134. HOLLY JAMES/ HOLLY MICHELLE RETURNS: Love, Magic, Death, and Adventure

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, we're welcoming Holly James back for a fourth go round. That might sound like a lot, but she's put out four traditionally published books and two independently published books since then, so we have a lot to cover. Her latest release, You'll Be The Death Of Me, is under her pen name, Holly Michelle. It's perfect for fans of emotional comedies in the vein of the movie "Eternity", the show "The Good Place", or the classic tale "A Christmas Carol".  Plus, we're talking about her latest action thriller romance novel, The Alias Agenda, and a slew of independent books.

FOLLOW HOLLY

BUY THE BOOKS:
Bookshop:
You'll Be The Death Of Me
The Alias Agenda
The Big Fix
Last Night Was Fun

Amazon:
You'll Be The Death Of Me
The Alias Agenda
The Big Fix
Last Night Was Fun
In Between Forever
Something About Julia

LibroFM:
You'll Be The Death Of Me
The Alias Agenda
The Big Fix
Last Night Was Fun

Audible:
You'll Be The Death Of Me
The Alias Agenda
The Big Fix
Last Night Was Fun

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;06;24
Unknown
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman back with another author conversation for Literary Hype Podcast.

00;00;06;27 - 00;00;20;09
Unknown
Today we're throwing it back to the OG literary hype fam, one of the first authors that ever came on the show, the first that ever did it specifically just for literary hype. YouTube channel. And that is Holly James.

00;00;20;14 - 00;00;22;16
Unknown
She's been very, very busy.

00;00;22;22 - 00;00;42;25
Unknown
This is her brand new book, You'll Be the Death of Me, which is Giving Eternity and The Good Place vibes in the best way. But she's also recently put out an action thriller rom com. She's got a couple independent books that she's put out. She's giving us a little sneak peeks at what's coming. She's been very, very busy on the book front.

00;00;42;25 - 00;00;51;18
Unknown
So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Holly James.

00;00;51;20 - 00;00;56;07
Unknown
Welcome to literary hype. It's so good to have you back. It's been such a long time.

00;00;56;14 - 00;01;05;15
Unknown
It's been like four books worth of time. Yeah, well, and if you count your indie books, then I give that to you. Are out of hand and out of pocket.

00;01;05;19 - 00;01;06;23
Unknown
It does.

00;01;06;25 - 00;01;24;22
Unknown
like you were one of the OGs on literary hype. And so now we get to talk about what what number book is you'll be the death of me officially. Number seven trad book. But I guess number nine, because I snuck two Indies in there this summer. I'm calling it Lucky number seven, though, so let's go a seven.

00;01;24;27 - 00;01;34;03
Unknown
But that works because that kind of, you know, the luck and magic vibes of this book. Yes. For anybody who hasn't already seen You'll Be the Death of Me. What is this book about?

00;01;34;06 - 00;01;43;03
Unknown
It's about a gorgeous cover, first of all, I seriously hit the jackpot with this cover. I've seen so many posts and tags that are like.

00;01;43;03 - 00;02;08;25
Unknown
And reviews like. I was originally drawn in by the cover, and I'm like, all right, sell it for me, baby. But it's, Peaches obviously is the artist. Many people recognize her, and I've heard people say, like, I'll buy anything she designs a cover for. So I'm so fortunate to have this. But, beyond the beautiful cover, this book is about, an after the afterlife administration is like a corporate death, basically.

00;02;08;28 - 00;02;36;22
Unknown
And our newly minted transition specialist, Cole, accidentally processes the wrong soul. He mistakes our main character, Adele. Her name is dela. He mistakes her for a 95 year old Berdella and accidentally basically kills her. And, has to figure out how to fix his mistake. So he gets permission to go back, go down to earth and fix his mistake.

00;02;36;24 - 00;03;00;09
Unknown
And Dell is basically cut down in the at the prime of her life. You know, she's at the top of her game, she's the head chef at her own restaurant, and she's about to marry the mayor's son. And she comes from a very, well known family and powerful family. And she's like, got it all. And then all of a sudden, she wakes up as a ghost and only Cole can see her.

00;03;00;11 - 00;03;22;19
Unknown
And they have to figure out how to to undo what he did. And figure out how to kind of right the wrong turn she took in life, that she doesn't know is that she took. And so the story unfolds over a couple days in San Francisco. And they're running through her life and encountering shenanigans and, of course, falling in love.

00;03;22;21 - 00;03;42;14
Unknown
Yeah. No doubt. Dun dun dun. It's about to. Yeah, but this book gives such The Good Place and Eternity vibes. Yeah. So it's, like, really good timing. So I think I read this right after seeing eternity. Yeah, I still haven't seen it. I remember sitting in a movie theater

00;03;42;17 - 00;03;47;19
Unknown
for a different movie and seeing that trailer, and I was like, oh no, that's my book.

00;03;47;22 - 00;03;57;22
Unknown
But I think it's different enough. I don't know, you tell me I haven't seen it. If it's different enough, there are some definite similarities of just like the premise. So what was your initial spark for this story?

00;03;57;25 - 00;04;08;07
Unknown
Gosh, I so this is another book that I started long before it is now being published. I started writing it in 2022, after.

