Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to a time to thrill. It's me, your host, Amy Austin. It is April.
I recorded this early. I am actually not here in Los Angeles at this time. I should be in Peru, either in Lima or visiting Machu Picchu crossing stuff off the bucket list post Covid for sure.
This month I have the pleasure of interviewing USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Forster.
I have actually never met Rebecca in person, although I did get to see her on while I recorded this because I actually did this on video, which I usually don't do. There's no video available, but it's actually nice to see people and there's enough bandwidth for it these days, which is great. Rebecca is a best selling author of legal thrillers and okay, I ironically have not met her. She probably lives like less than 20 miles from me and for many, many years people are like, you have to meet Rebecca. She writes legal thrillers. She lives in southern California.
She used to attend OCC Orange county chapter of RWA actually, which no longer exists.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Well, that's a whole different conversation.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: But she used to attend meetings and like a lot of us, she was first published writing romance.
I used to attend OCC RWA meetings as well, but we did not cross paths. She travels a lot, rivaling my own travel. She spends a lot of time in Albania and obviously, you know, I spend a lot of time in Hungary, but given the amount of travel, we did not cross paths post interview, I'll be sure to rectify that. It was a great conversation. So usually before I record, I talk to the people I interview, probably for far too long. I usually talk to them maybe 20 minutes before, maybe like 20 minutes after. I have some great conversations. I know a lot of them very well and it's a great time to catch up. And not every conversation needs to be recorded and aired for public consumption. In this interview, however, we started talking and I looked up and I don't know, maybe 30 minutes had passed. And so I did the Mark Marin special of recording mid conversation. So when we started recording, we had talked about a little bit about our publication journeys in romance. We had had those conversations about the Orange county chapter of Romance Writers of America. And when you come in, we'll be discussing the publication path and the start in romance.
I love everything about this conversation. It's so fascinating. She's actually the first legal thriller author I think I've spoken to who is not a lawyer, her husband is a judge. And so it was a super interesting, she has a super interesting perspective. I've read her books the Josie Bates series years ago, the Finn O'Brien series. I've only read what I was talking online about. The thing I love about Harry Bosch and Michael Conley's stories is that I swear to God, this happens so often. I am driving and listening to his books on audiobook, and I am driving down the same street or freeway that he's talking about in the book. To be frank, he probably covers a small swath of Los Angeles. I live in a small swath of Los Angeles, and there is a lot of overlap. So that's probably what happens. Last time I was actually driving down Santa Monica Boulevard taking a ride on King's, which is a way to cut through if you're going to go to a certain grocery store. And his character lives farther down the road where there's some apartments, I usually turn in the grocery store. Sometimes I'll go down farther because there's a restaurant actually called the King's Road Cafe that I used to go to all the time. Pre Covid, not so much now, but one of the things when I was talking about that online, Rebecca's like, well, you should check out Finn O'Brien because he's in Los Angeles, which is true. So Jersey Bates lives in Hermosa beach, which is a beach community just south of the city. To be frank, you could bike there a lot faster than you could drive there. I don't think I've driven down there in years, but I will bike there often because you can bike there. Maybe like 20 minutes to drive and park would take half your day. So what I love about her books is that they're set locally. My legal thrillers are not set where I live. They're set where I lived for a brief period of time. The book time has exceeded how much I lived in Cleveland by so much.
So without further ado, let's dip into this conversation with bestselling author Rebecca Forster.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Wait, but can I go back? I have a question.
Okay.
So how many romances before the first rejection?
[00:05:23] Speaker C: Probably four before the first rejection.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Okay, then. Women's fiction. Okay, so I'm going to be honest. Women's fiction is my love. Like, it's my favorite genre of all time. If I had to choose anything in the world, that would be it.
I love it. I love it. I love it.
[00:05:42] Speaker C: You're doing legal thrillers. Is that true?
[00:05:44] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Because women's fiction did not work for me money wise. Money wise? Money wise, I love money wise.
[00:05:50] Speaker D: I totally get it.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Women's fiction. So is there a reason why you didn't stay in women's fiction. How many women's fiction titles did you write?
[00:06:00] Speaker C: Let me see.
I think I did five women's fiction titles.
Okay.
The thing with women's fiction is it really satisfied a need in me creatively to have more leeway with characterization and plots and the way a book was structured, because, as you know, with category romances, they have a very strict structure.
[00:06:27] Speaker D: Of what has to happen.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: A lower word count, let's say, because the first couple I did were 60,000 words, I think.
[00:06:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I was doing the 75,000 harlequin Americans, Harlequin intrigue.
So did a couple of those and then moved over. And there was a category at Kensington that was called lucky in love, which actually, the premise was really cool. It was, if somebody comes into money, how does their life change? And it didn't have to be a lot of money. It could be finding a dollar. It could be whatever. I thought that was an awesome premise, so I did that. But the women's fiction, I am not really a fan of happy endings.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: I don't mean to laugh, but that's sometimes been a problem in my writing. Yes.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: You know what? I had a funny feeling might be speaking to a kindred spirit here.
I don't think life is like that. I think it's always the draw. There's always someone who, if not devastated by the ending, it's at least a little sad, a little this, a little that. I liked being able to work toward more realistic endings. That satisfied me. So women's fiction satisfied the need in me to do that. But it also gave me an opportunity to explore if I had a talent outside of a very structured need in literature. And so I loved being able to have the multiple points of view, multiple characters, not really. I mean, always a hero or heroine, but subplots that were quite intricate. So I cut my teeth on a longer form book in women's fiction. But I've always found always, this is well before I started writing. I've always found the justice system to be really exciting, whether it's police or FBI, DEA, the court system. And this was even before I met my husband. But when I met my husband, it just blossomed. And these were the stories I wanted to write, because when we married, he was a federal prosecutor specializing in organized crime and terrorism.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:49] Speaker C: And so I had a lot of experiences as a peripheral player in his show that were really interesting. When your husband's picked up by a helicopter and taken to a safe city and you don't where he is it's really exciting. And I thought, you know what? I love that little adrenaline rush, and I want to put that in my books. And so for me, if I start.
[00:09:16] Speaker D: With a kernel of a law or.
[00:09:20] Speaker C: An ethics question or whatever it is, sometimes it doesn't always translate to courtroom drama, but it translates to human drama because we all want to feel like we're on a level playing field. And that always makes for a great story when that playing field kind of tips and goes topsy turvy. So I was very thrilled to segue into thrillers. It was happenstance, it was fate. It was getting fired from women's fiction because I wouldn't put people into bed. And I've never been good with sex scenes, but I can murder anybody.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:03] Speaker D: I have so many questions.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: So how many romances did you end up writing?
[00:10:07] Speaker C: You're talking 40 years ago. So let me think.
I'm going to say there were eight categories.
[00:10:17] Speaker D: Romances, four or five women's fiction.
[00:10:22] Speaker C: And now there's been 20.
[00:10:26] Speaker D: I think, 20 thrillers close to.
[00:10:30] Speaker C: Although I did take a moment. I wrote a trilogy of a chiclet.
[00:10:36] Speaker D: Trilogy for my mom.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: She was 85. And she said to me, why don't you ever write a book without bodies in it? And I thought, mom, for you. So I wrote her a trilogy for her birthday. And it's called the day Bailey Devlin's horoscope came true. The day Bailey Devlin picked up a penny, and the day Bailey Devlin's ship came in. And I used her dad, her, her dad, my grandfather, as sort of the grit and the oyster. And it was a lot of fun. So that's the only time I've done anything outside of thrillers for probably the last 20 years.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Okay, well, let me say this. The reason I started writing thrillers, it was the first book I wrote. So the first book I wrote at that point, I'm having a very Pat Conroy moment, but mirrored the kind of work I was doing at the time. So I had just started practicing law, and I wrote about the foster care system.
