The Joys of Binge Reading

Jenny Wheeler
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The best in mystery, romance and historical books to read

  1. 09/09/2024

    Alyssa Maxwell – Gilded Newport Mysteries

    Alyssa Maxwell is the author of the acclaimed Gilded Age, Newport mystery series featuring Emmaline Cross. She’s a Vanderbilt by heritage, a Newporter by birth and a force to be reckoned with. Each book is set in a famous Newport Gilded Age mansion, some of them still open for viewing. Welcome to the Joys of Binge Reading, the show for anyone who ever got to the end of a great book and wanted to read the next instalment. We interview successful series authors and recommend the best in mystery, suspense, historical and romance series, so you’ll never be without a book you can’t foot down. You’ll find this episode’s show notes, a free ebook, and lots more information at the joys of binge reading.com. And now here’s our show. Hi, I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler, and in the last Binge Reading episode for a while, we talk to Alyssa about her fascination for historical mysteries, resulting in the widely praised, 12 books series, with Book #1, Murder At The Breakers. premiering as a Hallmark movie earlier this year. We’re going to be talking about the latest book om the series today, Murder at Vinand. Emma must stop a bold poisoner who was targeting the society wives of the 400 in Gilded Age Newport, Rhode Island. As I’ve announced a few posts ago, this is going to be the last episode of The Joys of Binge Reading podcast for a while. We’re taking a break, maybe permanently, after 300 episodes, but you can always catch up on your favorite authors in the published shows, which are currently being posted to YouTube as well. Our Book Giveaway Our free book giveaway for this episode is Sadie’s Vow, the first book in my Home At Last mystery series, set in Gilded Age San Francisco. You’ll find the links to download in the show notes for this episode on the website, the joys of binge reading.com. SADIE’S VOW – FREE BOOK HERE’S THE LINK IF THE BUTTON DOESN’T WORK… https://dl.bookfunnel.com/rg3g2284e7 As I say, this is the last show for me for a while. I want to use my time to write more books. I’ve loved the time that I’ve spent talking to and researching the authors that I’ve featured on the show. Many of them, I love to still read the books, but it is just now time for a change. Links to things mentioned in the show Gilded Age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age Cornelius Vanderbilt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt_II Consuelo Vanderbilt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consuelo_Vanderbilt Consuelo Second Husband: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Balsan Alva Vanderbilt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Balsan Nellie Bly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly Sleuths In Time:  https://www.facebook.com/SleuthsInTime/ Newport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport,_Rhode_Island Saratoga: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saratoga_Springs,_New_York Newport Preservation Society: https://www.newportmansions.org/ The Breakers: https://www.newportmansions.org/mansions-and-gardens/the-breakers/ A Lady and Lady’s Maid mysteries: https://www.alyssamaxwell.com/ladys-maid-books Arleigh House: https://househistree.com/houses/arleigh Where to find Alyssa Maxwell online Website: alyssamaxwell.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alyssa.maxwell.750 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alyssamaxwellauthor/ Introducing historical mystery author Alyssa Maxwell Alyssa Maxwell: Gilded Newport mysteries Now it’s time for Alyssa. Jenny Wheeler: Hello there, Alyssa, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Alyssa Maxwell: Thank you, Jenny, for having me on. Jenny Wheeler: Your Gilded Newport Mysteries have attracted great reviews, and you’ve also got the first book in the series now as a Hallmark movie. Congratulations on that. Tell us firstly, why did you find the Gilded Age a fascinating period to write about and what do you think its attraction is for readers? Alyssa Maxwell: For me, the fact that’s what Newport is most known for. Newport, Rhode Island is probably the biggest collection of Gilded Age mansions to be found anywhere, especially in such close proximity to each. Other. You could basically walk from one to the next as you’re going down Bellevue Avenue in Newport. My husband’s from Newport, so I knew I wanted to set my series there, and I went with the Gilded Age because it is the most recognizable and famous thing about the city. Jenny Wheeler: What is it that attracted the rich people to Newport? It became the summertime playground of the rich, didn’t it? Alyssa Maxwell: They had been going to Saratoga for a couple of decades, I think, but Saratoga began to get old. They were getting bored with it. It was attracting what they considered a lesser crowd, so they needed a new place to go. Now Newport had been the summer playground of wealthy Southerners before the Civil War, so it already had a reputation as a summer resort kind of town. Saratoga Springs is out, Newport is in I guess they decided, Saratoga’s out, let’s go explore Newport. And they did. And decided this was where they were gonna build not only their houses, but their summer society. It was very much a society going on there. It had its own rules and its own etiquette, much as New York did the rest of the year. Jenny Wheeler: I’m just interested in your comment about it being a playground for Southerners before the Civil War. After the Civil War, did that sort of rich southern society fade out a bit? Alyssa Maxwell: Oh yeah. As soon as the war started, of course, they stopped coming. They had to stop coming, and after the war the money was gone for the vast majority of them. That was no longer an option. The thing is, they didn’t tend to build mansions. they built smaller houses or they stayed in hotels because for them, the whole pastoral setting of the New England coastline was the attraction. They were very outdoorsy. They didn’t have balls so much as, I think picnics, and outdoor kind of activities. It’s a simpler lifestyle. Jenny Wheeler: Your key investigator, Emma Cross, is remotely related to the Vanderbilt family. Now, the Vanderbilts, they’re an extremely well-known name in American history. Tell us a bit about that family and her relationship to them. The famed Vanderbilt family Alyssa Maxwell: The family, of course, or the main part of it, was started with the first Cornelius Vanderbilt, who they called the Commodore. He started off in local shipping. And built that up into a railroad industry, little by little. Emma would be his, I believe, great granddaughter. So, it’s a few generations removed. And the reason she’s not a rich Vanderbilt is because she descends from one of the Commodore’s daughters. He was a curmudgeon and he didn’t believe in leaving his daughters the vast fortunes that, he left his son William. By the time Emma’s generation comes along, most of it’s depleted, and what little money she has, she earns by working as a reporter. But also she inherited a small annuity from a great aunt on her mother’s side of the family. So she is not living off the Vanderbilt wealth except for her contemporary relatives. They have welcomed her into their lives when they’re in Newport and they do help her from time to time. They’re not gonna let her starve. They insisted on installing a telephone in her house so that she wouldn’t be so isolated out there in the Ocean Drive. She has a nice relationship with them, but she doesn’t like to be beholden to them. Following in the footsteps of Nellie Bly Jenny Wheeler: Now, as you mentioned, she is a newspaper reporter, which would be a very unusual thing in that period, particularly for a woman of her social status. But you do have a bit of a model for her, don’t you, in the real life person of Nellie Bly. Tell us a bit about that and how you came to, to feel that it was okay to make her a newspaper reporter. Alyssa Maxwell: Actually in the beginning of the series, she’s the society columnist for a local paper. So that was actually something women could do at the time. They could write about the balls and the fashions and who took what vacation or who’s gonna marry whom. That was okay. That was considered, women’s interests. Of course she wants more. She wants to be a real news reporter. And that’s where I got the inspiration from Nelly Bly, who was a Gilded Age reporter and did things. She broke a lot of rules to get her story. She took a lot of risks and that is my inspiration. Nelly was unusual. There weren’t a lot of women doing that, but she proved to a lot of readers that a woman could get a story and write well about it. This is where I modeled Emma, to a large extent. Jenny Wheeler: Yes. It’s wonderful in a sense that each of the books features one of those historic houses, the amazing houses they built. Many of them still standing and able to be visited today. Tell us about that. Murder at Vinland, the latest book. Are you still able to go to Vinland, for example? Murder in Vinland Alyssa Maxwell: Only if you’re a college student. Vinland and Wakehurst and Ochre Court, each of those have been books in my series. They are all part of Salve Regina University. They’re not open for tours to the public, but the students use them. They’re administrative offices, offices their classrooms. They’re very functional. They’re still used today. Other houses like the Breakers’ Marble House, and  The Elms, these are all part of the Preservation Society of Newport Counties. Properties that they maintain as museums, so people can go in and out and, see all these things that I’m writing about, and I get to go in them and do my research even more importantly. Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. We mentioned at the beginning about one of the books being a Hallmark movie, and that was book one in the series, Murder at the Breakers. That was a

