goes to her mother's lingerie shower. Remember how I said? I wrote that in a book about my great aunt's lingerie shower. Yes, she goes to her mother's laundry and she's like I can't do this anymore. I'm single and it's not gonna happen. So she hooks up with this guy who's a GBI agent, and then she's a coroner and a mortician and has to investigate this murder mystery, but I still sit here going. There's someone in Germany right now reading about backwoods, nudist colonies, the Dixie Mafia I do mention that in there too, and yeah, it's just craziness. So if you're wondering if you should read my books, you should, because there is something for everyone out there. I have some sports.
Speaker 1:You have so much Right, literally yes.
Speaker 2:Uh huh, I mean, it's not just that I've been that for a while. I was prolific because I did write full time Eight years, was so blessed to get to, you know, go to so many signings here in the US. My daughter had a passport at two. She went to rare Berlin with me at two years old. She's been to Italy, she's been to pair.
Speaker 2:I'm like mommy didn't leave the country till she was 21 on a cruise ship and that was just to go like the Bahamas on like a three day. And I'm like you're over here with a passport and spoiled little bougie thing, we haven't flown since before COVID because that's when everything was kind of dying. Well, one, we didn't have signings for like two or three years and then everything you know was kind of crazy. And so we're going to California in two weeks during the break and she was like I just can't believe I haven't flown since 2009. I'm like, shut up. Mommy didn't even fly till I was 19. You, little bougie girl, having to have you, mommy didn't even fly until I was 19. You, little bougie girl, you a Stanley and all this stuff Are yours. That way, do yours care about the name? She's nine and started caring about the name brand things. I thought I had about two more years, but she came home before school started and said I need Nikes to start school in.
Speaker 1:I'm like shit, Mines are four and eight.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you're about to get in that with the eight-year-old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not the eight, it's the four-year-old, it's both of them. Oh, four likes to be bougie. Oh, they like to be bougie, like food and like going places, like not so much as the well, whoever Lulu lemon is there on saloon, lemon I think they have to have a little lemon, everything, but it's the eating out and alright, we'll be like oh, you want to go to McDonald's, I don't want to go to McDonald's, I want Ronan hibachi. Do you have money?
Speaker 2:I'm like do you know how much hibachi is? I mean dang, I want sushi. I won't see food. I'm like Liv, do you know how much hibachi?
Speaker 1:is. I mean dang. I want sushi, I want seafood. I'm like I wasn't even eating sushi at three and four years old. No, she can tell you what kind of sushi roll she wants.
Speaker 2:At four. Oh my God, I love it. A lot of times it is just the two of us, so it is easy to pick up, you know stuff. But I kept telling her. I was like we need to start eating at home. We've got to be better. We've got to um. You know, do I'm about to uh, get back on full time? Um, some of glue tide, I don't mind saying. Hopefully, when you see me again, readers, I will be slightly um, because I'm pre-diabetic so I gotta do it for medical reasons too. But I don't care. Y'all can be like she's cheating, she's doing the jab, but I'm like I don't care, I'm doing it. It's funny because I'm not going to. I won't name things, but I see so many authors who have done it, and there's been one that has come out and said, hey, I'm doing it. There's so many that haven't. I'm your back. I'm going to be like I am on it, I'm doing it, okay.
Speaker 1:I'm letting y'all know up front, so you bitches don't talk about me behind my back, cause I'm telling y'all that I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:You start seeing me all svelte and everything and you're like that bitch is on Osepik. I'll be like, no, it's Mondoro diabetic and I have health shit I have to take it for, but because I had been on it before. And then you get out and my daughter's so funny. She's like, oh God, are you going to take your shots again? Because it just it. It it makes me have these. This is so to you, my burps, that are just terrible. And she's like, oh, she calls them surfer burps instead of sulfur. Yes, cause I've I've got to get serious about that. But um, yeah, I'm going to be. I'm honest about it.
Speaker 1:So what's your next event? Where are we going to see you signing it, or what's next?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am going to be at Authors in the Bluegrass in Lexington, kentucky, love Kiki Chatfield and Next Step PR. They actually represented or did my PR stuff for the last two books. Then I'm going to be at Magic with the Bells in Orlando in March, yeah, and then, if I get the, really I'm supposed to be there. In God, I always say this for international signings because it's always seems like something crazy. But, um, for Brits book fest in May. So I'll get to go go across the pond again and I'm hoping to go. I've never been to Belfast, I've been to Dublin. So I want to like go take my books and like take pictures of them in in Irish, you know, kind of places and, um, see the Titanic thing, places, and see the Titanic thing.