That was my first book. But when it didn't sell, then I moved on to romance. That's why.
Because I had an agent. The whole, like, I feel so dated. Because I remember getting the contract from the agent by FedEx.
Oh, my God.
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Of course. I wrote my first books on typewriters and had to rock them.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: So, yeah, so it was very exciting, but it didn't pan out because at the time, and this is the thing you had just been touching on before we started recording. They said to me, so this was early, mid 90s.
They didn't think people were in. I don't even know if this was before Elizabeth George. It's certainly well before Tana French, but there was a sense that people wanted.
[00:12:27] Speaker D: Men to write thrillers.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: So it was Grisham, Patterson, Baldachi.
[00:12:34] Speaker D: The.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Guy who lives over here on Beverly gun, whose name I just. Kellerman.
[00:12:38] Speaker D: Kellerman. Kellerman.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Jonathan Kellerman lives.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: I didn't know Kellerman lives here. Wow, that's interesting.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: He lives next door to my old vet. That's the only reason I know.
So we talked about books. My vet's like, my next door neighbor is Kellerman.
That's the only reason. But. So that was the response I got after going out with an agent who at the time was. She still does well at the time, did well, and I was pretty devastated, but I didn't. So it took me years to come back to thrillers. So what year did you then started publishing thrillers? Because I think I didn't come back.
[00:13:15] Speaker D: To it until I want to independent publishing.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: So ten years later, twelve years later.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: My youngest son's birthday. I'm always a month off. So asking me these pointed questions here is tough.
[00:13:27] Speaker D: I want to say 90, somewhere around there.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: I'll have to honestly look it up. The first one, I remember this specifically, the first one was beyond malice, and I had gone to a conference in San Francisco that. I actually didn't go to the conference. I just had a friend there, and I was there to meet her.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Let's meet you in the bar.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: I was sitting on a planter thing, and this lady sat down next to me and she looked really exhausted. And we just sort of exchanged pleasantries, and I said, oh, are you here for the conference? Yeah. I said, oh, are you a writer? No, I'm vice president in charge of blah, blah, blah for, who was it? Not Macmillan, anyway, some big. I said, oh, you know, my ears pricked up.
[00:14:24] Speaker D: And I said, do you know thrillers?
[00:14:28] Speaker C: Legal thrillers? She goes, yeah, we do. And then she left. And I left. And so I ended up writing her a letter saying, oh, wow, it was so nice of you. She to talked me and agreed to see my synopsis.
I figured, look, it's a synopsis, I'm not dropping a whole book on her, right? I sent her the synopsis and I didn't think she'd remember from Adam who I was, so she wouldn't remember that. She never really asked me for this thing. Anyway, turned out I ended up getting the best advance I'd ever gotten in my life. And it was know, this whole business sometimes is know, getting that wrong agent at the wrong time or the wrong agent at the right time. It's all tough, but I remember that so well, sitting with that woman and thinking, okay, I'm going to go for it. I just want somebody to read one of my thrillers.
[00:15:26] Speaker D: But to your point about men at that time, I did have a long.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Time with Kensington writing for them and they had me change my name to initials because.
And it never felt.
[00:15:47] Speaker D: And at a certain point I just.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Went, you know, this is kind of silly. I am who I am. You either like the book or you don't like the book, right. But yeah, it seems like you and I have had a number of the same experiences.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I guess publishing is what it is.
I want to ask you because you were talking about the social component. So recently, this is so far afield. I went to a screener for a bulgarian entry into the oscars. It did not make it. It was not nominated, but it was a really great movie. But one of the things the director said during the talk, before or after the screener, I don't know.
He said that what he wanted to do was enact social change by telling people stories.
And I was like, oh, that's so interesting. I don't know if I want. When I started writing, I don't think I was trying to enact social change. I'm not suggesting that my books are trying to do that, but I do like touching upon those social issues. And some of my favorite reader emails are, I had no idea the x, y or z of the justice system was like that. This is fascinating. And I didn't know that people got treated this way in this little niche area of the law. And that is something I appreciate. I would not say at the outset that's what it is. But now that I'm writing book 15, or whatever it is I do think about before I write the book, I'm not like a message person. I'm not trying to get across a message parable or something. But I do think a little bit about what is it I'm touching on. And this one, I think the one I'm writing now is probably domestic abuse and defenses to that. But we'll see. I don't know where it's going to go. I'm only 40,000 words in, so let me not say that. But I do think about those things.
[00:17:41] Speaker D: But are those like, okay, let me say this.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Years ago, I had to go look in my Kindle to see when I bought it. I bought, like, the first Josie Bates book, six, seven. Not yesterday.
[00:17:56] Speaker D: You know what I mean?
[00:17:57] Speaker C: Hostile witness is about 18 years old.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I bought it a number of years ago. I was like, when did I buy this? But they'll tell you on Kindle.
[00:18:11] Speaker C: I can't believe that it remains as popular as it is. But I have my thoughts wide.
[00:18:17] Speaker D: But go ahead.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: But the first thing she's touching upon is one of the things I'm interested in is sort of how the legal.
[00:18:25] Speaker D: System deals with, I don't want to.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Say children, maybe children, maybe. That's what I want to say.
[00:18:30] Speaker D: Not how it manages it. But.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Was the catalyst, the social issue, the legal issue, the intersection of them, or what was the catalyst for the kinds of thrillers that you have ended up writing?
[00:18:46] Speaker D: Well, every book I write has a.
[00:18:50] Speaker C: Basis in fact, whether it's personal or it's something on the periphery of my life, whatever it may be. And so that particular book, what inspired me was my husband was a young judge. He had just gotten out of service in us attorney's offices for many years and now had transitioned over to become a judge. And one of the cases he had was, and this was so many years ago. Nowadays, this is pretty accepted practices. But back then, he had a juvenile, a 16 year old juvenile, being tried as an adult. It was one of the first times this had happened. And he seldom ever discusses his work with me, I mean, truly ever.
But when I question him about this, because a lot of times his cases would be in the newspaper. I mean, he did part of the OJ. He did Suge Knight death Road records. He did the billionaire boys club. So, you know, I was kind of used to seeing it, and I would read about his things in the newspaper.
[00:20:01] Speaker D: And this time, he know, if I.
[00:20:06] Speaker C: Sentence him to life in prison, it's a death sentence. And I think for the first time, I realized that my husband was not quite as removed from his job as he liked to think he was, because here was a 16 year old kid.
[00:20:20] Speaker D: Who had murdered three people as a gang jump.
[00:20:25] Speaker C: And now it was up to Steve to say, you're going to prison for the rest of your life, and you're 16, and you're going to adult prison. And that really got me thinking, how do I feel about this? I mean, obviously, the crime was horrendous. It was an adult crime, no doubt about it. And yet, I had to start thinking, does chronology mean anything here? Does the fact that you really are only 16 years old mean anything. And so a lot of times when I write these books, I'm kind of working stuff out in my head, not just character relationships, because I really love sort of delving into what people think, what characters think about family and loyalty and honor and all those things, because I think those things, loyalty and honor, are easily set aside. If there is something you want or something you need right away that you can just say, I'll come back to the good stuff later.
Okay, particular book.
And honestly, I still don't know what.
[00:21:34] Speaker D: I feel about it.
[00:21:35] Speaker C: I still do not know. I think if I was a victim of that crime, of course I'd want that kid to hang even if he was twelve.
[00:21:44] Speaker D: But I'm an outsider looking in.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: So I kind of tried to work all the angles of that story and make sure that everybody who had an opinion had a voice through the characters. And people do have strong opinions about that. A lot of people will say, that's only a child. It's only a child. Well, no, not really.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: But as you're sitting here, I actually don't have a conclusion.