00;04;08;07 - 00;04;29;22
Unknown
This is a sad, sad story, but one of my coworkers, just out of the blue, passed away. And it was shocking and devastating. And, you know, he left behind his wife and their two young boys. And it really hit me that, like, I don't know, it was just it was just scary because it was just, you know, totally unexpected.

00;04;29;22 - 00;04;54;22
Unknown
And, I had always wanted to write a book about death, but I didn't know how, how to approach it. And that is one of my biggest fears, probably my biggest fear is dying and death. And, so I wanted to use my, my tried and true coping mechanism of humor. So I wanted to write a funny, lighthearted story about death and what comes after.

00;04;54;25 - 00;05;19;10
Unknown
So it started from a really sad place and kind of became this shield, I guess, against against fear, my own fear of the unknown and developed into this wacky story. And I had the first, I think I had the prolog in the first, like five chapters written and just sitting on my computer for like

00;05;19;12 - 00;05;30;25
Unknown
2 or 3 years. And then this book became book two. So in my, my first book with Avon. So one last night was fun was sold. It was a two book deal. And at the time this idea was like the most developed one I had.

00;05;30;25 - 00;05;57;26
Unknown
So like, sure, that could be book two. And that didn't really, you know, think about it. And then I had to finish writing it and, it just kept getting like, weirder and weirder. I don't know, it's weird in a good way, but it's definitely the most, most speculative thing I've written. And it ended up the timing in my own life ended up being quite profound, because by the time I had to finish drafting it, I was very pregnant.

00;05;57;28 - 00;06;22;02
Unknown
And then, I think the, the due date for this, the manuscript was the day after my actual due date to give birth. Which was wild. So I hurried and finished it like two weeks in advance. But, and then I had to go through the editing process, you know, my basically freshly postpartum life and everything was different.

00;06;22;02 - 00;06;31;15
Unknown
And yeah, it's just while it's just, I don't know, it feels very profound to me that it kind of like started with death and then ended with life. And that's what it's about. So

00;06;31;18 - 00;06;40;19
Unknown
no, no, it's pretty cool. That does fit very well with the trajectory of where this goes. Yeah. You said this is your most speculative today.

00;06;40;19 - 00;07;03;26
Unknown
And I would agree because like I had just read this, last night was fun alias agenda in the big fix like all in a row. And then I switched to this and I was like, oh, this is very different, but not entirely because your earlier books were magic, magical realism. So what was it like returning to your magical realism roots and kind of amping it up a bit?

00;07;04;01 - 00;07;24;09
Unknown
It was fun. It's always challenging because I get really hung up on the logic, like, like the magical system has to make sense. And sometimes I've had multiple editors, like, talk me down and be like, it's magic. It's okay if it's, you know, but but I yeah. Like I you'll you'll notice in this book that there are certain like rules that are consistent throughout.

00;07;24;09 - 00;07;40;00
Unknown
And I wanted to make sure all of that flowed. So that's why I think that's kind of a misconception about magical realism is like, oh, it's easy because it's all fantasy and made up. But like readers notice when it's not logical and they get mad. So, that's something I always pay close attention to. But it's fun.

00;07;40;00 - 00;08;02;12
Unknown
It's fun to just be kind of like, whimsical and, yeah, silly is not the right word, but I know some of it is kind of silly. So it was and it was. There were parts to where it's funny, I've seen in reviews that people are really, like clinging on to certain scenes that when I was writing them, I'm just like, this is just ridiculous, like, how is this going to land?

00;08;02;12 - 00;08;07;05
Unknown
And people are like, that's my favorite scene. So never know what's going to happen.

00;08;07;11 - 00;08;23;06
Unknown
Well, you are in the sciences, so it makes sense that you would want the magic to follow scientific and makes that tracks. But was it challenging for you to go back to the magic after living in reality for a little while?

00;08;23;09 - 00;08;24;00
Unknown
Yes and no.

00;08;24;00 - 00;08;43;06
Unknown
I think because I had started writing this, so it was already like the seed was there. And it I it was one of those ideas that, like, wouldn't leave me alone. You know, I started I put the first 15,000 words on a page or whatever, and it was just kind of like there, like, I've done that with other stories where it just kind of fizzles out and I never go back to it.

00;08;43;08 - 00;08;48;29
Unknown
But this one was like, always kind of like floating around. It's like a ghost haunting me. Oh.

00;08;49;01 - 00;09;02;02
Unknown
yeah, getting, I guess, getting back into the world coming from, I guess, what was right before this one, one of the, Bailey's agenda was right before this, and that's very grounded in reality. And it's just.

00;09;02;04 - 00;09;24;20
Unknown
Yeah, just different. I don't know, I don't really think about it while it's happening. I guess, like reflecting on the process. It was it was just lighter and cozier, just the whole, like even the writing process. But yeah, it is a big transition to go from like crime action drama to like ghosts.

00;09;24;23 - 00;09;30;05
Unknown
although there is a little bit of a mystery plotline in this book, like, I, I just like can't let that go.

00;09;30;05 - 00;09;43;08
Unknown
Like, it always be like, if I write a thriller romance always bleeds through. And if I write a romance, some kind of little like mystery storyline bleeds through. That's why I'm. I'm such a hybrid author, I guess.

00;09;43;10 - 00;09;53;24
Unknown
But those are my favorite kinds. Like, I love a romance, love a thriller, and when you can blend them together like a historical romance with a mystery subplot is crack.