Speaker 2:Liv will be excited about it. Of course she's going with me because she gets stuck going with me to everything. So thankfully for in October her godmother is going to come with us to that. And then we're going to go down with friends to the Disney one because while I'm signing they're going to go to Disney. So I'm telling you this because we had so many Orlando signings back in the day. She was 18 months old the first time she went to Disney and then, when we didn't go, you know, for a while, she's like I can't believe it's been two years since I've been to Disney. I'm like, excuse you, mommy got to go one freaking time when she was a kid and I was nine. I'm like you're going to live child, OK. I'm like I're going to live child, okay. I'm like I need to take her to that. Whatever that experience, it is where they show you how people in underdeveloped countries have to live, so that she'll be appreciative of what you know she has.
Speaker 1:When you find out what it is, send it to me, so I can send mine too.
Speaker 2:It must be. It must be this generation, because I have so many friends who say the same things. They're like my kid just does not, you know, and I, she has a good heart. Like yesterday, we had to go to the shelter for some the doggy shelter to take some stuff we also I meant to have on my volunteer. Another thing about me, besides the other 9,000 things, is we rescue, we are foster, we're a foster house for kitties. So we're actually about to foster fail with a kitten, god, because the rest of the litter got adopted and we we've had her sleeping with us and now we're way too attached. So, yeah, so you can't let her go.
Speaker 2:No, we can't let her go. And she's thankfully getting along with the dogs. We have two dogs and we have two, two cats, and so we're soon to have three. But she ran out to get the ice cream money that she had for next week. She ran out of the car and got to put in for the animals. So she's selectively caring. Now you know like in that case she was like oh, I got to donate to the animals.
Speaker 2:If we see a homeless person, she wants to do that, especially if they're the dog. She's like me. You could just be a horrible person, but if you're homeless with a dog, I'm not going to care, I'm going to give you, you know, everything. So, um, and I'm never one of those people I'm always like, if I feel something, this is, this is like a nudge, this is the universe telling me I need to do it. He may go buy alcohol with it, but who cares? I universe, whatever you believe in, you know, nudging me to do so. I've got to try that but hopefully, you know she'll, she'll be a little less bougie, but miss katie, can you tell us where we can follow you at on tiktok, instagram, facebook?
Speaker 2:all of them. No, uh, yes, I am at. Uh, you can follow. Do you want like a handle or like what do I need to?
Speaker 1:tell you, is your handle the same or all like across the board?
Speaker 2:I want to say it is Katie Ashley love on Instagram, I'm Katie Ashley romance on Facebook and then, um, tick tock, I might be. Hang on, let me see, I'm really starting to try to get tick tock. I. I went against it for so long. I Try to get TikTok. I went against it for so long. I am author Katie Ashley on there, but you're going to see me posting and stuff. In fact, that was one thing I worked on before we sat down was getting my, my setup in here ready to be a little bit better. So I got to do it. You know, we got to whore ourselves wherever we do.
Speaker 1:Do you have a bookish website or?
Speaker 2:anything I do. I am katyashleybookscom and I should. I'm working with someone to get my TikTok shop set up and I will have some sprayed edges really soon of and hopefully some little roses and sprayed for poison and wine and dust to dust, and I was so lucky I found someone local in Atlanta so I can take the books to them and make sure, because a lot of the companies you don't know, you know they're overseas and I'm a little scared to order, like you know, 500 books and then come back, like you know, looking a little scary. So I'm like this is so great and it helps the local business too because we're.
Speaker 1:We're all out there hustling. Yes, we are. Well, I thank you for coming on and talking to us today.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited. Like I said, thank you so much for having me letting an old dog do some new tricks in the book world and thank you guys for tuning in.
Speaker 1:Until next time, make sure you are following Miss Katie Ashley and, of course, make sure you're following me. Download this episode, make sure that you go and pick up Poison and Wine and Dust to Dust. And then we are waiting for Maeve's story and we are waiting for Kel. Look, listen, I am so ready for his story, so I'm going to make sure to be on her and keep you guys updated for when it drops.
Speaker 2:It will be February. They're going to be every three months, so I promise he's coming. Seamus is getting a book. Her brothers are all getting books. It's Oprah Everybody gets a book. You'll get a book. You'll get a book. You'll get a book. Then we're going to go to a sideways Russian breakfast series with someone that one of the brothers gets. There's just going to be mafia everywhere.
Speaker 1:You said with someone that one of the brothers gets. Are we going to get like an MM? Maybe? Not telling you yet how did she drop that T when it's time to go? She knew what she was doing. That's time to go T.
Speaker 2:That's a t-shirt. I'm going to trademark that.
Speaker 1:None of y'all better be out there doing it. Don't steal this lady's shit, man, I know.
Speaker 2:I'll be coming after you. I mean, I already said I got mountain people, we'll go deliverance on you, not the new deliverance, the old one with the creepy hillbilly. I didn't even watch the new Deliverance, honey.
Speaker 1:I've seen so many funny memes about that.
Speaker 2:I'm like I gotta watch this.
Speaker 1:So until next time, you guys. We are signing out. Alright, thanks, guys.