[00:22:10] Speaker D: I have thought about it because I.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Because it comes off in life.
[00:22:16] Speaker D: Oh, my God.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: On one hand, I know that children's brains aren't fully formed until they're in their mid 20s. So there's that. And I have a 14 year old, and you look and you go, this is a long road ahead. And then on the other hand, there's always the power of the crime. But then I worry about punishment in our system and some states being different than others, punishment is really bad, and it's sort of just like throwing people away. And then on the other hand, at least what comes up? And I've talked about this in my book. When I was practicing law, when I was doing child abuse and neglect, dependency, they called it, you would sit there and they would be like, these kids have horrible lives. We need to do x, y or z, whether it's remove them, not remove them, put them in this program, put them in juvenile hall, which at the time was twofold. It was also punishment, but it was separate for housing children, which I don't.
[00:23:07] Speaker D: Think they do that anymore.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: So they would say this, and then I would walk across the street and be in adult court not ten minutes later. And the judge would say, well, what could you expect? The person was in foster care. And I was like, so you've set up a system where, you know, the people are ultimately going to commit some kind of crime and also be incarcerated.
[00:23:27] Speaker D: But we don't have.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Okay, what I want is I want the prevention part. And I don't have an answer for what happens after the crime is committed or what happens punishment wise. What I can see is, well, let's just fix it when they're little, and that's not what's happening. And then I get bogged down in that. But I don't have an answer to the ultimate question.
[00:23:48] Speaker D: But the thing is, it all sounds.
[00:23:53] Speaker C: Wonderful to say, let's get into the preventing part. And I think through our books, through what we write, how we think, we have to address all these things in fiction.
[00:24:04] Speaker D: But frankly, with our experience and the.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: Way our brains work, we know that what we're drawing on is real life. And here's the problem. In real life, our country is huge.
We have many different cultures within our country.
No matter what you do, when you.
[00:24:23] Speaker D: Have a monster that big.
[00:24:29] Speaker C: You can't micromanage at the early stages and say, we're going to fix the motivation when they're children, because you have too many realities. And this is something that I feel, too, when I'm writing. It's like the realities are we have poverty, we have governmental systems that even if they have the best of intentions, you can't just throw money at these things. You have to find quality people who will rise up and say, I'm going to be part of the educational system.
[00:25:04] Speaker D: And do that in good faith, not.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Have a little money. Yeah, I know, right?
[00:25:09] Speaker C: You can't throw more money at this. And you and I traveled the world enough to see that we're not the only ones with the problem. But when I look at other countries, one of the factors it comes down to is other countries are so much smaller than ours. Our state alone, California, is as big as some of the countries that I travel in, and it's more manageable. And there are also cultural aspects where family is more revered still, although I find that crumbling a bit, given the Internet and everything. But there are cultural differences regarding education, regarding care and service to your elderly and your young.
And I've discussed this a lot with friends who live overseas.
When you have that extended family structure where you have a grandparent who is honored and that grandparent cares for the young child along with its parents, and you have this incredible unit, it makes for a more solid structure. And it also allows for shame at doing something wrong when you have a broken apart society. As a lot of our statistics tell us, where do these kids really go for help?
[00:26:42] Speaker D: To a school that's overcrowded, to a church, but more than likely their parents.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: Aren'T attending a church.
We're just huge. We're just gigantic. And our states are gigantic. Our cities are gigantic.
I think it's a real problem. And I love exploring this in fiction.
[00:27:03] Speaker D: Because for the most part, I'm sorry.
[00:27:06] Speaker C: I'm going on and on, but I wonder if you think the same thing.
[00:27:10] Speaker D: Which is most people read one of.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: My books and think, oh, that's a great story. And maybe there's one or two who.
[00:27:18] Speaker D: Will write and say, I had this.
[00:27:20] Speaker C: Experience or my child was in the system or whatever it is. And so it doesn't matter if I'm thinking deeply about any point in my.
[00:27:30] Speaker D: Story or any plot mechanism that's for me to do. And if people see it and say.
[00:27:40] Speaker C: Wow, what a great thing to discuss.
[00:27:42] Speaker D: I think that's awesome.
[00:27:43] Speaker C: I count that a win.
[00:27:44] Speaker D: If they say, gee, that was a.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: Great story, I count that as a win, too.
[00:27:48] Speaker D: But for me, I always have to.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: Be inspired by something that's going on.
[00:27:53] Speaker D: That I think is injust on some.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Level that's so interesting, because I think we come from the same place, but I'm not sure if most thriller writers do. I don't know. I'd have to really think about that.
[00:28:07] Speaker C: Because I'd be curious.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: I'd be curious, too, because I never thought about, but that's where I come from. One of my books, it's like the foster system is was. I read about Ohio specifically, but, and they had a huge corruption scandal, and many of the people that I thought were not doing great things did go to prison, and there were all these indictments. So in some ways I feel vindicated. But it was like we had this, like, this system is bad, this judge is corrupt. And there were so many things that I was a young lawyer and I witnessed them, and you're sort of standing in a room and you're like, everybody's okay with this? Wait, what's going on? It was so fascinating to sort of be in that space where justice, it was like a meat grinder just kept going on and on and on. And the specific injustices were not dealt with.
[00:28:57] Speaker D: And I don't know if there's a.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Way to manage all of those, but that was pretty much the catalyst for.
[00:29:03] Speaker D: The book because I woke up, and.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: I'm not saying I was completely idealistic in law school and all of that, but I woke up and I was like, oh, this is a whole system that I'm just going to step into that has a whole lot of norms that I don't necessarily think are great and I'm not going to single handedly change them, but I would like to write about it. And also, I do get so 50% of my readers, I think are like, I've never heard of this. Oh, my God, is this true? I think now they google it, so it's a little different. And then 50% of my readers are like, at least people email me. Or like, oh, my God, I was caught on this system. Even a guy from Ireland who was in his eighty s was talking about the injustices in foster care. And Ireland has its own thing.
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Ireland was horrible, right?
[00:29:47] Speaker B: And he was like, oh, this reminds me of this. And these kinds of things do happen, and I'm glad that you write about it. So I do get those emails. The rest of the people, I think, just think it's a good story. I don't know. You get everything.
[00:29:59] Speaker C: No, I think so, too. And the fact is that, and I bet you're the same way, which is I am happy either way.
[00:30:06] Speaker D: Doesn't matter what you're going to take from my work.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: I don't think I'm some literary genius.
[00:30:13] Speaker D: What I do think is that I'm.
[00:30:16] Speaker C: Aware and I am curious and I look at stuff and I go court watching and I do things like graduated from the ATF and DEA Citizens Academy. I know what it's like to hold and fire weapons. I know what it's like to be an undercover cop. I know what it's like to see a meth lab. So I try to inform myself as much as possible, and it makes for great stories. So if someone's just saying, wow, that was exciting, it's wonderful. And I love that you have a focus on the foster care system. I think that is really interesting because it is so vital everywhere.
We need so desperately for that system to be appropriate and successful. And so far, it hasn't been in LA. What, are they closing two of our facilities?
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Yes. And they just reopened one and they're already having issues and they're about to either close it or deal with that again.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: Yes, of course they are. And again I go back to, it is too huge.
It is huge socially, with family structure, it's huge with permissiveness in terms of just the way society is now. There's so many things that you can point to and say, well, this is why. Well, it's not just one thing, it's a whole bunch of things. I think for me, though, I don't.
[00:31:43] Speaker D: Focus on one area.
[00:31:46] Speaker C: Like, I don't have kind of a standard bearing thing that says I really want to focus on the kids or I want to focus on abuse or that what has always fascinated me about any part of this is the one person against the system. How lonely it is, and I'll never commit a crime.