00;09;53;26 - 00;10;07;07
Unknown
Yes, that's how I feel about like. Like an action thriller romance. Like an action comedy. Romance. Like the big face. Like that's like my I wrote that book because that's my favorite genre mash up. And I had so much fun writing that book.

00;10;07;09 - 00;10;15;11
Unknown
It shows because that one was so much fun, and I devoured that in one sip is so much, oh, yay!

00;10;15;14 - 00;10;27;25
Unknown
But before we get to talk about that, that side of that, things that you're working on, Vendela, let's talk about main character. Her name is a bit unusual. So where did you find Vendela as a character name?

00;10;28;02 - 00;10;42;06
Unknown
Okay, so her original name was Irma Dell, which is one of my great aunt's name. So my my grandma on my dad's side, she's one of ten children who grew up on a farm in Iowa, and they have a variety of names.

00;10;42;06 - 00;11;05;04
Unknown
Her name is Grace. She got lucky, with none of the rest or unfortunate. But she said it like the names got progressively more like modern as they went down. And she's like the second or third youngest, I think. But anyway, I knew I wanted her name to be Dell. I don't know why. I just, I just liked the name Dell, which is fit with, like, a, like, powerhouse firecracker, like, type A, you know, I'm going to conquer the world personality.

00;11;05;06 - 00;11;22;25
Unknown
But the plot hinges on him mistaking her for an old, older, old lady. So I needed it like an old lady name. And I originally named her model, and my mom read an early draft and that. So that's our model is my dad's aunt in real life, and she's like, you can't use that name. It's sad that she dies.

00;11;22;25 - 00;11;33;24
Unknown
And I was like, a fine mom. So I went searching for an old fashioned name that could be shortened to Dell. And I found Berdella, and I was like, oh, that's that's a cool, weird name. I like it,

00;11;33;27 - 00;11;37;16
Unknown
I have not heard that one before, so I know. Me neither.

00;11;37;19 - 00;11;45;23
Unknown
There is a line of her somebody's referencing, like there's. You have 13 pens on your desk. How many pens do you keep on your desk?

00;11;45;29 - 00;11;57;28
Unknown
Oh, geez. One two, three, four. There's four right now. Four on this desk, two Sharpies for signing books, one for taking notes and a red pen for editing.

00;11;58;01 - 00;12;17;04
Unknown
Do you do, like, longhand editing? Yeah, usually when I get to the,

00;12;02;24 - 00;12;17;04
Unknown
the past page portion. So I like the final interior mockup of the book, the last chance to change anything I usually do print it out and read it and like hand edit just because I've been staring at the word document so long that I don't see things anymore.

00;12;17;06 - 00;12;26;02
Unknown
So I find it helpful to do that. But then, you know, I have a 300 page book binder and a book and a binder that I have to do something with.

00;12;26;04 - 00;12;33;13
Unknown
A binder makes it easier to handle than the manuscript that I got. Yeah. No, it does for sure.

00;12;33;13 - 00;12;40;05
Unknown
I always I get, like a big, like three inch three ring binder and then. Yeah, because in the pages are full size and you can write in the margins and.

00;12;40;07 - 00;12;50;24
Unknown
Brilliant. I love the little peeks behind the scenes when we meet Verdell though, she is engaged, as you mentioned. But her fiancé is, how do I put this trash?

00;12;50;24 - 00;13;19;02
Unknown
He's trash. Let's talk a little bit about that, that fine line that you have to walk when you meet a character who's in a relationship and you're going to make her end up with someone else and trying to deal with that. Yes. Yes. That's really hard to do because you have to. It's a very fine line, like you said, like you have to make it plausible that she would be in a relationship with him and he's not, like, so terrible that she wouldn't reasonably be in a relationship with him.

00;13;19;02 - 00;13;37;10
Unknown
But also he needs to have enough, like the fatal flaw that's going to to terminate their relationship. So, I was trying to think of. Yeah, like, what would make you call off your wedding a week before it was supposed to happen? Like, how could someone, like, betray you so much that you, would call off your wedding?

00;13;37;10 - 00;14;01;27
Unknown
And in the initial draft, I mean, in this final version she's done was very focused on pleasing her parents. And that's part of her motivation behind getting engaged in marrying Tommy. And that wasn't in the initial draft. Like, my editor helped me, like, pull that out more. I can't remember what, like, I don't know, she actually, like, liked him.

00;14;01;29 - 00;14;33;21
Unknown
And it just wasn't working the way I originally wrote it. So it makes more sense that her relationship was very performative. And I think that that makes it easier to just to terminate it. But that was hard. That was one of the hardest, hardest plotlines to pull off. Again, like you said, it's just such a fine line that like, like the reader has to believe this person is worthy of being in a relationship with your character, but also so terrible that they want to dump them and that you're that you're not holding on to any hope or feeling for them because you want her to end up with, you know, the other

00;14;33;21 - 00;14;34;27
Unknown
main character. So

00;14;34;29 - 00;14;41;09
Unknown
yeah, it's fun for your reader to hate her and think she's stupid for being a yes, a piece of trash.

00;14;41;12 - 00;14;43;09
Unknown
Yes. It's very difficult,

00;14;43;12 - 00;14;58;19
Unknown
but you touch on the family dynamics of this. That familiar pressure does play a lot into how she lives her life. So talk a little bit about crafting her overarching life story with that familiar pressure.

