Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi and welcome to Time to Thrill. This is your host, author Amy Austin. This is a special episode in light of the new release I have out this week titled Poisoned.
[00:00:16] It's exciting because it's the ninth book in the Casey Court series.
[00:00:20] I finished the 10th book so I know what happens next and that makes me thrilled.
[00:00:26] The ninth book, I'm sorry, the tenth book, Abused, is out in September. But right now I'm super excited to talk about Poisoned.
[00:00:37] Before that though, let me just give you a little highlight.
[00:00:40] So I've been interviewing people left and right and it has been great.
[00:00:45] So coming up on the podcast soon, our authority, Kim Golden. She writes what she calls romantic women's fiction.
[00:00:56] And basically what's super exciting about that is that she lives in Sweden. She's lived there for 25 years. She's from Philadelphia, she's American, and she has the most interesting story and her books take place mostly abroad and I find that fascinating. It's sort of like a little window into life in Sweden and, and Denmark.
[00:01:19] Also coming up on the podcast is best selling author R.H. heron. Rachel Heron. I met her about a year and a half ago when I appeared on her podcast and we met through some kind of mutual friends.
[00:01:32] She's from Northern California for a minute, but she's actually moving to New Zealand, which is something we had discussed when I appeared in her podcast at the end of 2019.
[00:01:45] And I'm super excited for her. She writes crime fiction that I love mainly because it's similar to what I write. Of course, it's sort of a cross between crime fiction and women's fiction. Although I think she may be much weigh more heavily on killing people. I rarely do it after that. I have Lisa Huey. She's an author of romance and romantic suspense. She used to live in Northern California, but has relocated to the North Shore in Massachusetts.
[00:02:17] I haven't seen her. I was going to visit her in 2020, but I didn't after her new house was renovated. But super excited to have her coming up. The interview was great. I love Lisa a lot.
[00:02:30] And let's see, last but not least, oh my God. Is Theodora Taylor. So Theodora is one of the, I think the three most mentioned people on this podcast.
[00:02:42] I'm not sure if she knows this, although I think I did say it to her that she has had a huge outsized influence on a lot of the writers. I know because one of the things that she's done over the last few years, which is sort of brilliant, is that she has drilled down on a number of topics.
[00:03:00] The two I know about because we've talked about it. One is like organization.
[00:03:05] She spent maybe 2016, 2017 figuring out like how to most productively produce books that readers love. And it was a fascinating dive. I read all the books she recommended. I'm not taking all the suggestions probably, but she's really amazing in focusing in on things. So the other thing that she's focused in on is something I think she and other guests have referred to sort of as the universal story or the core story or universal themes. She gave a talk at a writers conference that ended up being virtual this year about sort of the universal theme and sort of tapping into what it is that readers love. And she is doing an amazing job. I'm super proud of her. Her last book debuted at number nine in the Amazon Kindle store, which is no small feat.
[00:04:03] It's amazing.
[00:04:05] She's smart, funny, brilliant and you'll get to hear her talk. So. So I can't wait. I can't wait to share them.
[00:04:16] There'll be one up June 1st and then I don't know after that. I have more interviews than they can. I was doing once a month releases but at this point I have six and they'll be far out. So I may release every other week. Not sure.
[00:04:31] Also super excited because I just booked tickets. So I'm finally, finally going back to Europe. I haven't been on a plane since November 2019 when I came back from, let's say I came back from Houston, was here a few days, flew to Hawaii and then came back. When I got off that flight at home from Hawaii at midnight, I had no idea that that was going to be the last flight I was going to take for like 18 months or 19 months. If you had told me, I may have gotten back on the plane just to soak up the horrible air and sort of crappy food.
[00:05:08] I really enjoy flying and I enjoy travel. I really have no complaints about it. And so well, that midnight landing wasn't great, I'm gonna be honest.
[00:05:17] Plus they lost my kids car seat and I learned that Hawaiian Airlines has a room full of extra car seats because they just gave me one so I could get home and then they must have delivered it the next day because it's here.
[00:05:35] I put it in the car today. His booster seat, it's not really a car seat because he's big, but an entire room of car seats in all sizes.
[00:05:45] So obviously that happens all the time.
[00:05:48] Let me think. So all that said, I'm so Excited about travel. That's not why I'm here to talk to you. So Poisoned, poisoned, released on May 25.
[00:05:59] And I am delighted by this story. It's a story that I've been thinking about for, I think, a number of years.
[00:06:08] And at some point, Casey is talking to the woman who she had worked with at her former firm and they talked about the issues in Bright Hill. And at that point I was like, there are issues in Bright Hill.