Know.
[00:32:16] Speaker D: No.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: The David and Goliath aspect is not to be.
[00:32:21] Speaker C: Think. I think my characters are heroic because it's one person who's willing to take the one person who is now caught up in the system and stand beside them. And that's what I would hope for. If it was me or someone I loved, one of my children, whatever it may be, I would want a champion. And I just don't see many of them these days.
[00:32:45] Speaker D: And so in fiction, I don't make.
[00:32:48] Speaker C: Being a champion easy. But that's where I want to believe. That's where my hope springs eternal, is that there are those really good moral and ethical people who will say, this is wrong and they may fight the fight and it may just be a minuscule part of everything. Whereas you're looking at it and you are fighting off a much bigger piece of the question, which is an in place system, that foster care system. And the little I know about it, it is terrifying how they're cut loose at 18.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: There's so many of those issues. Actually, I volunteered. One of the first things I did when I moved to LA, and this is 20 something years ago, is I volunteered at a house residence that helped children who had aged out of the system.
[00:33:38] Speaker D: Because, look, my son's 14.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: I can't imagine in 18 he'd be equipped, no offense to him, I love him, but equipped to go into the world as a fully formed adult and get a job and lease a car or lease an apartment and buy a car and all these other things that you need to be able to do. And so I worked at this house that helped people three or four years with a transition from one to another. And it is so hard. And even when I was working with kids in foster care, what I didn't realize, and this may be not true, maybe this is an east coast thing, I don't know if it's true here, that since they're wards of the state, they can't do a lot of things, like they can't drive because some of the early milestones or things that you would need to achieve to move toward adulthood, they're stifled or they can't do, and you're just like, wow, okay. But then you're going to turn them loose at 18. With not a lot of money and not a lot of resources, and what hope for the best and God knows.
[00:34:39] Speaker C: What kind of true education they've had, because they move around so often, right? Unless you have, again, that one person, that one teacher or whatever it is, who is willing to take that time with you. I agree with you. I could not imagine my know, I can't imagine myself, and I think I'm pretty self sufficient, but the terror of being cut loose like that, I give you a lot of credit.
[00:35:03] Speaker D: I looked into Casa, but Casa was.
[00:35:07] Speaker C: Just a serious, serious.
[00:35:12] Speaker D: And I just.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: Bottom line, as much as I'd like to think I'm that wonderful, I was not ready to make that kind of commitment, especially not with kids at home. And I just wasn't. I'm not sure I would have been good at it, because I would get really angry.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: I will say this. So I did it on these coast. And the reason that I was able to not continue doing is I moved. That was the biggest catalyst. So I had to let go of all the cases because I literally physically left the state. But it's a longer commitment than I thought. I was young, I don't know what I was thinking, but it's longer, it's harder.
There's so much. I mean, you're in court with them and you visit their family, and then you visit them in foster care, and they move around, and then there's pieces like, are they in therapy? Are they getting occupational therapy? If they have any special needs at all, are those being managed? And it is a lot of moving parts that even the most competent person would have difficulty managing. And I do appreciate. So I had a softball, I had the grandparents, I had a whole family structure in New York City when I was a kid growing up. And then also when I was 18, I was in college. So I had four years to sit around reading books and not be responsible for anything.
[00:36:28] Speaker D: Yeah, no, I hear you.
[00:36:31] Speaker C: I mean, when I realized, when people talk about privilege, the funny thing is.
[00:36:36] Speaker D: I didn't grow up with a lot of money. But the thing was, back then, parents.
[00:36:42] Speaker C: At least my parents didn't let you know that there were six kids in our family. I learned how to sew, because I didn't realize this until a lot later. They couldn't afford to go to the department store and buy stuff for all of us. So my mom taught us how to sew. We did all these things.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: So did I. I can still sew. My son was a mate. No, I made my son a chef costume one year for Christmas. I mean, Christmas for Halloween.
[00:37:06] Speaker D: And he was like, you can sew.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Like, I made the hat and everything. And he's like, you can sew. And I was like, I have a crap ton of skills. You'd be surprised what I had to do.
[00:37:14] Speaker C: I'm going to share this with you because you can now be in the club. So my adult children, one time, they were watching me. I don't know, I was probably sewing with my feet and cooking with my hands and hanging wallpaper with my teeth. And my older son says, mom, I admire you so much. You have all those old world skills.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: My son says it the same way, but I will say this. When he was three, I was tired. I don't know why I was tired. And at the time, my ex husband.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: I said.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: I said to my ex husband, go take him and bring home dinner. There's a greek restaurant down the street on Ventura Boulevard back then, and my son comes, he walks in the door and he goes, mommy. He's like, did you know there are places where you can get the food and it's already cooked?
And I was like, oh, honey, there's a whole world of food that's already cooked. Welcome. But I didn't realize that I cooked every meal. And he had never considered, I mean, he had been to restaurants as a kid. I just keep them. I don't think, if you notice, I.
[00:38:22] Speaker D: Get it.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: Bottom line. So we both had the same experience.
And I used to think privilege meant being wealthy, being powerful, being all these things. But what I realized was I grew up very privileged because I was given time to learn when I came home from school, I was given time to do my homework and help with my homework. And I was given skills that a lot of people don't have anymore. I never thought of it that way until I realized, wow, the privilege I have is being well rounded and able to look at the world and say, here's someone. Here's something I can write about that isn't as fair as the upbringing I had or isn't as fair as the opportunities I had and the opportunities. Even when I got married, I remember I was working a couple of jobs.
You just did what you had to do.
But it was a privilege because I knew I could do it because I.
[00:39:30] Speaker D: Had always had a safety net of.
[00:39:34] Speaker C: Emotional safety net, a family safety net, that kind of thing.
[00:39:38] Speaker D: So if I fell, I wasn't going.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: To fall very far because I had a home to go to. What about the people who never had that? And they have the streets to go to and what about. So privilege took on a whole other meaning for me as I actually moved.
[00:39:55] Speaker D: Forward, I was going to say, got older.
[00:39:58] Speaker C: I'm going to not say that as I moved forward in life because the heck with the age thing, I'm not doing that thing.
But my perspective changed, and my perspective changed because of writing, also because now I had to explore through characters, what do you think? What are your attitudes? What are you willing to do in life?
[00:40:20] Speaker D: And, wow, I count myself so lucky.
[00:40:24] Speaker C: To be able to do this, to have the leisure to make my living writing stories, thinking these thoughts, they may not be as deep as a philosopher, but I do see problems in the system and I do write about them, and they make for a great story, and I just wonder if anything's ever going to change, and probably not. I think you and I'll have a.
[00:40:48] Speaker D: Lot to write about forever.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: Yes. I don't.
How can I say this? I'm slightly disappointed in humanity sometimes. So I don't.
Driving well, no, I was driving a.
So as I was saying to you before. So I spent a lot of time in Budapest, and two years ago, the war with Ukraine started, and I was driving somewhere with my son, and he.
[00:41:11] Speaker D: Was like, why are you surprised?
[00:41:14] Speaker B: And I said, I'm disappointed because as humans, we know better.
[00:41:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: And he was like, but that's the nature of humanity. And I really struggle with the nature of humanity, but I go to plays and I went to theater and I went to ballet. And so you can watch the evolution of humans. Even with the phone, you're like, look at the technology and look at you on stage dancing, and look at all these things you can do, organized. And then also we're shooting people in the street.
[00:41:43] Speaker D: I don't know.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: I think 30 years ago, I thought at this age, we would have surpassed all of this and wars would have ended. I don't know. That's probably just very naive.