00;14;58;21 - 00;15;17;06
Unknown
I wanted her to come from this, high profile family with a lot of, like, power and sway. But I wanted her to be, like, a good person, you know, because there's so many, so many stories about death where the person realizes, you know, they're taught this lesson of like, oh, I'm a terrible person and I need to redo everything.

00;15;17;09 - 00;15;32;15
Unknown
And I didn't want to tell that story because we've seen it so many times. So I wanted her to be you know, at her core, a really good person. But she had just taken some wrong turns and needed to pay more attention to to her things, in her certain things in her life. Which I can relate to.

00;15;32;15 - 00;15;53;21
Unknown
So that's where that came from. But, yeah. So she's the daughter of a prominent real estate tycoon, basically. And, her brother's her older twin brothers are real estate developers, and they run the family business. Her dad's basically retired. And she didn't want to go into real estate. She became a chef. She followed her heart to become a chef.

00;15;53;23 - 00;16;14;12
Unknown
But there's still this expectation to achieve and, you know, be the best and build a legacy. And she realizes through the story that a lot of that is self-imposed, like her parents do actually want her to be happy, and she doesn't have to just please them, with everything she does. So that's the big lesson that she learns.

00;16;14;12 - 00;16;33;16
Unknown
And, but I liked still having the family be like, I think there was a draft where the family was kind of cold and they weren't very loving and supportive, and it just didn't feel right. So I like I like that they're all, you know, they all they're all good people. They're just very wealthy, powerful people. And it's refreshing to see them be decent people.

00;16;33;16 - 00;16;48;14
Unknown
And like, you know, her mom works for a bunch of different nonprofits and they donate a ton of their money, and they do community service all the time. So it was kind of my like, I don't know, fantasy of what decent, what rich people should do in the world.

00;16;48;17 - 00;16;55;07
Unknown
And it was fun to kind of. Yeah, I have her, you know, she's a great relationship with her brothers and, and her parents.

00;16;55;07 - 00;17;20;11
Unknown
And it was fun to write all those dynamics. And it was it was challenging. Like some of the most challenging scenes were the ones where she sees them grieving her death, like, I think I cried writing those scenes because it's I don't know, it's just yeah, it's obviously a difficult topic. And I felt like I knew her and knew them and those were those were hard to write, but it was still nice to play with.

00;17;20;14 - 00;17;26;12
Unknown
The dynamic of kind of the warm comfort of her family is like the through line through to the whole story.

00;17;26;14 - 00;17;38;02
Unknown
I love that she couldn't tell her twin brothers apart, but their voice on the phone like that, so comical. But it also highlights like, yeah, she's a good person, but she's got some stuff to work on. Like ever.

00;17;38;02 - 00;17;45;03
Unknown
Yeah. So talk a little bit about balancing the humor with that sadness that you're talking about. Like it is still a story of death.

00;17;45;06 - 00;17;56;27
Unknown
That's funny. The scene with her when she's on the phone with her brothers, that was one of the first things I wrote. Like, once I, when I and back in 2022, when I first wrote it, I think I had the first like five chapters just came spilling out.

00;17;56;27 - 00;18;23;10
Unknown
And then just the dynamic with her brothers was so central to it. And I don't know, I just loved it. That's like when I first can't tell them apart. But, yeah. So. And also so her, her best friend Jason, is another one of my, like, all time favorite characters. And he was actually largely inspired by a radio DJ that I really liked at the time, who was also named Jason.

00;18;23;10 - 00;18;56;17
Unknown
And, he brings a lot of humor to the story. And her brothers do, and, and she herself and just kind of all the mishaps they get into, but I think, I don't know, the balance goes back to my initial intention was I wanted to write something funny about death, basically to comfort myself. I wanted to to approach this this scary, you know, inevitable certainty with a humor.

00;18;56;19 - 00;19;21;15
Unknown
And that's where the afterlife administration came in, and it just kept getting a little bit more ridiculous as the story progressed. And I didn't go through and think of, you know, like, oh, this percentage has to be funny in this percentage. It has to be serious. It was just like it just kind of balanced itself out, I think with the the more dramatic scenes kind of being followed up by something funny and vice versa,

00;19;21;17 - 00;19;27;08
Unknown
I don't know, I've never when people ask me like craft questions, I feel like I don't give a good answer because I don't know, it just happens.

00;19;27;08 - 00;19;41;21
Unknown
Like it just comes out. I don't know, I don't think about it. I know the only person who's been like, I don't know, I just do it. It just. Yes, exactly. The characters talk in my head and I just my fingers move. I write down what they say. That's how it happens.

00;19;41;24 - 00;19;46;07
Unknown
How did you come up with the afterlife administration and how all of that works?

00;19;46;10 - 00;20;04;03
Unknown
I wanted it to be corporate. So I think, like usually when I get an idea for a book, I get, like the hook, the idea for the hook, and then a couple characters and then, like the pivotal big scenes and sometimes even like a sentence or like a line or a line of dialog.

00;20;04;05 - 00;20;23;18
Unknown
And in this, in this one, it's the line where, where Cole arrives on Earth and he has to tell her she's dead and she freaks out and he says, like, just try to relax. And she, like, swats his hand away and she's like, don't tell me to relax. You just told me I'm dead. And it was some kind of clerical error like that.