    30 min

  2. 08/22/2024

    Helen Brown – Memoirs & Magic

    We’re celebrating a milestone with this podcast, the 300th episode of The Joys of Binge Reading show. And it’s wonderful to be able to share it with best-selling author Helen Brown. Helen is a good friend and a former colleague who is appearing on the show for the second time, so it’s just like all the stars are aligned. She has a remarkable gift for creating stories readers love with a mix of memoir and imaginative fiction that crosses international boundaries. Hi, I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler, and this is the second to last episode of The Joys of Binge Reading, at least for the time being. We love having Helen here to share it with us. She talks about her latest book, Mickey, The Cat Who Helped Me Through Times Of Change. Those of you who know Helen’s work, know that cats feature prominently. Her classic memoir Cleo, The Small Black Cat That Helped Heal A Family has sold over two million copies and been translated into 18 languages, sold in 42 countries. Mickey is another heart touching gem, a wistful coming of age true story about the transition from childhood to adolescence, and the small stray cat that helped guide the way. We’ll get to Helen in just a moment. But before we do, I want to say a few words about the show. As I’ve indicated, both today and earlier I’m retiring it at least for a season, to pursue other things like writing my own books. Our Giveaway This Week With that in mind, our Giveaway this episode is Poppy’s Dilemma, Book #1 in my latest series, The Sisters Of Barclay Square, set in Sydney in the late 1860s. Poppy Barclay’s privileged life shatters when her father’s investment company collapses amidst shocking allegations of fraud. Download for FREE DOWNLOAD E BOOK https://dl.bookfunnel.com/8qspkbukp3 Jilted by her fiancé, shunned by the elite, the beautiful heiress finds herself an outcast, her dreams of a perfect marriage in ruins. She’s determined to fight back, but Poppy’s quest for justice puts her up against tenacious journalists, Thomas Yates, who is bent on exposing the truth behind the Barclay’s disgrace. You can get a free copy of Poppy’s Dilemma from the download link in the show notes for this episode on our website, the joys of binge reading.com. Here is the link to download: Alyssa Maxwell’s Newport murder mysteries I’m halfway through the first draft of the second book, working title Posey’s Peril about Poppy’s twin. And without the podcast to take up my time, I’m planning to finish it next month. As I foreshadowed, this will be our penultimate show. There will be one more episode, # 301, because I committed to featuring historical mystery author Alyssa Maxwell’s was latest book months ago, before I’d made the decision to give Binge Reading a rest, and we recorded the interview in April or May – quite some time ago. I’m going to stay true to that and do that last episode so it doesn’t waste the effort of being interviewed on Alyssa’s part. The show started in August, 2017, so we’ve been going for seven years straight, podcasting weekly for the first six years and fortnightly for nearly the last year. It’s quite a load to carry, forever lining up new guests, reading their books, researching their careers, and then doing the technical work of sound and transcript editing for every episode. The technical side of it in particular has become tedious and time consuming, and ironically, I’ve had lots of problems getting this last show recorded. The reasons for that are too boring to go into, but suffice it to say that after 299 reasonably straightforward episodes, #300 has proven particularly difficult technically speaking. Technical issues sorted – at last! It’s appropriate that I had to call in sound engineer Dan Cotton, who edited the show professionally for me for the first few years, to sort out the problems in this, our second to last show. There’s a nice circularity about that for me. Thanks to everyone like Dan and Abe who recorded the intro we’re still using, for their help and support, and warmest gratitude to all our listeners. We’d developed a creditable audience and I’ve met some wonderful people along the way. The show will be out there long after this ending. I’m in the process of uploading all of the audio onto YouTube podcasts, and it’s on all of the major platforms. You’ll still be able to find wonderful chats with favorite authors for a long time to come. That’s enough said. Let’s get to Helen. Links to items mentioned in this episode Previous Binge Reading episode featuring Helen: Oct, 2018 https://thejoysofbingereading.com/helen-browns-feline-adventures Books Helen is reading: David Brooks How To Know A Person – The Art of Seeing Others Deeply https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112974860-how-to-know-a-person Prentis Hemphill, What It Takes To Heal – How Transforming Ourselves Can Change The World https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195888446-what-it-takes-to-heal The Rest Is History by Dr Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/rest-is-history-9781526667748 Poetry Unbound:  Fifty Poems To Open Your World https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Unbound-Poems-Open-World/dp/B0BCL3VW15 Trip to Romania for environmental research https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu Snow globing: Watch comedian Mae Martin explain it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE77WFTc8PI Where to find Helen online: Website: https://www.helenbrown.com.au/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Helen.Brown.International.Author/ Instagram:  @helenbrownauthor Hello, Helen. And welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Helen Brown: Oh, thank you very much, Jenny. It’s lovely to be here. Jenny Wheeler: Look, this is our 300th episode, so it’s really wonderful to be finishing it off, talking to you, an old friend. We’re talking about your latest book, Mickey, The Cat Who Helped Me Through Times Of Change. Tell us about Mickey.   (Ed note: Because of the aforementioned technical difficulties, this small intro was not recorded on the raw sound file – goodness knows why not!  Apologies.) Introducing Helen Brown author Helen Brown – International best selling memoirs Helen Brown: The inspiration for Mickey goes back to those Covid days. Jenny. I don’t know how you went through them, but for me, I felt so isolated and disconnected from the world and I experienced a deep kind of loneliness. I never thought I was a particularly sociable person, but that feeling of disconnect was so strong, and I know people felt that all around the world. I was sitting in my study here in Melbourne feeling very isolated and alone, and I thought, oh my God, I haven’t had this feeling for so long. But it’s a little bit familiar and it reminded me of when I was 12-years-old, transitioning into adolescence, feeling as if I belonged nowhere, and wondering how on earth to go forwards. And at the same time, my father was a wonderful photographer and I have quite a few of his photos, his colour slides printed out and mounted on my walls here. And in that deep chasm of silence of those Covid months and years, his photos became more vibrant and more powerful, and they beamed into this room and the characters became more real than living characters. And I just thought, oh my goodness, I’ve got to write about these people. They’re my friends again at this moment, mom and dad, and my sister and brother. Mickey rescued from gas works poison And then of course, I was reminded of my saviour at the time, who turned out to be a cat. My father was manager of the local gas works in New Plymouth where we lived. We were quite an eccentric family. Jenny, I don’t know if you’ve picked that up from the book. Jenny Wheeler: I have. Helen Brown: One day my father said, ‘would you like to come for a drive?’ And I thought, oh gosh, he’s never asked me for a drive, so I said yes. We jumped in the old blue gray Zephyr. It was pouring with rain and he drove me off to the gas work. I thought, ‘oh no, we are going back to dad’s work. I’m just going to sit outside here in the car while he does something important. ‘ But no. He went in and came out carrying this cardboard box. He opened the door and put the box on my lap and he said, ‘take care of this, will you?’ And I lifted the lid of the box, looked inside, and a face looked up at me. The face of a three-month-old gray tabby. And in that moment, that kind of visceral moment of connection, I felt the presence of another soul and someone who could really help me through this difficult time. But… Helen’s Mum hated cats….. Jenny Wheeler: Now, this is probably the first of many interactions that you’ve had with cats. We perhaps should mention now that you’ve done a number of other cat books, some of them have been international best sellers. But there was one other thing about this amazing family that you grew up with. Your mother didn’t like cats? Helen Brown: No. She was a country person and she thought cats belonged in barns. To her, their only use was to catch rats. She didn’t dislike animals. She quite respected dogs, but cats she did not like. As a result of this, when dad gifted me this scruffy tabby – the rest of his family had all been poisoned – we had a pact that I would have to hide the cat from mum, because mum was going through her own crises at the time. She was auditioning for The King and I and the local operatic society and mum took her theatrical life incredibly seriously. When she was auditioning for something we all knew we had to take a big step back and just hope to heaven that she got the part. So it was quite a good time to try and introduce a hidden cat into our crazy household, because she was so distracted. Jenny Wheeler: You mentioned this crazy household. You were also living in an amazing house as wel