[00:41:51] Speaker D: I just felt like we knew better.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: We had the world wars, we had Vietnam, we had Korea, we had so many things. We had the 80s, we had the nuclear Cold war and all of this. And I was like, now we're past it. All right.
[00:42:06] Speaker C: I don't think it's naive at all. I think it speaks to a wonderful heart and mind that you can see that it is possible.
And I don't know, I think I'm.
[00:42:18] Speaker D: A little darker in that.
I think it isn't possible because human nature is just too darn complicated.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: And I think I'm coming to that conclusion, but I don't think I like that conclusion.
[00:42:37] Speaker C: Well, I don't like the conclusion. And sadly, because of that conclusion, as I get older, my universe shrinks and.
[00:42:45] Speaker D: It shrinks because I don't want to deal with it.
[00:42:52] Speaker C: I don't want to carry a white flag anywhere. I don't want to attack anybody for what they think. It just makes me sad. It makes me sad that we are still doing this, know, because does nobody look at history? And it's so true. History informs the present, and nobody is looking at the history of our wars. I was just in Vietnam and Cambodia, and it was a very fascinating trip on one hand. On the other hand, it had not been on my bucket list, and yet there we were. And so, of course, the Vietnam War is what I was thinking that's going to loom large over every experience I had in this country.
And that was actually not the case. It was very matter of factly looked at. We had an incredible guide who had been impacted horribly by the Vietnam War. And yet here he was with a bunch of Australians and people from the US and telling us about the impact of the war.
[00:43:55] Speaker D: And what he said was, there was war in Vietnam and it ended.
[00:44:01] Speaker C: And we said, let's pick ourselves up.
[00:44:03] Speaker D: And make ourselves better.
[00:44:05] Speaker C: And in Cambodia there was war and it was devastating. So people come and make things better.
There was a definite different.
[00:44:20] Speaker D: Vibe to.
[00:44:21] Speaker C: The two different countries. And I guess that's human nature in a nutshell, is like, if something happens to you, that's dramatic. Do you pick yourself up and move on, or do you hope for someone to come and make it better? And that's what our fiction does, is we're always exploring that question. And the reason we explore it is.
[00:44:39] Speaker D: Because that's what we see in the world.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: Yes, I do think so.
I have two webest series and a spin off, but my main character, and this is probably an evolution of my own thinking. I don't know how many books we went through before she looked up one day and she's like, nobody's coming here to save me, and I need to save myself.
I don't remember, maybe it was like book six. I looked up one day and I thought, oh, my God, nobody's going to save Casey. And I think she looked up and she was like, so I need to save myself. And she changed her practice and how she was living.
[00:45:11] Speaker C: I mean, pretty much that's kind of what it is. And I started out with the exact opposite in which my heroine was like, yeah, nobody is ever going to save me. And she was shocked when people did.
[00:45:24] Speaker D: Step up to the plate.
[00:45:26] Speaker C: And so both our characters come to the same conclusion, that they still have to stand on their own. 2ft. My younger son calls my main character's pension. He calls it hulking out. It's like, she's fine, she's fine, she's normal. She's normal. And then something really triggers her and bam, get out of the way. But I think both our characters, if that's the case, yours realizes no one's going to come save her. Mine assumes no one's going to come save her, which is really equally sad.
Then they both step up to the plate. And isn't that what we all do through our whole lives? I mean, when I think about it, I look back and I think, okay, there were moments of illness for me, and there were times to take care of elderly parents, and there were challenges all over the place. And at the time, do you really think about it?
[00:46:21] Speaker D: No.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: You may say, gee, I really want somebody to come and make this right. Bottom line, you got to make it right yourself. And you do and you move on.
Of course our characters are going to.
[00:46:32] Speaker D: Reflect what we do.
[00:46:34] Speaker C: I think, at least. I think so.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: No, I think so. Now that you're saying it, I think the impetus that at least my characters believe or not, or my belief, probably, that somebody who's going to come save you may stem from reading romance.
Well, I read everything and I still read everything. I read everything. But there was this sense in romance that somebody was going to save you from your loneliness, despair, bad family, I don't know. Bad town, bad job, whatever it was they were going to save you from. And I think that's sort of how I went into writing books, and I don't know how many I had to write before Casey looked up and thought, maybe nobody's going to save me. I really have to save myself. Because that's not a tragic backstory. She just has a not great backstory and not a huge support network.
[00:47:23] Speaker D: Oh, my God.
[00:47:24] Speaker C: If we wrote characters with good backstories, forget it.
[00:47:27] Speaker D: Who's going to read?
[00:47:28] Speaker C: Seriously? Come on, be honest. Nobody's going to read that.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: She had money and privilege and everything was fine, and then she stepped into the. I don't know how that would. I'd have to. Wow, that'd be a whole different book.
[00:47:41] Speaker C: But I got to meet this woman for sure.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: So what inspired Josie Bates? Because that's the first character, the first book of yours I read was, what is the hostile witness? The one on Edwin.
[00:47:56] Speaker D: And now working on book nine.
[00:47:58] Speaker C: Now for that series. And the funny thing is, I really thought Josie was gone, like book four. And for some reason, people just love her, readers just love her. So now book nine.
[00:48:13] Speaker D: Go ahead.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:48:15] Speaker C: She was inspired by a judge woman who actually did pay her way through college on a volleyball scholarship, and a really tall blonde woman. I just found her so interesting. I would not have thought her to become a judge when you look at her. And so I thought that was kind of an interesting background, and that's where it started. And my initial thought was to make Josie a woman's know. Female problems, female problems within the legal system, et cetera. And she was going to live. Where do I have her living? I had her living in Venice beach, in a condo.
[00:48:58] Speaker D: And the funny thing was, she was.
[00:49:00] Speaker C: So uninteresting, it was horrible.
I'm like, oh, why can't I get a handle on this character? So what I did was I went to Venice beach, and I walked from Venice.
[00:49:11] Speaker D: I kept walking.
[00:49:12] Speaker C: I walked through Manhattan beach and Hermosa beach, and I got to Hermosa beach, and I realized they have the volleyball tournaments every year, the ATP volleyball tournaments. And I thought, well, if she put her way through law school or college on a volleyball scholarship, why would she be living in Venice where everybody's smoking dope and just know she'd probably be out here playing volleyball, know, still being that kind of physical person that she needed to be. And then the other thing I realized was I had had her in a condo with security doors and stuff, just a nice condo by the beach, everybody loves that. But that completely took her out of any community, symbolically. I had closed off this character to much of anything. I limited her to women. I limited her in terms of neighbors. I limited her in terms of just about everything. So I completely switched her. I put her in her Mosa beach, I put her on one of the little walking streets in a house that she does the repairs herself, gave her a neighborhood community of the guy who runs the restaurant.
And suddenly it was amazing, because I had tried and tried to sell that book, and it would not sell.
[00:50:42] Speaker D: The minute I gave her a life, it was like, boom.
[00:50:46] Speaker C: And the offer was three books, and it was never supposed to be anything more than a standalone.
[00:50:51] Speaker D: But it just shows you that the.
[00:50:55] Speaker C: Key to reading is not your incredibly inventive plots. The key to a reader's heart, and an author's heart is in the people you create, the characters. Yeah, they have to be sympathetic on some level. Even your villains need motivation and sympathy. And I don't mean sympathy in terms of op or you. I mean sympathy in terms of the reader understanding.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:22] Speaker C: Why they do what they do. So anyway, it was a funny story.
It was a funny moment in time.
[00:51:29] Speaker D: For me in that it's sort of.
[00:51:34] Speaker C: A walk through the beach towns kind of changed everything. And I got this series now that people really somehow connect with. And it was just super cool. It really was.