[00:06:24] So if you're a fan of the books, her earliest nemesis, which you can read about in Disgraced, was a kid at the time named Ted Strohmeier. He single handedly derailed her career.
[00:06:41] She Ted did a little bit of plagiarism. Casey turned him in to the dean. Even though he had graduated and his life was stayed on track, he stayed at the firm that he was at, Merrell Gates.
[00:06:55] He proceeded to move up. But Casey lost the job offer that she had to work at this law firm and was unable to get another job in town. So the thing about the Strohmeier family is that they own in Bright Hill a brewery that is one of the largest employers in the county and has outsized influence. They also helped bring the NFL team back.
[00:07:26] And there's no, I can't, I can't in Cleveland. If you have a hand in the sports teams, it's like your gold.
[00:07:38] So Ted Strohmeier comes from this family that has done these things, is employing people and is also like owner of a. Well, sponsor of a stadium.
[00:07:49] And so they can do no wrong. And Casey is just a tiny fish in a big pond and they just plow right over her.
[00:08:00] So she's sort of lived with that through obviously eight books. But I think that with the time has passed, I think we're about nine or ten years out from that first story.
[00:08:15] Casey is sort of ready to come into herself. I sort of love her growth.
[00:08:22] The series and especially in this book and the one that comes after this, she has grown and is ready to stop taking a back seat to her own life.
[00:08:39] So when Justin McPhee comes to her with this idea that they represent these children who are in a cancer cluster in Bright Hill who were being poisoned through the water, she is ready to take it on.
[00:08:58] The case is actually something we would call, I guess, a toxic tort.
[00:09:03] And it generally, in the US these cases are taken on by lawyers on contingency, which means the lawyers put up all the money up front.
[00:09:14] And only if they win or settle or are otherwise successful do they get paid. So it's a real gamble if you're not well healed or well funded.
[00:09:27] Actually, subsequent to this, I think the book takes place probably in 2007, but subsequent to this, financial firms got into this business of funding litigation because it is highly lucrative class action lawsuits, but highly expensive to fund.
[00:09:46] But this.
[00:09:48] Actually, I think Justin may have gotten a loan from one of these places. He never tells Casey, though.
[00:09:52] So what's interesting is that she has always wanted that case that's gonna set her up or that client or whatever. And she had it when she was doing getting the referrals from the Hudson Adoption Agency.
[00:10:09] But when that went sideways because it was a little hinky, she was back where she started.
[00:10:15] So this is a super exciting opportunity for her to possibly hit the jackpot. In every Casey Court book, well, nearly every Casey Court book, there are three point of View characters. The two very. Well, the two books that sort of deviate from that are Disgraced, which is merely in Casey's point of view. And Unarmed, but there's a reason for that. And Unarmed, but there's only four point of view characters in that book.
[00:10:46] So this book, the three point of view characters. One Casey, always Casey, but also Justin McPhee. So Justin has interested me for a long time. He's the person that Casey met early on in her career. Right after she hangs at her shingle. She meets him at a breakfast, lunch, one of those meals, I think it was a guardian at litem, training for a domestic relations court, which would mean that she would represent children in divorce and custody hearings.
[00:11:16] Later, she also works as a guardian in juvenile court, which is a different.
[00:11:21] Same title, different representation.
[00:11:24] But one of the things that's always been interesting about Justine is that she and him get on like a house on fire.
[00:11:32] They're from similar backgrounds.
[00:11:34] The scenes between them are super funny. I really like them.
[00:11:38] I like their whole endless riffing joke on the book of St. Albans.
[00:11:42] And I really wanted to explore more about Justin. So he's a point of view character in this book. And it's sort of interesting to get a sense of who he is and what's important to him.
[00:11:56] The other point of View character is a mom named Veronica Garza.
[00:12:02] And her daughter has cancer.
[00:12:05] And she has. It has taken a long time, I think, for her daughter to get a diagnosis. And she's been in and out of the hospital for a long time trying to figure out what it is that's affecting her daughter. And she comes upon Justin, and his theory is that the Strohemeyer. Brewery. The runoff from that brewery is what is making the kids sick.
[00:12:31] So it's a tiny cancer cluster, and they all have different kinds of cancers.
[00:12:36] And his theory is that it's a result of what the brewery is doing. But the brewery being this huge employer and institution for over a hundred years in Cuyahoga county makes it a formidable foe.