    50 min

  3. 07/02/2024

    Jeff Carson – For Baldacci Fans

    Jeff Carson is the Amazon-Bestselling author of the David Wolf series, thrillers set in the high country of Colorado, chock-full of action, mystery, thrills, and suspense. With millions of copies sold internationally, he’s regularly recommended as suitable for fans of David Baldacci and Daniel Silva. Hi I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today on the Binge Reading show Jeff Carson talks about how he turned a year-long stay in Italy into a fulltime writing career, and his new series, a big change to David Wolf, featuring Italian woman police officer Ali Flavia, set against the backdrop of Italian culture, ancient walled towns, tourist mayhem and fabulous food and wine. Two Free Book Giveaways We’ve got two book offers this week, and the first books in my two series are on offer. The Thriller and Mystery series Giveaway has Sadie’s Vow, #1 in the Home At Last series on offer. download free books ​https://books.bookfunnel.com/thrillingfreebies-jul/4h2xrdstd8 The Kobo Editor’s Pick’s promotion has the Of Gold & Blood book set – #1 and #4. Kobo Editor’s Pick kobo free books selection Visit the following link(s) to see the promotion: ​https://www.kobo.com/p/free-ebooks​! If you live in a country that isn’t included in this promotion, you may have trouble accessing the sale link. If this happens, change the flag at the top of the Kobo homepage to one of the included countries to see the sale link properly. This is one of the last shows I’ll be doing for a while on The Joys of Binge Reading. I’m taking a break after two more episodes, but I’ll be posting many of the past interviews on YouTube so if you’ve missed them, you’ll find them there. Links to things mentioned in the show Carabinieri: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabinieri Disc Golf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_golf MHZ.com: https://www.mhz.com/ Ali Falco: https://www.jeffcarson.co/ali-falco-series What Jeff is reading now: Lincoln Child: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Child https://lincolnchild.com Agent Prendergast series: https://www.prestonchild.com/ Douglas Preston: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12577.Douglas_Preston Marko Kloos: https://www.markokloos.com/ Where to find Jeff online Website: www.jeffcarson.co Or his Amazon books site:  https://www.amazon.com/Books-Jeff-Carson/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AJeff+Carson Introducing Jeff Carson, thriller author Jeff Carson – thriller author of David Wolf Colorado Mountain series But now, here’s Jeff. Hello there Jeff and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. It’s great to have you with us. Jeff Carson: Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Jenny Wheeler: You are somewhere in Colorado and I’m in Auckland, so that’s a good long reach between us. You’ve got this Amazon hit on your hands. It’s obviously not a surprise because you’ve written 17 in the series now. David Wolfe, a small-town, Colorado mountain sheriff. Tell us about David. How did he come to life for you? Jeff Carson: Yes, you’ve got that right. He is a small-town Colorado Sheriff. My wife is from Italy. I guess it was like 2012, 2011? We were visiting Italy for a year because we had a son, and my wife wanted to go to Italy and be with our young son there and to be with her mom and dad and get some support with the young son and stuff. And I was at a crossroads in my professional life. I did not like what I was doing and I got this idea that I was going to start writing fiction. Long story short, I got looking into these self-published authors and all, I was just like, I didn’t even understand that existed until when we got to Italy. And then I realized in the drop of a hat. I’m going to be a fiction writer. My wife was nice enough to not disown me or leave me after that. But I decided to start writing books. I’m in Italy, in this country where I don’t know, in the area, nobody speaks English whatsoever, and I didn’t really speak Italian that well. A brain storm in Italy I felt very isolated, but I just got this idea to start writing. I knew you’re supposed to write about what you know, and I knew Colorado and I knew that I missed Colorado. That was the first thing that came up into my mind of the guy. It was actually the second idea I had, but whatever the first that stuck was like having a cop in the mountains of Colorado. I missed the mountains of Colorado. I decided to make this series about the mountains of Colorado, about this cop. So that’s how it came about. Jenny Wheeler: On your website you have got quite a funny blog post about that experience and you describe it as “firing first, aiming later.”  How much research did you do before you started out? You are compared with people like David Baldacci and Michael Crichton, real top of the line popular fiction authors who were very much in the mainstream. Did you aim to settle yourself there right from the beginning? Jeff Carson: Yeah. I was so like rock bottom with what I was trying that I was just like, ‘what the hell?’ Why would I not try to be just the best I could? I loved all those authors I. was reading them at that time. And I wanted to be precisely like them, make my covers like them and make my books just as compelling as theirs were. I read a bunch how to write fiction books. Just devouring them, like one per day because I was in such a hurry to make this thing work. I knew it wouldn’t. probably work for years, but I had definitely a fire lit under me. I learned the basics of what it takes to write fiction, or, maybe not the basics, but how complex it is. And then after I read like three of those books, I was like, ‘Okay. Come on. They’re saying the same things. I’m gonna have to try it now.’ Cliffhanger endings – a No No!! I made every mistake under the sun at first; my first book had a cliffhanger ending. It pretty much ended in mid-sentence, so you would buy the second book, because I knew I was going to write a series. And that was the business plan also, as well as just the fiction plan, the story, arc plan. There was no aiming for the first couple books. It was just try to make a great, and then I had to go back and rewrite everything, knowing that if I was going to keep doing this, nobody’s going to read the first book and continue on reading the other books. It doesn’t matter how many books I write, if that first one could really turn some people off.  I had to go back and really hone those first couple books. Jenny Wheeler: I think cliff hangers are interesting because I think some people still believe that they’re really necessary. You’ve decided perhaps that they’re not the best way to go. Jeff Carson: No, there’re actively terrible ways to go if someone’s thinking about it. There’s a certain nuance to it. If you’re going to leave certain storylines unresolved, the main storyline better be super resolved.  Sub storylines? I have kept them unresolved just because wolf is constantly growing as a person. His love life, his family life, his professional life. But as far as if there’s a murder, the murder’s got to be solved by the end of the book. If you’re going to throw a ball up in the beginning of the book, it’s got to be caught and dealt with by the end of the book. People get very angry, if you don’t. Jeff Carson learned from his mistakes Jenny Wheeler: Did you have readers who gave you that sort of feedback at the beginning? Jeff Carson: Yes. I was getting one star reviews right off the bat and they were saying like, ‘I’ll never read anything he writes ever again. I don’t care how much I like the story,’  I’m like, wait a minute. That’s okay. That’s some anger right there. But yet they liked the story like, oh no, what? What did I do? And then I realized, yeah, you can’t do that. Jenny Wheeler: It’s interesting that you mention about the development of family because the other thing about doing series, especially if you have a child in it, is that it’s hard to fudge the timeframe, the timeline thing. And you do have David having a son who’s 12, I think, when series begins. I haven’t read right through the whole thing, but I did wonder how you’ve managed to let his son develop in a realistic way, but also keep a kind of father son relationship going. Did you find out a bit of a challenge and where are we up to with the son now? Jeff Carson: Oh yeah, it’s super difficult. Because I didn’t want every book to just be the next day, all of a sudden another crime happens. It’s like just the murder capital of the world, the middle of the mountains, in Colorado, So there’s time lapse in between each book, at least usually seven months, nine months, a year. And then possibly even a more between a couple books. So now his son in one of the books is having his own son. Wolf’s son was freaking out about that and Wolf had to help him through that. And it’s tough yet to how to gauge the speed at which you’re going to go through this timeline of their lives, because precisely what age is Wolf? Even I still don’t know.  I don’t want to admit it, but I don’t even know. He’s probably early fifties, mid-fifties or something, and every new book, you have to gauge I and think, okay, what’s going on here? Where is everybody? What are their ages? What are their kids’ ages? I actually had a reader help me go through all my books and give me the names of all the characters and what their relative relations are and when they showed up and, because it’s really a big deal, Jenny Wheeler: Amazing. That is what they call, a Series Bible. And I was going to ask you if you had one of those. It’s often helpful not to be too specific about those things, isn’t it? Because then a few books up the track, you find yourself trapped. You can’t have somebody being, oh, suddenly they’re 23 when two or three books ago,