[00:51:50] Speaker B: Okay, so Josie has number of books, but then what was the impetus for having the Finn O'Brien?
[00:51:55] Speaker D: Because.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Well, I know why I did a spinoff, but what made you switch gears, as it were? Well, and also be in LA. More. I mean, be in LA as opposed to the beach communities, whatever.
[00:52:10] Speaker C: Actually, it's funny. Josie Bates is to me, it's like a series saga, because each book folds into the next book and the spotlight is on one of the four different characters. So, Hannah, Josie Archer, each of those books kind of does that.
[00:52:28] Speaker D: You have to read pretty much in sequence.
[00:52:33] Speaker C: I needed sort of a palate cleanser, and I really wanted to try something new and different. And I had just taken the ATF Citizens Academy and the DEA Citizens Academy, and I really love law enforcement. So I wanted to do something more with a detective, a more crime thriller, investigatory type book.
When I was working, I used to drive surface streets a lot to work in Hollywood from where I was living, I lived in Mar Vista, and sometimes the freeway was just too much.
[00:53:13] Speaker B: I did that drive yesterday.
[00:53:17] Speaker D: And came.
[00:53:19] Speaker C: Fascinated by these little micro communities in.
[00:53:25] Speaker D: You know, a lot of people write.
[00:53:27] Speaker C: About LA, but how many people have been to little Ethiopia, which is literally a two block sort of enclave with the most incredible back history? It's just amazing. So little Ethiopia. How many people know Richland farms, a farm area, exists in Los Angeles? How many people have ever been to the brewery in East LA? All these little tiny micro communities?
[00:53:52] Speaker D: I went for research for a book.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: Like right before COVID actually, my son.
[00:53:57] Speaker C: Used to live at the mean, what a trip.
[00:54:01] Speaker D: Talk about trip.
[00:54:03] Speaker C: Oh, my God. And do you know about the suicide, sort of quote unquote suicide murder that took place on the largest unit? If not, I'll tell you about it sometime. Anyway, so those were inspiring. What inspired the character is most of these communities deal with some either right in the heart of it or peripheral immigrant communities. And so my brother in law came to this country when he was 17, didn't speak English, and he's one of.
[00:54:38] Speaker D: The toughest, kindest hearted, toughest, most honorable people I know.
[00:54:44] Speaker C: And I thought he was a great cop. And he looks just like Finn O'Brien. Shaved head.
[00:54:50] Speaker D: I just loved him.
[00:54:51] Speaker C: I made Finn Irish because Croatian. Somehow I couldn't figure out how to write a Croatian. My mother also came when she was 17 to this country and they had had a lot in common and they would often talk about how they had 1ft in two countries. And I thought, what an interesting dynamic to have a cop who is so committed to being an american citizen and yet can still remember his childhood and growing up years in another country. And so that dynamic of an immigrant cop in these tiny little communities that are often overlooked, it just seemed like a perfect fit. And these tales are a bit grittier. A lot grittier. And they are also episodic. So they're not like a saga. These are any book. And like reacher, read anyone.
[00:55:49] Speaker D: Because.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: I've written police officer characters. So usually my books have three main characters and my main person, and then it's a saga ever. People come in and out and in and out.
[00:56:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:56:04] Speaker D: But I've written, so I've written maybe.
[00:56:07] Speaker B: Well, I know I have a cough now. Lauren Logan. I have to think. I may have written another one. I'm not sure, but I find it. I don't find it.
[00:56:13] Speaker C: It's hard.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: Because Josie Bates is so different than Finn O'Brien. And did you find it hard to make that switch to cop law enforcement, more investigative, because they both have more power and more responsibility.
[00:56:31] Speaker C: They have power in different ways.
And one of these days, I want to write a book where they actually merge at some point, those two characters, right?
[00:56:41] Speaker D: I think.
[00:56:42] Speaker C: No, that's a tough question.
[00:56:47] Speaker D: They both have the basic, basically the.
[00:56:50] Speaker C: Same qualities and they are both a tad combative.
[00:56:56] Speaker D: But I don't know.
[00:57:00] Speaker C: To me, in my brain, they are.
[00:57:03] Speaker D: So unique in terms of their personal lives that.
[00:57:12] Speaker C: It didn't seem hard at all. And also, again, I go back to what I think makes a good novelist, whether it's commercial fiction or whatever. Literary fiction, just curiosity. So when I do the fin books, I'm, like, haunting over at the police station and talking to friends who are in that part of law enforcement. And when I'm doing Josie, I'm down court watching, and I can't do them both at the same time. I have to literally have a month or two and then another one.
I don't know. Have you ever found that sometimes you.
[00:57:49] Speaker D: Just are like, your brain is there.
[00:57:52] Speaker C: And you don't know how it got there?
[00:57:53] Speaker D: So maybe that's the answer. I don't know how it got there.
[00:57:59] Speaker B: Okay. So then I guess this is okay. I'm going to ask you, because I haven't been to court in a long time. I don't think I have to think.
[00:58:04] Speaker D: About, but I have a whole lot.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: Of feelings about court. What is it that you. So many feelings. But that's because I've been there as a participant in the process.
What is it that you get from court watching? Because I have so many.
The only time I'm in court when I'm watching is when I'm waiting for a hearing or, and I haven't practiced law in 15 years, so it's not like I did this yesterday. When you're waiting for a hearing and you see other things go on or things like that or arraignments or sometime when there's, like, a lot of people, because individually, when you represent people, you're usually the only people there, so there's nothing to see.
[00:58:39] Speaker D: But what is it that you get from it?
[00:58:43] Speaker B: I have no idea.
[00:58:45] Speaker C: And it's so funny because I completely get what you're saying, because you know what you know, and you're trained in the law, and you are a lawyer at heart, and I'm a legal voyeur.
If I was waiting for a hearing, if I knew I had to write a brief or I knew I had to do this stuff, there is no way I would have the same perspective on court watching that I do now. And the reason it's so good for me is I can sit there and I can watch everybody. And I've got no skin in the game, nor do I no skin in.
[00:59:24] Speaker B: The game other than writing.
[00:59:27] Speaker C: But I don't have any reason for being there except to be fascinated by all the players from the clerk, who honestly, I think knows as much as the judge, if not more, sometimes to the bailiff. And you have to wonder what is going through this guy's mind or this woman's mind.
And would they be prepared to move if they had to? I don't know. I love listening to opening arguments. You never want me on your jury because the prosecutor will get up, give an opening statement, and I will go, oh, absolutely. This guy is totally guilty. Then the defense attorney gets up and gives their opening statement, and I'm like, oh, the poor guy.
For me, it's like being in one of those pits where you jump in.
[01:00:25] Speaker D: All the colored balls.
[01:00:26] Speaker C: Everybody in that courtroom is a colored ball to me. I mean, they really are. I am fascinated by the way they move, by the way they speak. Even I can tell double speak.
[01:00:37] Speaker D: I mean, I heard one guy once.
[01:00:39] Speaker C: And I just thought, that's amazing. I couldn't have written dialogue that is that convoluted.
And yet here he is without a care in the world, trying to sell his nonsense to a judge who looks like he's about ready to just fall asleep. And I just find it fascinating. So everything you feel when you come out of that watching for a while, say, watching from morning till the noon break, it becomes a part of the story, it becomes a part of the place you put people in, whether it's hot or cold, whether or not you have a clerk that's engaged, whether or not you have a defendant who's ready to blast off or could care less. The family, when families are in that court. It's incredible.
[01:01:33] Speaker D: And I just watched a civil trial, and I didn't think that was going.
[01:01:38] Speaker C: To be as exciting as a criminal trial. But frankly, it was a little more exciting because the stakes were so high.
[01:01:46] Speaker D: It was millions and millions of dollars.