00;20;23;18 - 00;20;56;25
Unknown
It was like the core of the whole story. And that scene was like the first thing I thought of and everything just came out around that. So I had to figure out where this clerical error came from and who made it. And I really enjoyed taking, like, the drudgery of corporate life into an afterlife setting. And, you know, still having it be like an office and the hierarchy of, you know, subordinate employees and their supervisors and who has permission to do this and that.

00;20;56;28 - 00;21;16;27
Unknown
That was just fun. Fun to play with. And I think when I started writing this, I had never seen The Good Place. I knew what it was about. I think my husband watched the whole thing, but I had never seen an episode of it, and, I ended up watching it when I was on maternity leave, and I was spending like, 1,000,000 hours on the couch feeding the baby.

00;21;16;27 - 00;21;43;11
Unknown
I had to, like, binge multiple TV shows, and I watched it, and it's hilarious. And it's so well done. And, I don't know that it really inspired this. I think it was kind of like an after the fact thing. I was like, oh, those are very, very similar. But it's kind of like that for anyone who's seen The Good Place, like a funny but very bureaucratic, system that processes life after death.

00;21;43;17 - 00;21;56;23
Unknown
Yeah. I feel like if you go back and watch eternity, you're going to be like, okay. Yeah. This your book is. Yeah, good place and eternity blended into to mix together in the best way.

00;21;56;26 - 00;21;57;12
Unknown
Good.

00;21;57;20 - 00;22;04;00
Unknown
So even though this is a rom com, you do have a trigger warning like author's note at the beginning.

00;22;04;02 - 00;22;09;00
Unknown
So that's not something you normally see. So talk a little bit about your decision to include that trigger warning at the beginning.

00;22;09;03 - 00;22;13;06
Unknown
I can read it. It says this book is ultimately about life and love, but told through the lens of death.

00;22;13;06 - 00;22;22;04
Unknown
While I aim to approach the heavier topics with a light hearted comedic touch, there are still scenes portraying death, grief and mourning. These are sensitive subjects for you. I kindly recommend picking up one of my other books instead,

00;22;22;11 - 00;22;29;29
Unknown
I think I wrote that partially because I still had my mom's voice in my head that she didn't like me using a relative's name for the main character.

00;22;30;02 - 00;22;56;17
Unknown
I would, I would say usually in romantic comedy, you're not expecting someone to die, but it's literally on the cover of this one. So, you should know it's about death. But I think those heavier scenes felt important to me because they really capture her relationship with her family and all the people who care about her, and she doesn't really recognize kind of the depth of those of those relationships until she sees it from the other side.

00;22;56;17 - 00;23;16;12
Unknown
So I felt like I needed to include those scenes of like, her seeing her parents mourn her. And like, this is heartbreaking. You know, if you're going to go into it, you think going in and expecting to laugh and you come across that scene and you're like, well, screw this book. So I felt like I needed to have some kind of, some kind of warning there.

00;23;16;15 - 00;23;25;07
Unknown
I think I don't I mean, if anyone goes into this reading, you know, it's about that, obviously they're going to know it's about death. But just yet there are a couple heavier scenes. So I just wanted people to be informed.

00;23;25;13 - 00;23;36;25
Unknown
A death also kicks off your adventure series with, The Big Fix. The, starts things going, but your most recent release in that is the alias agenda.

00;23;36;27 - 00;23;42;24
Unknown
So for anybody who hasn't seen that one floating around, what is that all about?

00;23;42;26 - 00;24;06;10
Unknown
This one, oddly enough, I also started writing this book in 2022 and it sat on my computer. So both of these books are revived for my hard drive. Rescued, resuscitated. The alias agenda is about a super badass undercover spy, Aaron, who gets, pulled off of a case in the middle of the night and sent across the country.

00;24;06;10 - 00;24;28;00
Unknown
She's in New York on this, like money laundering, Wall Street insider trading case, and she gets sent to California to this beautiful suburban neighborhood, which is basically Palo Alto. It's a fictional Palo Alto. And she is told she has to go undercover as a nanny. And she was like, what? I don't know anything about kids. And her handler, is very mysterious and, like, has gone missing.

00;24;28;00 - 00;25;02;17
Unknown
And she's placed with this new guy, Cal Agent Cal Bray, and he's kind of like a bumbling rookie. And, then she finds out her handler was actually murdered. And there's a reason she's on this case. And, she's kind of being protected in a way that she doesn't understand. Because these bad guys from her past, show up, they they finally found her, like, the the these people tied to the case that sent her undercover have found her after a decade or so.

00;25;02;20 - 00;25;12;27
Unknown
And so now she's running from them, and she's dealing with her bumbling handler, and she's pretending to be a nanny, and it's all sorts of shenanigans and fun and action and some romance.

00;25;12;29 - 00;25;24;04
Unknown
And you also wrote this one while pregnant, and. But motherhood and babies play heavily into this story. Yeah. Did you make any changes to it after the fact

00;25;24;10 - 00;25;53;09
Unknown
No, it's really interesting. So yeah, I wrote this one was like more than half done when I said that when I table that, years ago. And yeah, I finished it, also pregnant. And I remember, like, reading things to like, oh, yeah, I got that right. Like, I nailed that. Now that I know, you know, and yeah, it's weird that this, this one also came back around in my life when I had gone through so much of it, but actually a lot of the the kids and, you know, motherhood and any was inspired by it.