    32 min

  4. 06/18/2024

    Jennifer Deibel – Irish Magic

    Irish magic from Jennifer Deibel – the best- selling and award-winning author of a series of charming Emerald Isle novels combining history, family, faith and romance. Her newest book, The Irish Matchmaker…introduces matchmaker Catriona Daly. Hi I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today on Binge Reading Jennifer talks about how a US born gal fell in love with Ireland. and her latest book The Irish Matchmaker. As daughter of a well-known matchmaker, Catríona Daly is no stranger to the business of love – and she sees it as her ticket away from the sleepy village that only comes alive during the annual matchmaking festival. Our Giveaway this week Our Giveaway this week is Summer Sleuthing – June Mystery Thrillers. Sadie’s Vow – Book #1 in my Home At Last San Francisco historical mystery series is included. Stock up on some great summer reading here! download free summer mysteries ​https://books.bookfunnel.com/summersleuthing/9mwtzhs5pv Before we get to Jennifer – a reminder You can help defray the costs of production by buying me a cup of coffee on buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx And if you enjoy the show. Leave us a review so others will find us too. Word of mouth is the best way for others to discover the show and great books they will love to read. Links to things mentioned in the episode A Dance In Donegal, Jennifer Deibel:  https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Donegal-Jennifer-Deibel/dp/0800738411 The Princess Bride (movie) Irish location:  https://giggster.com/guide/movie-location/where-was-the-princess-bride-filmed#: Lisdoonvarna:  https://matchmakerireland.com/ https://www.ireland.com/en-us/destinations/county/clare/lisdoonvarna The Maid of Ballymacool, Jennifer Deilbel: https://jenniferdeibel.com/books/the-maid-of-ballymacool/ Willie Daly, Irish matchmaker: https://www.williedaly.com/ Books Jennifer is reading: Jaime Jo Wright, The Lost Boys of Barlow Theater: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90203406-the-lost-boys-of-barlowe-theater Natalie Walters Snap agency series:  https://www.amazon.com/The-SNAP-Agency-3-book-series/dp/B08XW1LGC3 Where to find Jennifer Online Website: www.jenniferdeibel.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferdeibel_author Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferDeibelAuthor Introducing author Jennifer Deibel But now, here’s Jennifer Hello there, Jennifer,  and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Jennifer Deibel – Historical Irish mysteries with magic Jenny Wheeler: But now here’s Jennifer. Hello there, Jennifer, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Jennifer Deibel: Hi Jenny. Thanks so much for having me. I’m looking forward to chatting. Jenny Wheeler: These Irish stories are both best sellers and award winners.  How did you come to start on the Irish story thread? Jennifer Deibel: It all feels like it happened by accident, but I believe everything happens by design. My husband and I had lived in County Donegal for two years as students. We were studying the language and the culture. My husband had fallen in love with all things Celtic after spending a summer abroad in Wales during university. We spent two years there and when we came back I was expecting our first baby. He went into graduate school in Texas and I was struggling to process all we had experienced in those two years. An Irish American girl moves to Donegal The idea for what would eventually become my debut novel, A Dance in Donegal, came to me, a story about an Irish American girl who moves to rural Donegal to teach. I started writing it then and of course once my baby was born, it sat for a very long time. It took about 15 years for me to actually finish the whole manuscript. During which time we moved back to Ireland and lived in County Galway. While we were there, we had our son and I heard about a parenting website that was starting up called The Better Mom and they were looking for contributors. I applied there and was accepted and was encouraged to start my own blog, so readers would have a place to go to if they liked what I had to say on The Better Mom. My blog opened the door for me to write for some other publications across the country, and that’s when I started making the connections that would eventually lead to my first book contract, which I signed, I believe in 2018. It was a long road, and I never thought as a child that I would write a book. But I always thought it was something that would be fun to do. I just didn’t think I was capable of it. So that time in Ireland really is what planted the seeds of ideas for all of these stories. Was there a little Celtic in their blood? Jenny Wheeler: Did either you or your husband have Irish ancestry that might explain that magic thing that seemed to have captivated you? Jennifer Deibel: Absolutely. My maiden name is Martin and where we lived in Galway was actually not too far from one of the main Martin strongholds in Ireland centuries ago. So I’ve got that background is in my blood. My husband has English and Welsh on his side. His grandmother was born right on the border of Wales in England, so we’ve got the Celtic blood in our veins for sure. Jenny Wheeler: Oh, that’s great. Now, the one we are talking about today is the fourth in this Irish series, The Irish Matchmaker. And I hadn’t realized until I read the book that matchmaking is closely woven into Ireland as a tradition. The idea of a village matchmaker… I gather that it still does exist today in these days of Tinder. Tell us about the matchmaker in Irish village life. Jennifer Deibel: So, it’s really fascinating. I first learned about it when we were living in Galway, and we would have tour groups come over that we would lead and we would take them all around and driving from Galway City down to the Cliffs of Mohr, which to some people might be better known as the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride (movie). We passed through a little village called Lisdoonvarna, and there was always a huge billboard for their annual matchmaking festival. The more I looked into it, I discovered that in this particular village it sarted in the late 18 hundreds when a doctor discovered the mineral content of the wells in that area were very high and could be used for medicinal purposes. The fancy, rich, cultured folk would come in the fall to take the waters and use that opportunity to set their children up with each other because it was one of the few times that gentrified people were around other people of their stations to be able to do that. A third generation Irish matchmaker At the same time, the harvest had just ended and the farmers were coming into town to spend their money and make trades and do market days with their livestock and things like that. The farmers finally had time and money to look for love. It was born out of this, seeming happenstance and it continues on for the entire month of September. To this day, Willie Daly is the current matchmaker. He’s third generation, and he continues to match people up all throughout the festival and is pretty well known worldwide for it. Jenny Wheeler: Did you get to talk to Willie Daly? Jennifer Deibel: I did. We spoke over email multiple times. We tried to set up a phone call, but that was difficult to do with him, of course, being in Ireland and me being in America and he wasn’t super comfortable with Zoom. But he was able to provide me with lots of valuable information about what it was like for him as a child growing up with a father who was a matchmaker, as well as his time as a matchmaker himself. And he also wrote a memoir called Ireland’s Last Matchmaker. And it’s an absolutely charming read. If you’re ever wondering what it’s like. It reads like a novel almost and gives the details of what goes into matchmaking. What’s the terminology for each different part of the process and what does that look like, and what goes into deciding who would be a good match and who wouldn’t be, and all of that. It’s absolutely fascinating, and invaluable to me through the course of writing this book, for sure. A successful family business Jenny Wheeler: Catriona, your heroine and her father Jimmy, run a very successful family business as matchmakers. They have inherited this down the generations, and I gather that there is an aspect of it that is an inherited skill as well as, perhaps some of it being learned almost like an intuition. Tell us about that aspect of it. Jennifer Deibel: I think you can’t help – like any family business – if you grow up in that environment, you can’t help but naturally absorb a lot of the skills and thought processes and intuition that goes with it. My husband’s family were a mechanic and auto family and it seems like they all are born knowing all this stuff about cars. And I think that’s how it was for Catriona and Jimmy and certainly how it seemed to be for Willie, our real life matchmaker. Being immersed in that from day one. And being able to have a front row seat to that. You get to learn how to read people in a way that I think other people might miss. And you learn how to look beyond just the surface. While two people might seem good on paper for one another, sometimes there’s something within the meeting that a matchmaker might pick up on that someone in the general public might not. And I think it’s a little bit genetic and a little bit learned just from being immersed in that process and in that culture and having a life of observation and reading people, which I think is really cool. Never Miss out! Never miss out on the hottest new authors, regular FREE BOOK OFFERS and Most Popular podcasts. Yes please to FREE BOOKS and updates on popular books We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. .formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"] *{box-sizing:border-box;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"]{-webk