[01:01:50] Speaker C: And millions of dollars for a person who was paralyzed from the neck down. So you've got a car company who.
[01:02:00] Speaker D: Has eight attorneys at its table, and you have the poor plaintiff who is in a wheelchair and makes it move.
[01:02:10] Speaker C: By blowing into a tube a young person.
[01:02:13] Speaker D: And you think to yourself, how can.
[01:02:15] Speaker C: This car company even fight it?
[01:02:17] Speaker D: And yet that trial turned out, the.
[01:02:20] Speaker C: Jury found for the defense.
[01:02:25] Speaker D: And I was just like, I'm stunned.
[01:02:28] Speaker C: I'm stunned.
[01:02:29] Speaker D: But you know what?
[01:02:30] Speaker C: When I look back, it was my feeling of do something for this person. It wasn't my feeling of what does the law say? It was my feeling of, please, please. How can you look at this and not just rain money down on this person?
[01:02:44] Speaker D: And that's the novelist looking in.
[01:02:48] Speaker C: I could have written a different ending. It would have been fine. But this was real life.
[01:02:52] Speaker D: And quite frankly, real life is pretty.
[01:02:55] Speaker C: Darn dramatic at times.
[01:02:57] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:02:57] Speaker B: And I'm thinking, I don't know if I would have written that ending because people would have been very dissatisfied. But now, as a lawyer, you know what I'm wondering? I'm wondering what?
[01:03:04] Speaker D: Are you kidding?
Across the room?
[01:03:09] Speaker C: No, not Malcolm. But in real life, it was interesting to see. But you're a very smart person. I didn't learn that for a long time. The first time I got angry letters about, why did you end this this way? I thought, oh, maybe I should have thought twice.
[01:03:24] Speaker B: Well, no, I only know because I got the angry letters. Trust me, I like an ambiguous ending in women's fiction. My readers did not like an ambiguous ending in women's fiction. So that's. Leave it.
[01:03:36] Speaker C: There's fiction.
[01:03:41] Speaker D: Have a fairly resolute, if not happy.
[01:03:45] Speaker C: At least satisfactory ending.
[01:03:47] Speaker B: Yes, that was my problem with that. Okay. So the question that's going through my mind is now, as an attorney, I'm wondering, what settlement offer did the plaintiff turn down?
And this is why I found being a lawyer hard, because you can't know because you can't influence the trade. Settlement negotiations are secret, but not secret, but fairly confidential.
But I'm dying to know because as.
[01:04:15] Speaker D: A plaintiff, I've had clients, and this.
[01:04:18] Speaker B: Is the hardest part about representing people. They make the decisions. But obviously you have greater knowledge, say to people, and I've gone to trial, and it's just very hard, you say to people, you're going to go to trial. But you understand once that first juror is picked, this is like an a or b. There's not really a middle ground. Sometimes people will settle in the middle of trials. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but it's really like it's going to go one way or it's going to go another way. And I always feel, no, let me say this. Other attorneys have always said to me, this is why you get people to either plea or you get people to settle, because at least everybody gets something. But when people go to trial, it's like Vegas and they're rolling the dice and your client's going to be very upset if they don't get what they want.
[01:05:03] Speaker D: Exactly.
[01:05:04] Speaker C: It.
[01:05:05] Speaker D: Yeah. And that was terrifying.
[01:05:09] Speaker C: That's terrifying because to this day, I'll.
[01:05:12] Speaker D: Never forget that person because I had.
[01:05:16] Speaker C: Seen him in the hallway before I went in and I didn't think anything of it. And then he came into the courtroom and I'm like, oh, my God.
[01:05:25] Speaker D: And, you know, they had to have.
[01:05:29] Speaker C: Offered something, something decent. And my problem is I default. And I know what you're saying, that it's their call.
[01:05:41] Speaker D: But sometimes I think the attorneys, especially in personal injury, will push thinking this.
[01:05:49] Speaker C: Settlement is going to be huge, huger if we go to trial.
[01:05:52] Speaker D: Huge.
[01:05:54] Speaker C: And that's where it's a shame. I think that way, but I do think that way. And it certainly makes for a good story in fiction. But sadly, it also happens in real life. Now, granted, that person could say, no, let's not. But honestly, an attorney is like a doctor.
[01:06:13] Speaker D: Doctor, if you do this operation, will I survive?
[01:06:18] Speaker C: More than likely, yes. And the doctor may be thinking, it's never been done before, but I bet I can do it. It's like I don't know.
[01:06:26] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:06:28] Speaker C: This is why this is so fascinating, don't you think? I mean, I love that you know exactly what you're looking at. I love that I don't know exactly what I'm looking at because both those.
[01:06:41] Speaker D: Perspectives create an interesting.
[01:06:48] Speaker C: Really tightly woven view of what justice is.
I think we both come to the same conclusion. We just come at a different angle.
[01:06:57] Speaker B: Yes.
And I think about this when I write because I'm better now at understanding a satisfying conclusion. But I still struggle with what justice means for these characters in this case, and especially when there's death, because obviously you can't bring people back to life.
[01:07:16] Speaker C: Right?
[01:07:16] Speaker B: I don't know how. And given. Well, I think he did it, but he's the only one. Yeah, but if given that, then what does justice look like? Is everybody ever going to be satisfied?
[01:07:31] Speaker D: Is it enough?
[01:07:32] Speaker B: Did they get enough money? Did they get enough time? Did they find out who the killer really is? Was the guy who was sentenced maybe didn't do it? There's so many ambiguities and.
[01:07:46] Speaker D: I don't.
[01:07:46] Speaker B: Know if there's a way to have justice be just all the time.
[01:07:49] Speaker C: No, of course, no.
But that's okay, because again.
[01:07:56] Speaker D: It'S life.
[01:07:58] Speaker C: And if we tried to paint that rosy picture, I don't know if our readers would really be that satisfied. Because one thing I found, readers are super smart people. They really are.
[01:08:11] Speaker D: And if we somehow pulled a happy.
[01:08:16] Speaker C: Just ending after writing 400 pages or whatever it is of exploration of whatever the problem is, and we just go.
[01:08:26] Speaker D: Okay, there you go.
[01:08:28] Speaker C: It's fine. The person you wanted to win won. I don't think they'd be satisfied. I think it's much more satisfactory when you walk out, your character walks out on the courtroom steps or out of jail or out of wherever they are.
[01:08:42] Speaker D: And they look and they're either accepting that they did what could be done.
[01:08:50] Speaker C: I think for our characters, the fact that they worked as hard as they could and they went up against the system, that's pretty cool. But it's never going to be happy.
[01:09:03] Speaker B: And I'm okay with that. For thrillers and maybe most genre readers, maybe most thriller genre readers are okay with that, actually. I get no pushback about those endings. Let me take that back. I get no pushback about the endings. It was the women's fiction romance I got the biggest pushback with.
[01:09:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
I think women's fiction readers are truly, they don't care how much angst you.
[01:09:24] Speaker D: Have between the beginning and the end.
[01:09:27] Speaker C: It can be, in fact, they love all that. Let's have all these challenges, just like any other drama.
[01:09:36] Speaker D: But in the end, they better be.
[01:09:40] Speaker C: Able to go to sleep at night thinking those characters that they've fallen in.
[01:09:43] Speaker D: Love with are sleeping well, right?
[01:09:47] Speaker C: That's what they need to know.
[01:09:49] Speaker D: And I still like my women's fiction.
[01:09:51] Speaker C: Books, but again, they did not have happy endings either. And I think they were a primer for what I was meant to do.
I just think this was always my genre, but a lot of things kept me from it. Not the least of which was the feeling that women, early on, when I started, didn't do this kind of thing.
Certainly a woman who was not a.