00;25;53;09 - 00;26;06;25
Unknown
My sister in law was a nanny, in Palo Alto after college. So she told me, like the wildest stories of just like elite suburban life. So I drew drew a lot of inspiration from from her stories.

00;26;07;02 - 00;26;17;12
Unknown
There's a line in it somewhere about, like, you can't just carry $5 million. That's not what it's like in pop culture, which is true, but also hilarious.

00;26;17;14 - 00;26;40;06
Unknown
Let's talk a little bit about the research and and building a spy organization. And then all of that side of things. Yeah, that was fun. So yeah, that's something as I, I can't remember where I, I read that or heard it or something about how much money actually weighs, like $5 million in $100 bills, weighs over 100 pounds.

00;26;40;06 - 00;27;01;12
Unknown
And you see people just like, sling a bag, like. And in the third and 50 Shades movie, when, when Anna has, like, the backpack of $1 million and she's like, did you do it? I'm like, no, that's so heavy. The only the movie, was a call with Viola Davis and, Liam Neeson, like Widow's The Widow, that one that has an accurate portrayal.

00;27;01;12 - 00;27;06;17
Unknown
He's carrying two duffel bags full of money, and it's very heavy, and it's like, good. Someone finally did it, right.

00;27;06;20 - 00;27;18;01
Unknown
that's just one of my obsessive rabbit holes like, that has to be accurate, but that one. So the show alias was one of my favorite TV shows of all time. So this is heavily inspired by that as well.

00;27;18;03 - 00;27;48;11
Unknown
So I thought about, you know, all the spy stuff I learned from there and, and kind of in the way that the magical realism, magical realism, and you'll be the death of me gives you a freedom. I feel like writing in a fictional spy organization also gives you some kind of freedom where you can just explain away like, oh, yeah, they have, you know, face matching artificial intelligence that that faked her identity, like things that, that are now plausible in this day and age where you can explain your way out of, you know, some situation.

00;27;48;13 - 00;28;07;22
Unknown
But technology also can be really annoying because it gets in the way of, you know, like pulling off a heist with their, of course, their security cameras everywhere. You know, I remember that in the end of the Big Fix, the scene set in Las Vegas, my editor was like, there security cameras everywhere in Vegas. This isn't plausible.

00;28;07;23 - 00;28;12;17
Unknown
I was like, just just let it be. Just. We'll just pretend.

00;28;12;20 - 00;28;25;24
Unknown
So, yeah, it was fun to me. I heard you when I originally drafted this. She was working for the FBI, but I decided to make it a fictional organization because I didn't didn't have the resources to do all the research to make it an accurate portrayal of the FBI.

00;28;25;24 - 00;28;28;03
Unknown
So I was like, let's just go made up.

00;28;28;06 - 00;28;51;07
Unknown
Oh, Sydney Bristow, you have taken me back, one of my favorite shows growing up. And I so good, still obsessively love it. It's so good. But yeah, the technology really does make an impact when you're trying to write a spy, a story of like, yes, well, but stuff that like she was fictional from back then, it's kind of become like Black Mirror.

00;28;51;08 - 00;28;55;17
Unknown
It's kind of become a blueprint for the current technology. Yeah.

00;28;55;22 - 00;28;57;13
Unknown
It gets in the way at times for sure.

00;28;57;16 - 00;29;05;28
Unknown
so these are not the only books that you've got out this summer. This year you happen to be. You've got two self-published books.

00;29;06;00 - 00;29;29;15
Unknown
I also have them right here, both in paper. Available in paperback now. So this. Yeah, this just came out of kind of my, I don't know, the transition into to motherhood and my new lifestyle. I've found so I'm a total pantser. When I write, write, I just binge write and I make it up as I go along.

00;29;29;18 - 00;29;59;08
Unknown
And all of my seven trad books were drafted, mostly drafted before I had a baby. And I would just I had the luxury of just like, hours to, you know, I'd on the weekends, I'd been drive for like, six straight hours. But I just can't do that anymore. And I've learned that I was I was getting really frustrated trying to draft anything, and I realized it was because I was trying to, like, force fit my old habits into my my new lifestyle.

00;29;59;10 - 00;30;19;24
Unknown
And I was, like, stalling out on a bunch of stuff and just getting just really frustrated and not enjoying writing. And then I realized that I could edit a lot more easily than I could write. You know, for me, drafting just takes all of my energy and focus, whereas editing is like a little less brainpower for me.

00;30;19;24 - 00;30;38;28
Unknown
I know it's not true for everyone, but, and I can do it in short increments. I can be like, I'm going to edit this one chapter tonight, you know? So I turned back to old projects that I had and ones that had been had never seen the light of day that have been sitting on my computer for however long.

00;30;39;01 - 00;30;55;24
Unknown
And I started just rereading and something like these two, I was like, wow, these are pretty good. And I always love them. And so because I am, you know, traditionally publishing, I have an agent and there's a whole business structure around around my art. I had to tell my agent, you know, like, what do you think of these?

00;30;55;24 - 00;31;15;07
Unknown
I'm. Do you want to try to submit them? And, she wasn't really into, this one in between forever. She didn't think that the book was was big enough or it wasn't commercial enough, and I didn't want to rewrite it. So I was like, you know, I'm just going to throw it up on KDP and see what happens.

00;31;15;10 - 00;31;33;13
Unknown
So then I got so into it, it was really fun. I love to have a project like I just in general, I love having a project to work on. And so going through and reading this, I give this one a heavy edit because I wrote it in like 2017 or something. And I gave it a heavy edit and I actually designed the cover.