    32 min

  5. 06/04/2024

    Kel Richards – Country House Mysteries

    Acclaimed Australian broadcaster and wordsmith Kel Richards is passionate about classical mysteries, and the Golden Age of the 1930s when Agatha Christie and her fellow authors were writing them… Kel is also an Anglican lay canon, deeply immersed in Narnia creator and theologian C.S. Lewis’ Oxford college world and his circle of friends, including Prof. J. R. Tolkien. Bring all of them together and you have Kel’s Country House Mysteries, featuring Jack Lewis and friends solving brain teasing “closed door” mysteries in 1930’s Oxford. Hi, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today on the Binge Reading show Kel talks about his love for old fashioned clue puzzle mysteries – the sort that aren’t generally written any more – as well as his passion for Australian English – one of the richest vocabularies in the world, in his view. Freebies and Sales This Week We’ve got two book offers this episode – the free Mystery  Thriller Freebies for June free featuring Sadie’s Vow, Book #1 in the Home At Last trilogy – A gold rush romance historical mystery series Three feisty women. Three steadfast men. A shared quest for justice. These mystery, thriller, and suspense writers have teamed up to bring you these FREE books! Scoop them up today! DOWNLOAD MYSTERY & THRILLER FREEBIES https://books.bookfunnel.com/thrillingfreebies-jun/nr6fg5wdhw PLUS – KOBO THRILLER AND MYSTERY SALE – GET OF GOLD & BLOOD THREE BOOK BUNDLE And there’s a deal on the first three books in the Of Gold & Blood mystery series – another Kobo multi genre sale offer.  Three long form mysteries, at a great sale price… get three books for price of one https://www.kobo.com/nz/en/p/june-thriller-sale Before we get to Kel – a reminder You can help defray the costs of production by buying me a cup of coffee on buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx And if you enjoy the show. Leave us a review so others will find us too. Word of mouth is the best way for others to discover the show and great books they will love to read. Links to things discussed in this episode Dr Johnson mysteries, Lillian De La Torre,: https://www.amazon.com/The-Dr.-Sam-Johnson-Mysteries-4-book-series/dp/B07CQB6YKR#: Charles Dickens Investigations, J. C. Briggs:  https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Dickens-Investigations-11-book-series/dp/B07MPBQLL2 Teddy Roosevelt as detective, Lawrence Alexander:   https://www.amazon.com/Speak-Softly-Theodore-Roosevelt-Mystery/dp/1561290327 Jane Austen as detective, Stephanie Barron:  https://www.goodreads.com/series/40959-jane-austen-mysteries Master of the Closed Door Mystery:  John Dickson Carr:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dickson_Carr#:~ Kel Richards’ G. K. Chesterton mystery: https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mummys-Tomb-Chesterton-Mystery/dp/1589199634 English humourist P.G. Wodehouse: https://www.wodehouse.co.uk/ Performing Flea, P.G. Wodehouse: https://www.amazon.com.au/Performing-Flea-P-G-Wodehouse/dp/1841591912 J R Tolkien, The Ents:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent#: The Inklings:  https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Inklings The Eagle and Child pub:  https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Eagle_and_Child The Nazguls: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Nazg%C3%BBl Bill Ponzini The Nameless Detctive: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/p/bill-pronzini/nameless-detective Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe series: https://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/raymond-chandler-philip-marlowe-books-in-order/ The Aussie Bible: https://www.amazon.com.au/Aussie-Bible-Kel-Richards/dp/0647508486 SkyNews, Peta Credin, https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/peta-credlin Austral English; E.E. Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_National_Dictionary What Kel is reading P.G Wodehouse Mr Mulliner Short Stories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_Mr_Mulliner Why Shoot A Butler, Georgette Heyer: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/311134.Why_Shoot_a_Butler_ Where To Find Kel online: Website:  https://ozwords.com.au/ But now, here’s Kel: Introducing mystery author Kel Richards Jenny Wheeler: , But now here’s Kel. Hello there, Kel, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have with us. Kel Richards: C.S. Lewis Country House mysteries Kel Richards: Nice to be here. Jenny Wheeler: Now you’ve made a real name for yourself as a distinguished Australian journalist and broadcaster and an expert on language, and we’ll to get onto those aspects of your career later on in the show. First of all, though, we want to talk to you about your mystery series, because this is a show for people who love popular fiction. So tell us, how did you get the idea to use an internationally recognized theologian as a mystery detective? Kel Richards: It sprung out of the fact that I like reading really old fashioned clue puzzle