[01:10:14] Speaker D: Lawyer or a cop did not do.
[01:10:17] Speaker C: This kind of thing. And over the years, that changed. But I will say something about women's fiction and romance. It is an amazing teeth cutting ground in that you learn so much about the craft of writing.
[01:10:34] Speaker B: True, don't you think?
[01:10:35] Speaker C: I mean, I learned so much that carried over into thrillers regarding when certain things had to happen within a book to keep the reader's interest, the different ways to begin a book. It's not really about the happy ending.
[01:10:52] Speaker D: It's about keeping that reader's attention.
[01:10:55] Speaker C: And, boy, the category romance.
[01:10:58] Speaker D: People who can continue to write 5100.
[01:11:03] Speaker C: Books within the parameters that very narrowly defined. Yes, I have the utmost respect for. I mean, it's incredible that they can stay fresh, and I think it's because they are so committed to loving that genre. They love it in the same way I really love thrillers. And so that's why I look back now, and I realized every single book I ever wrote turned into a thriller. In fact, the first romance, what was it? It was a defense attorney falling in love with a prosecutor, and it was a child pornography case. And I'm thinking, why did they buy this?
[01:11:44] Speaker D: This is terrible.
[01:11:47] Speaker C: So I think it was written on the wall. But I will be forever grateful to those editors who took the time to send me reams of editorial comments. And I learned so much. And it really bothers me when you.
[01:12:05] Speaker D: Do have people who are not in.
[01:12:07] Speaker C: The business do not read a lot, and they'll say, oh, romance. And they dismiss it. And it's like, you have no idea.
[01:12:15] Speaker B: I always want to tell them, you have no idea what it takes to write within very prescribed parameters just to start in the right place. It has to have a happy ending, but you have to have enough tension to carry through like 300, 200 and 5300 pages to pull people through to that ending. And that is no mean feat.
[01:12:36] Speaker D: And.
[01:12:36] Speaker C: Also, it's also the largest. I mean, not just category romance, but women's fiction romance. It is the largest market.
This drives fiction.
[01:12:48] Speaker D: And.
[01:12:50] Speaker C: That'S the only pet peeve I really have, because it's so systemic.
[01:12:56] Speaker D: I mean, people I know will just.
[01:12:59] Speaker C: Go, oh, somebody asked me what they say, oh, are you still doing that little romance thing? And I just wanted to pop him.
[01:13:05] Speaker B: I was like, no, I know.
[01:13:08] Speaker D: It doesn't matter what I'm writing.
[01:13:11] Speaker C: B, how dare you say it in that tone of voice. I have friends.
[01:13:16] Speaker B: No, still, occasionally. It happened a couple of weeks ago. Somebody said, oh, I heard you wrote bodice rippers. And I looked.
[01:13:24] Speaker D: I was like, is it 2024?
[01:13:26] Speaker B: Wait, what just happened here? I had to have a moment, and I thought, do I pull out all the billion dollar industry and 80% of the.
[01:13:34] Speaker D: And I was like, or do I.
[01:13:36] Speaker B: Just let this roll? And I think I.
[01:13:41] Speaker C: Used to just go ballistic and school everybody. And I realized that especially if you're at a cocktail party, that's not what people know.
There's no one around you.
Okay. But there's something about it, I guess. When I look back after all these years, and I realize the people who.
[01:14:08] Speaker D: Any writer is a one percenter, I mean, any writer, I don't care what.
[01:14:12] Speaker C: They'Re writing, because they stuck with it. They believed in themselves and nobody else did. And sometimes even their own families don't.
[01:14:19] Speaker B: Believe in what they.
[01:14:20] Speaker C: And there they are, and they are working hard, and a lot of times they're working for pittance. I mean, seriously, pittance. And they're turning out great work. It's sort of like being an actor and actress.
[01:14:35] Speaker D: It isn't easy, but I never hear.
[01:14:39] Speaker C: People vilify actors that way. But I do hear them vilify writers for what they choose to write. And all I want to say is, I'm going to chain you to a chair, and you can get up when you've got 300 pages.
[01:14:55] Speaker B: Totally fair.
Rebecca, I want to thank you so, so much for sitting down and talking to me today. So I'll end with this question.
Going forward, what is the most important element, I think, of stories that you want to tell. Given that you have a long history of telling stories and have told quite a few of them, what is it that you want to say to readers or what get across to readers as you move forward?
[01:15:29] Speaker C: Wow, that's a tough question.
[01:15:32] Speaker D: I guess the thing I always want.
[01:15:35] Speaker C: To know, and I'm so grateful when.
[01:15:37] Speaker D: People write and say it, is that they feel like if they were walking.
[01:15:44] Speaker C: Down the street, they would know Josie Bates or Hannah or Archer or Finn.
[01:15:50] Speaker D: If they met them.
[01:15:52] Speaker C: I want to know that.
And I keep trying, trying to make sure that the characterization is rich because I live with these people and love them, and I hope that that's reflective. And each know, I think it gets.
[01:16:09] Speaker D: Better and better in that these characters.
[01:16:13] Speaker C: Have a cohesive history. And I would love to think that people embrace them because they seem so real.
[01:16:21] Speaker D: So for me, it's always, I just.
[01:16:24] Speaker C: Want them to feel like the universe they spent a couple of hundred pages in is real. And it was satisfactory.
[01:16:32] Speaker D: I guess that's it.
Fair enough.
[01:16:35] Speaker B: I mean, that's fair enough. I don't disagree with you. What's so interesting is when I wrote that first book, it was never going to be a series. It was just a book about this one thing. And it's so fascinating to be at this point where we're, I don't know, maybe 1012 years have elapsed in her lifetime, in her book Lifetime.
[01:16:54] Speaker C: Right.
[01:16:54] Speaker B: And she's grown and the readers have.
[01:16:57] Speaker D: Grown with her, and I appreciate that.
[01:17:01] Speaker C: Different. My characters definitely grow. They simply don't age.
[01:17:07] Speaker B: Mine are aging. She's aging.
[01:17:09] Speaker D: She's like 38 now.
[01:17:11] Speaker C: I think I started them too late. She was already 40, so, man, she's staying at 40. Anybody else can get older, but not her.
[01:17:18] Speaker B: Oh, this reminds me of Harry Bosch, who I have some thoughts about.
[01:17:21] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go. That'll do it.
[01:17:23] Speaker B: He's getting old.
[01:17:24] Speaker C: This has been wonderful. Thank you so much. And I had no idea we were neighbors. I guess maybe I knew. I can't remember.
[01:17:30] Speaker B: Somebody told me. But then I stopped going to writers conferences nearly as much and seeking out people because I'm writing and traveling and having a know it's full time.
[01:17:40] Speaker C: I did the same thing. So it's lovely to meet up with somebody in the same neighborhood.
[01:17:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. It was so great talking to you. Thank you so much.
[01:17:49] Speaker C: Thank you. Bye bye.
[01:17:54] Speaker A: This has been a time to thrill with me, your host, author, Amy Austin. If you enjoyed today's episode, I hope you share, rate, and leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It will help others find and enjoy my conversations with brilliant women creators. Also, please hit the subscribe button on your podcast app. In addition to hosting this podcast, I'm the author of the Nicole Long series of legal thrillers. The first four books in Nicole long series are now live. You can download outcry, witness major crimes without consent, and the murders began to ereader right now. I'm also the author of the Casey court series of legal thrillers. These titles are available wherever books are sold, your local library, and also an audiobook. My next book, his last mistress, is available for pre order wherever you get your book. You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook at legal thriller author. You can find me on TikTok at social thriller author. You can also find this podcast on Facebook at a time to thrill. Thanks for listening and I'll be back with you soon with more great conversations.