[00:12:53] So the book explores those. I won't tell you what happens in the end, but one of the other things that's interesting about this book is the relationship between Casey and Justin. They have been friends, and in this book, they become a little bit more. And that's interesting. Cayce has a string of unsuccessful relationships. Although, thinking about it, I am not sure why. Why she can't find a guy. Maybe she has no problem finding a guy who wants to commit. They're just not right for her.
[00:13:25] And I spent a lot of time wondering whether Justin is the right guy for her, and she has to make that determination on her own. The other thing I want to acknowledge is that I have been so. This idea about Stromeyer and this brewery had been percolating in my head for quite some time.
[00:13:46] And I sit down to write the book, I think, In January of 2020, when I realize I know nothing about breweries.
[00:13:56] So, of course, I sit down, and after I wrote chapter one, which is a Veronica chapter, I panicked because I realized I literally knew nothing about beer except that it was fermented and it involved. I don't. I didn't know anything about beer. I don't drink beer, and I don't think. Think about it ever.
[00:14:16] So, of course, I reached out to a bunch of friends and actually, you know who I interviewed? Mia Hopkins on this podcast. And she. I've actually never seen her drink beer, but she seems to have a lot of knowledge about bakeries and breweries.
[00:14:32] Oh, I know why. Because she wrote the Eastside Brewery series, of course. Duh. So I was like, what do I do? And so she gave me some suggestions. And what I ended up doing was meeting this guy named Hal Mooney who runs something called the LA Beer Hop.
[00:14:51] And I went to a bunch of breweries in Los Angeles. Okay. Turns out there's been an explosion of breweries in Los Angeles over the last. I don't know, it's over a year ago. And I did this 10 years.
[00:15:07] So it's gone from, like, I don't know, a couple of breweries to, you know, like, 150 or some crazy number, a lot of the microbreweries. So I Spent like half a day with Hal and a bunch of people during brewery tours. But what was interesting is I got to go behind the scenes at a bunch of different breweries and watch them put all the stuff in the tank that ferments and turns into beer.
[00:15:35] I wrote it down. I did.
[00:15:38] So I do want to acknowledge Hal here and I have to remember to send him a free book. So. So it was super interesting to learn how I already knew how the sausage was made. And I definitely know how wine is made because I've gone to a bunch of vineyards, but I didn't know how the beer was made. And now I do. And actually now I'm super interested in going to other breweries because all the times I've been in Amsterdam, I've never gone on the Heineken tour. I've walked by it a thousand times. The last time I remember even taking a tram, waiting for it, Catacorner from it and my kid and I hopping on the tram the. To go get, I don't know, whatever he wanted. Pancakes, crepes. I don't know. There's something he wanted specifically in Amsterdam, and I've never been on that tour, so I'm so interested in maybe doing that one time. I have always wanted to go to Belgium and do brewery tours there. So that's on the bucket list again.
[00:16:28] The last time I was going to do it, I got pregnant. That obviously had to go. And super interested in even maybe touring breweries in Hungary maybe this summer. Maybe that should be on the list as things open up. Hopefully.
[00:16:42] So.
[00:16:43] Okay, acknowledged. Hal in the LA Beer hop. I'll include a link in the notes should you wish to go. It was actually a super great time and he was really, really, really great in answering all my questions about beer and any mistakes I make in the book about the process of brewing. All me.
[00:17:03] Because Veronica's husband is a.
[00:17:07] Oh, my God. I don't master brewer.
[00:17:10] He comes, he does the mixing and the recipe determination, and then, I don't know, then the stuff goes into the tanks and then beer comes out.
[00:17:19] Yeah, that's. That's my excellent explanation of that process.
[00:17:23] So, anyway, Poisoned is out. It's available wherever ebooks are sold. You can also order it in paperback.
[00:17:31] I'm sending actually the paperbacks for the winners to the last giveaway I did on Goodreads out tomorrow, but I hope you love it as much as I do. And next up will be abused in September.
[00:17:44] Thanks so much for reading. As always, this has been a time to thrill with me your host, author Amy Austin. If you enjoyed it, I hope you'll share, rate and review on Apple Podcasts. It will help others to find and listen to my conversations with brilliant creators. Also, please hit the subscribe button on your podcast app. In addition to hosting this podcast, I'm also the author of the Casey Court series of legal thrillers. They're available wherever books are sold, your local library, and also an audiobook. You can follow me on Instagram thrillerpod, find me on Facebook, acquittseries, or A Time to Thrill. Thanks for listening and I'll be back with you soon with more great conversations.
Amazon: http://ebooks.buzz/poisonedamz