murder mysteries from the Golden Age of English murder mysteries, which was between the wars and the twenties and thirties. That’s great stuff. I enjoy reading that because they’re not written and published anymore. Now if you want to write something like that, you really need to write it as a historical detective novel. For some reason it doesn’t work in the 21st century, but as a historical novel it does. And there’s a whole bunch of those being written. It’s become a whole class of crime writing that there are people who have written crime novels in using real historical figures, with people like Dr Johnson as the detective. Lillian de la Torre told a whole series of stories with Dr. Johnson as the detective. Teddy R, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen – all sleuths There have been stories with, people like Teddy Roosevelt when he was the police commissioner in New York as the detective. There’s been at least one, probably more than one with Charles Dickens as the detective. There’ve been several with Jane Austen. There’s a whole series, in fact, I think with Jane Austen. So, I thought about, and I did write one novel years ago, in which GK Chesterton was the detective and I thought, oh, now who would I like to write about in the 1930s, because that’s the kind of book I’m doing. And CS Lewis sprang to mind because I’d been reading Lewis with great pleasure for a great many years. Jenny Wheeler: As you might expect when one of the central characters is a famous theologian, some readers dislike this and comment negatively on it, and others obviously positively like it. You are a declared lay canon in the Anglican Church, so it obviously is a topic close to your heart. How would you go about tackling that? Kel Richards: Well, just by knowing Lewis. One of the things I did when I was starting the series was to read his letters. His letters have been published in I think two or three volumes. And by reading the letters you get the voice of the person. And it was his voice I was interested in more than anything else because there’s stuff that just comes out of him in a particular way, there’s a particular lexicon, a particular vocabulary, a particular structure of sentences. Researching the books in Oxford I learned how that worked and I used that, and the kind of ideas that he kept springing to his mind would go to this. His mind would go to that. So it was from the letters, I got the flow of what the conversation might have been like, and that’s how I said about constructing the character in the books. Jenny Wheeler: You do manage to make the Oxford of that time come alive. have you been to, Oxford, perhaps even study at Oxford yourself? Kel Richards: I never studied at Oxford. It would’ve been nice but that was never possible. But we did go there for a week, six days, something like that. But it was a really busy time and I went there knowing that I was interested in writing the series about Oxford. So we saw all the colleges. We saw Oxford We saw Lewis’s old college, and actually spent a lot of the time in Oxford following in the footsteps of Lewis. So we went to the famous pub that he used to go to the Bird ‘N Baby, as he called it – the Eagle and Child. We met a bloke there. We set this up before we went, who had, when he was a boy, had known Lewis’s son… He was a friend of one of Lewis’s sons, a friend of Douglas, his stepson. He used to go to Lewis’s home, The Kilns. We spent time talking to him about Lewis, and looked at all of those places. When I sat down to write about that, we’d spent enough time there, visiting those places and thinking about that to really bring it vividly to mind. Classic “locked room mysteries” Jenny Wheeler: As we mentioned, they are brain teaser stories. So you set up situations which seem physically impossible. They defy the laws of physics and then you make it all happen. Kel Richards: The master of the Impossible Crime was a man named John Dickson Carr. He was American, but he lived in England and the best of his crime novels were written in the 1930s. His chief detective was Dr. Gideon Fell, who was modeled on GK Chesterton. He developed more than anyone else the idea of the “impossible crime.” The room which is locked on the inside and the keys missing from the door and all the windows are locked from the inside. And the person has been stabbed, not shot, and there’s no weapon in the room or whatever. He does those impossible things and works out sound solutions for them really well. I’d spent a lot of time reading his stuff. I discovered when I set out to write them that the best way to do it was to do it backwards. You work out a really impossible situation that could never have happened, and then work out step by step how you would make that happen. You work backwards. Carr himself said, with an impossible crime, with a locked room mystery, He said, it doesn’t have to be plausible, just possible. The secret: Work it out backwards All you need to do is to work out what might possibly lead up to this. Then of course, when you write the book, though you worked out t