00;31;33;13 - 00;31;54;16
Unknown
I made the cover for both of them. Yeah. No, I involved I have been, I haven't I've gotten that question directly once. But it's been implied several times and I'm like, no, this book was literally sitting on my hard drive for almost ten years, and I just got super into graphic design and taught myself how to make the cover.

00;31;54;18 - 00;32;18;15
Unknown
I learned how to use, KDP can learn publishing and they have paperback options. So that was really fun to do to to teach myself all of that. But this book. So this one is another kind of hybrid genre. It's called in-between forever. And it's like, contemporary women's fiction with mystery and a little suspense and romance.

00;32;18;17 - 00;32;40;05
Unknown
So it's a dual timeline story about Diana, who is, deputy district attorney. And she gets put on the case, she has to prosecute her ex-fiancé, who broke her heart and disappeared 20 years ago. And the story goes back and forth between the timeline of the meeting and falling in love when she was in graduate and law school.

00;32;40;07 - 00;33;01;11
Unknown
And he's this totally free spirited, like, nature photographer, and they're opposites, and they they fall in love. But then he gets diagnosed with a terminal illness, and basically has no hope. And doesn't want to watch her suffer while he waits to die. So he just disappears on her. And then she, you know, is completely heartbroken and searches for him.

00;33;01;17 - 00;33;22;06
Unknown
But then she meets her future husband and they fall in love and they build this beautiful life together. So when we meet her, you know, she's been married for 15 years. She has three kids. She's absolutely loves her husband, totally devoted. But then, like, bam, her ex-fiancee comes back into her life and he's the lead suspect in a murder case.

00;33;22;09 - 00;33;52;11
Unknown
So I love this book. I think it's great. I was happy to to put it out into the world and have people read it. And it's. Yeah, the self-publishing process is humbling, for sure. It's it makes you realize, recognize and appreciate the power that traditional publishers have just in terms of distribution and marketing and just getting your book in front of eyeballs because, that's hard to do when you're, you know, you don't have tons and tons of resources, but it's still been it's still been fun.

00;33;52;11 - 00;34;07;10
Unknown
It's been interesting just to learn and kind of like, have access to all of the sales data that I never get to see as a tried author. It's just been fascinating from that perspective alone. So yeah, I'm happy to I'm happy to have this one out in the world.

00;34;07;13 - 00;34;10;16
Unknown
And then this one, something about Julia.

00;34;10;16 - 00;34;42;16
Unknown
So this is probably the darkest thing I've ever written. It's a very twisty thriller. It's about a, it's multiple multiple of lots of biomes in this one. And it's about, a therapist who is torn between justice and patient confidentiality when three women who she treats all become suspects in the same murder. And it jumps back and forth between her perspective and each of the three women, and then the detective on the case.

00;34;42;16 - 00;35;01;28
Unknown
And it has a very big twist in it that I love. And I'm excited for people to read. Yeah, I really like this one, too. And this is another one that, my agent passed on. But I wanted to put out in the world, so I did. So there you go.

00;35;02;01 - 00;35;10;18
Unknown
they both sound really good, but I'm especially interested in in Julia, because if you're saying it's dark, it's very intrigued.

00;35;10;24 - 00;35;42;00
Unknown
it's way darker than any of my child books, for sure. I'll send you one. You want one? I got one from this study. And you know how much I love your books. And and I'll go right there with the yellow. Yes. And the yellow category. I know it was fun to design this one, and I love the light color combination of like, I really wanted it to pop the the digital file of a yellow is almost like a neon, and it didn't print with quite the same same vibrancy, but I still like it.

00;35;42;00 - 00;35;42;26
Unknown
It looks good.

00;35;42;29 - 00;36;02;17
Unknown
That's kind of like, So munchkin honey, he just did a book where the cover is Nuclear Orange, and he talked about how like, it doesn't photograph well at all. Yeah, this color has haunted me for months because it trying to get a picture to show exactly how bright this little bright. It's it's how what graph?

00;36;02;17 - 00;36;02;25
Unknown
Well,

00;36;02;28 - 00;36;20;00
Unknown
the hardcover of the big Fix is like blinding orange. Like when the arcs, the paperback arcs, it was like a like a tangerine color. And then the hardcover, even my editor was like, whoa, so bright, like construction cone orange.

00;36;20;03 - 00;36;29;17
Unknown
Which is funny because it's, you know, trying to be undercover and hide and it's bright. That's funny. It's a fun juxtaposition.

00;36;29;19 - 00;36;34;08
Unknown
What from your traditional experience helped you the most with putting out independent books?

00;36;34;10 - 00;36;58;19
Unknown
editing, like I've, I've learned so much from having my books both developed mentally developmentally edited and copy edited that I can. I have, like the eye now to see where the mistakes are and to understand like like this is dragging or this is unnecessary or this is too redundant or like we've already learned this information or this scene is not progressing anything.

00;36;58;21 - 00;37;37;13
Unknown
And I've also learned where all of my, my common like grammatical mistakes are, and I won't make them any more, I promise. But, yeah, I think that that's the biggest, the biggest, takeaway that I have, biggest transferable skill, I guess is, is, is knowing how to edit edit my writing. And just also like the, the physical structure of a book, you know, like the, the, the jacket blurb and like, the author blurb and the placement of stuff and like, the front matter and the back matter, just having like, I was literally grabbing my drag books off the shelf, like copying what, what was on them into these ones.