    37 min

  6. 05/21/2024

    Lian Dolan – The Marriage Sabbatical

    What if you could take a vacation on your marriage and for six months, pursue a lifetime dream your husband doesn’t share? And he could do the same. That’s the premise for Lian Dolan’s latest book, The Marriage Sabbatical. Hi, I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler and today Lian, the author of the popular The Sweeney Sisters and Lost And Found In Paris is quick to make clear that the central premise of the marriage sabbatical does not come from personal experience. She jokes her life is ‘just not that interesting.’ But on today’s Binge Reading show, she talks about how she came to write a fascinating tale of marriage veterans of 23 years who take holidays apart for the first time in their lives because of their wildly clashing personal interests, and discover new things about themselves and their love for each other. Book Giveaways But before we get to Lian, be assured. We’ve got our usual free book giveaways this week. It’s open season on freebie thrillers. Searching for an action-packed thrill ride or a twisty whodunnit?? Look no further! These mystery, thriller, and suspense writers have teamed up to bring you these FREE books! Scoop them up today! DOWNLOAD FREEBIE MYSTERIES And we also have a promo on Kobo. If you’re a Kobo follower, there’s a free download of the Of Gold & Blood Book Bundle Two, Books #1 and #4, and lots of other great authors to choose from in a ‘free first in series’ promo in all genres…. Romance – Space Opera – Mysteries & Thrillers- Sci Fi * Fantasy – Young Adult – Urban Fantasy kobo free first in series – all genres THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL OFFERING – If you live in a country that isn’t included in this promotion, you may have trouble accessing the sale link. If this happens, change the flag at the top of the Kobo homepage to one of the included countries to see the sale link properly. Buy Me A Coffee And a reminder. You can help defray the costs of the show by buying me a cup of coffee on buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx. If you enjoy the show, do leave us a review, so others will find us. Word of mouth is still the best way for others to discover the show, and great books. they will love to read. Links to things discussed in the show Ali Macgraw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_MacGraw Love Story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Story_(1970_film) ALS: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20354022 Dervla McTiernan: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16918766.Dervla_McTiernan Maeve Binchy: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3532.Maeve_Binchy Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44890081-my-dark-vanessa Donna Tartt The Secret History: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29044.The_Secret_History The Satellite Sisters: https://satellitesisters.com/podcast/ The Sweeney Sisters, Lian Dolan: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49978226-the-sweeney-sisters Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8882001-helen-of-pasadena Where to find Lian Dolan online Website: liandolan.com Facebook: @liandolan Satellite Sisters podcast: https://satellitesisters.com/podcast/ Introducing author Lian Dolan Lian Dolan – women’s fiction with humor and heart But now here is Lian. Hello there, Lian, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Lian Dolan: Thank you so much. I’m really excited to be here and do this conversation with you. I’ve loved listening to a lot of your podcasts and I’m pleased to see so many of my friends on your shows. That was fun to discover them. Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful. The Marriage Sabbatical, which is your latest book is what we are discussing today. It’s quite newly published, isn’t it? Lian Dolan: Yes, just out. I’m excited to have it out. The writing process is a long one and the development process was long and then it’s a year in production, I’m excited to be out and about with it, because I feel like I’ve been talking about it for years, but really it’s just out. Jenny Wheeler: And as the title indicates it’s about a couple who spend some time apart, happily married in a marriage that’s very much settled into a routine. You like to make it really clear in the acknowledgements for the book that it’s not a personal story. Tell us about that. Lian Dolan: I think one of the big myths of writing is when people who are non-writers say, ‘oh, write about what you know.’ A Gen X couple on a different journey And honestly, I’m out material by book six. This is my sixth book. My life is not that interesting. I need to make stuff up. The book is the story of a couple that’s a Gen X couple. They’re approaching 50 or just over 50. They’ve been married for 23 years. They’ve just been through the Pandemic. They have a couple of college aged kids that are going off to their study abroad program and he, the husband, has the opportunity to take a sabbatical. His work is giving him a year off, and they decide to do this adventure trip through Patagonia. And then the wife decides ‘that is your dream. But it is not my dream.’ And so long story short, they come up with a compromise position. And that’s okay. we’re going to go our separate ways for eight months. You can do anything you want with anyone, no questions asked So it’s a breaking of their marriage vows and it’s a different journey that they didn’t expect to be on. That of course is very different than my own marriage. We’ve been married 31 years, no sabbaticals, no agreements. It’s hard to write about what is ostensibly a pretty good marriage? It’s not that fascinating a topic. So ooh, we ran errands on Saturday and then we had chicken for dinner. I had to fish around for something to happen, to kinda shake ’em both up and that was it. Learning the art of compromise Jenny Wheeler: At the beginning, Nicole is really reluctant to admit to her husband that she doesn’t want to go because they’ve got a long way up the track with him just assuming she was going to love everything he loved That scene where she finds the courage to tell him she doesn’t want to come and then sticks to her guns, that’s one a lot of women can identify with, I’m sure. Lian Dolan: Yes I think we get dragged into our partner’s interests whether we want to or not. And sometimes it’s benign. Like when I married my husband, all of a sudden I had to watch Formula One races at four in the morning, because he was a lifelong fan. And he had to learn how to ski. He had not grown up as a skier. We had those are fairly low stakes entries. But I think when you start to talk about like adventure travel or let’s sell everything we have and drive around in an RV, then you’re ask yourself do I really want to do that? And for Nicole… She is really banking on the fact that as the book takes place, at the very edge of the pandemic, people are just starting to travel again. For us here in the United States, we had so many opportunities where we thought the pandemic was over and then it was back and it was over and it was back. I think she’s hoping the whole time it’s going to get canceled. Learning to see things from the other side Like that was how I envisioned Nicole. Oh, this is never gonna happen. There’s gonna be another surge. I won’t have to go to Patagonia and ride around on a motorcycle in a windy, country. So two countries. So that’s what she’s banking on and it does not work out. She actually looks like she has to go. Jenny Wheeler: Now in terms of the research, because as you say, you haven’t had a sabbatical yourself, in the acknowledgements again you credited a pal with sending you gobs of reading material that helped you to get some of the research. And I wondered what was the hardest part about thinking yourself into this book? Lian Dolan: It was definitely a point of discomfort for me as a person. I don’t really think having a relationship with someone outside your marriage is a great idea. I’ll just say it. It’s not something I really go for. As you write more and more books and the older you get, and I would look around at other people’s marriages and I’d think something’s happening over there. Like they have some sort of an agreement. And I think I had to peel back my personal judgment. That was the hardest part of writing a book about something that, you know, morally. It was a gray area, but it was not a gray area for me. It was black and white. So my friend that you referred to, Daniela is a marriage and family counselor. And I wanted to be able to have a background and ask about women who make this choice, or how do couples, survive this? What do open relationships look like and do those actually work or do those all implode? Important we like the main characters She sent me tons of books on that. But it was important to me that you buy into this couple, Jason and Nicole, that you like them and that you’re like onboard with this choice, even if it’s a choice you wouldn’t make. And so I really worked hard. With any book you do a bunch of research, but then you have to put it aside and you have to focus in on the character journey. I really worked hard on the first a hundred pages before they separate and go on their separate sabbaticals to make the characters likable. I want readers to be  invested in both of them. You’re rooting for both of them. There’s not a bad guy or a good guy. There’s just a couple that’s struggling to find themselves again after 25 years of marriage. Jenny Wheeler: Jason does go off to Patagonia and follows his adventure dream, which is partly actually related to a very good friend of his, Charlie, who’s died. It’s not necessarily even Jason’s personal dream. It’s more of a kind of pact that he had with a friend who’s now dead. So that’s an a