00;37;37;13 - 00;37;41;08
Unknown
So I just know how to physically make a book now too.

00;37;41;15 - 00;37;53;00
Unknown
Are there any more projects from the hard drive that we might be seeing on shelves in the near future? I mean, maybe this one might pop up.

00;37;53;03 - 00;38;00;29
Unknown
This one is. Yeah, I, I busted these two out super fast in between forever and Julia. And this one was, like, right on their heels.

00;38;00;29 - 00;38;18;04
Unknown
But I realized I was like, I need to, like, let you'll be the death of me have. It's have its time. So I'm gonna get back to this one this fall. But this one, this is, another one that I love. Obviously, I love all of these, but, it's a true to crime podcast that I wrote a couple of years ago, so.

00;38;18;04 - 00;38;49;25
Unknown
Well, actually, that one was like, also 2019. But it's, it's a about a true crime podcast where the main character is the person who actually did it. So I've always thought of like, you know, making a murderer and, serial is heavily influenced by serial. I was, obsessed with serial. I've always thought, like, okay, if these men are sitting in prison and they're wrongfully convicted and there's all of this, like, hoopla around the case and the trial and, you know, their conviction, where's the person who actually did it?

00;38;49;27 - 00;38;57;04
Unknown
And are they watching all these things? Are they partaking in all of these things? Like, I want to hear that story. So that's what that book is about.

00;38;57;06 - 00;39;09;13
Unknown
I love that these are all kind of murder mystery vibes that you're doing independently, but then you have your romance for sure. Yeah, well, I started as a thriller author. I mean, my agent signed me for a thriller, and my first book didn't, didn't sell.

00;39;09;13 - 00;39;17;12
Unknown
And then I kind of transferred over into, yeah, women's fiction romance. But my hard drive is full of thrillers.

00;39;17;14 - 00;39;24;02
Unknown
I love to hear it. Do you have any more traditional romance is on the way?

00;39;24;05 - 00;39;37;03
Unknown
No, I have nothing under nothing in contract right now. I do have an idea for a follow up. You'll be the death of me, but it's is literally just an idea in my head.

00;39;37;03 - 00;39;58;12
Unknown
It's not. I've written like a couple sentences. But. Yeah, I. We'll see. We'll see how this one does. And if publishers are, are interested in buying more books for me, but that's largely out of my control, which is a huge bummer. And self-published or any traditional publishing. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see where it goes.

00;39;58;12 - 00;40;04;25
Unknown
I this one has some pretty good momentum behind it, so fingers crossed

00;40;04;28 - 00;40;08;24
Unknown
that is true. I have been seeing so many posts about this book already,

00;40;08;24 - 00;40;13;23
Unknown
It's the cover, man. I'm telling you, it's the cover. I won the jackpot.

00;40;13;26 - 00;40;17;02
Unknown
Is there anything else we should be keeping an eye out for from you?

00;40;17;04 - 00;40;29;26
Unknown
I will be at the, San Diego Festival books at the end of this month. That's exciting. It's, They invited me to. I actually don't even know what I'm doing. I might be on a panel. I might be signing books. I don't know, but I'll be there. Will be fun. I'll be wearing the shirt.

00;40;29;26 - 00;40;45;24
Unknown
You can find me. The perfect cure for your bike. Yes, yes. The last question we always ask because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about right now? Oh, man. One of my favorite books of the year actually also comes out

00;40;45;24 - 00;40;51;24
Unknown
is in the Is Mine. It's the Enigma Challenge by NC Godfrey. I devour that book.

00;40;51;24 - 00;41;21;20
Unknown
I read an early copy because I provided the blurb for it, and it's, a perfect genre mashup of action thriller romance. And it's about this, she graduate student, she's a postdoc, crypto allergist. And she is at this conference in Madrid, and she, accidentally stumbles upon this, like, game called the Enigma Challenge, where you have to solve all these puzzles.

00;41;21;23 - 00;41;51;28
Unknown
And the prize is $12 million. But if you lose, you're deleted. Like, your entire existence records, bank accounts, like everything about you is just completely wiped. And you don't exist anymore. And of course, the competition is very fierce because everyone wants to win and not be deleted. So you could die along the way, too. But she ends up partnering up with this, this guy who's very sexy and very smart, and they are solving puzzles together and running away from bad guys.

00;41;51;28 - 00;41;57;09
Unknown
And it's all across Europe and it's so good, so good. It definitely, definitely recommend that book.

00;41;57;12 - 00;42;11;12
Unknown
that does sound really good. Thanks so much for hanging out with literary hype to talk all about. You'll Be the Death of Me and the Alias Agenda, and all of your indie book. Thank you for having me. It's always so fun!

00;42;11;15 - 00;42;26;06
Unknown
Thanks again to Holly for hanging out with me to talk all about You'll Be the Death of Me, the alias agenda, and her independent books. If you want to check those out, the links to do so are down in the show notes for you, as well as where to find her on social media. So go give her a follow and tell her that literary hype censure.

00;42;26;09 - 00;42;33;18
Unknown
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hub podcast. Give us some stars, leave a comment and share it with a friend.

00;42;33;20 - 00;42;36;07
Unknown
Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype Podcast.