    39 min

  7. 05/07/2024

    Chris Draper – Optimistic Techno-Thriller

    Chris Draper is a Kiwi IT engineer with a passion for writing optimistic, techno-thrillers like Goodbye Woomera Belle the first in a series of five planned action-filled futurist thrillers suitable for young adults, as well as adult readers. Hi, I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler, and in this week’s Binge Reading episode, Chris talks about how he fell in love with the Australian Outback while working in Adelaide, South Australia, and decided it would be the perfect location for the fast paced, optimistic techno thriller he’d been dreaming of writing for years. And so was born Goodbye Woomera Belle, a world changing story that unfolds in 116 hours. And it couldn’t be more topical, revolving as it does around artificial intelligence and inter-governmental tensions between friendly and not so friendly powers. Erin Brightwell is a brilliant young mind whose research is critical to national security and lots of people want to get their hands on it. This week’s Giveaway – Woomera Belle We’ll get to our chat with Chris in a moment. But first this week’s book giveaway; Chris has kindly offered 10 free copies of his book. Goodbye Woomera Belle to the first 10 readers who go online and claim it. Links for the download can be found in the show notes for this episode on the website, thejoysofbingereading.com. https://dl.bookfunnel.com/gjhqvpno2v BE IN FOR DOWNLOAD OF WOOMERA BELLE Buy me a coffee and defray costs And before we get to Chris, a reminder; you can help me defray the costs of production of the show by buying me a cup of coffee on buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx, (little x, like a kiss.) My time in preparing the show is freely given, but any support from you will help kindly pay for the web posting and editing costs. BUY ME A COFFEE And if you enjoy the show, leave us a review so others will find us through word of mouth is still the best way for others to discover the show and great books they would love to read. Links to things mentioned in the show Woomera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woomera,_South_Australia Tom Clancy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy Dan Brown: https://danbrown.com/ Dan Brown series Robert Langdon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Langdon_(book_series)#: Maralinga: https://www.indaily.com.au/opinion/2021/05/25/sas-nuclear-testing-legacy-still-unfolding-in-outback https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nuclear_tests_at_Maralinga Deep Space Station 41 and the Island Lagoon Base, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Lagoon_Tracking_Station Spacecraft: Voyagers: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ Pioneer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10 The James Webb Space telescope: https://webb.nasa.gov/ Nevil Shute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute A Town Like Alice: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107301.A_Town_Like_Alice On The Beach:  https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38180 Trustee From The Toolroom: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/107300.Trustee_from_the_Toolroom P F Hamilton Space opera series:  https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/peter-f-hamilton/1507 Isaac Asimov  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov The Foundation series: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Foundation-by-Asimov Isaac Asimov: iRobot: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41804.I_Robot Arthur C. Clarke: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7779.Arthur_C_Clarke Brandon Sanderson, https://www.brandonsanderson.com/ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5326.A_Christmas_Carol A Tale of Two Cities, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities. Enid Blyton: https://www.enidblyton.net/ Where to find Chris Draper online On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Chris-Draper/author/B09XZJQWJS Email: ChrisDraperWriter@gmail.com Introducing techno-thriller author Chris Draper But now here’s Chris. Hello there, Chris. And welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Chris Draper – techno thriller author of Solar Cradle series Chris Draper: Hi, Jenny. It’s great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Jenny Wheeler: This is a debut novel, and usually we have multi published authors on the show, but I loved the idea of having you on for a number of reasons. You are a friend and I heard about the book personally. I think it’s a really interesting book. We don’t often do techno thrillers either, so for all those reasons, I think people will be really interested in what you’ve got to say about it. It’s called Goodbye Woomera Belle. Am I saying it correctly? Chris Draper: Yeah. The Australians normally say Woomera as in woo. Yep. Jenny Wheeler: Goodbye Woomera Belle. You are a techie person, so the first up question really is, how did you make this leap from being a technical person to being a creative person in terms of writing fiction? How did that come about? Chris Draper: I guess it’s got a lot to do with the fact that my job is a creative job. I never thought so when I was at school. I always thought that art was a creative pursuit. But I also do a lot of writing. I’ve built a couple of tech companies in the nineties and now I’m semi-retired, but technical writing remains a huge part of my workload for the company that I work for. And as you can imagine it takes a bit of skill to take something that’s relatively complex and put it into the plain, easy to read writing, especially when it’s safety critical, which the stuff I do is. The idea of writing a book has been in the back of my mind, like a lot of people. But I’ve just managed to bite the bullet and achieve that and have four more on the go at the moment. Chris is planning a five book series Jenny Wheeler: I was going to say you are planning a five book series. What was the specific genesis for setting a book in the Outback and choosing these particular characters? How did that all come about? Chris Draper: It’s quite a long story. There was the genesis of an idea that stayed with me and just wouldn’t leave me alone. And I scratched out a few bits and pieces here and there, and it all really came together when I did a large contract in Adelaide about a dozen years ago and realized that Woomera was the absolute perfect setting for what I wanted to do. The original characters have changed a little bit. We can talk about that now or do you want to move into that a little later? Jenny Wheeler: Firstly just tell me what that original idea was that itched away at you? Chris Draper: Sure. It’s to do with the AI itself, the Artificial Intelligence, and particularly during the noughties, if you like. It started to bug me that science fiction, which has always been a genre I enjoy, turned very dark and it was all dystopian. You couldn’t have any new technology came along without scaring people into a George Orwell type universe or other such nonsense. And of course technology itself is neither good nor bad. It’s got a lot to do with how people use it or abuse it. And I felt the tables needed to be turned a little bit, or the playing field leveled, if you like, to leap around for concepts. The thriller mystery format fitted what I wanted to do with the technology. You’ve got Tom Clancy who created the techno thriller genre and then Dan Brown showed us how history can come alive, real history, and Woomera just ended up being the perfect combination of the two. Yes – Woomera is a real place! The places there are all about technology. For people that don’t know it, Woomera is the world’s largest weapons test facility on land at 127,000 square kilometers. There’s a great little museum there and a good summary about Woomera on Wikipedia if anyone wants to look it up. And there’s some fascinating links. Many countries and private companies continue to use the facility to this day. And I think perhaps a couple of things that might interest some of your listeners would be that the UK performed its initial nuclear tests there known as Maralinga, which features in the book a little bit. And the US had a facility there Deep Space Station 41 and the Island Lagoon Base, I also use in the book. I’ve generally tried to use real places wherever possible. The apartment that Erin lives in, for example was our apartment for the 18 months that I was in Adelaide. But of course, a few details have to be tweaked. Jenny Wheeler: I see that you’ve said that some readers do actually ask you whether Woomera is a real place. So you’ve cleared that up pretty well. right at the beginning, which is great. Obviously, people outside of Australia may be less aware of it. Chris Draper: There’s also a QA at the back of the book on a lot of questions like this as to where some of these sites come. I’ve naturally put it at the back of the book so it doesn’t spoil a couple of twists while people read the book. International competition and rivalry Jenny Wheeler: Now the plot revolves around international competition and rivalry. Chris Draper: Yeah. Jenny Wheeler: Between the US and Australia, which we all know that they are actually great friends and allies, but occasionally we can have misunderstandings. So several different entities are chasing some research that Erin has done. Tell us a bit about the nub of the plot. Chris Draper: It’s really a case of if somebody leaps ahead in a particular area, especially a hot technology like artificial intelligence. And as the book will talk about this particular artificial intelligence was capable of breaking just about any code going out there. You can imagine that there would be a lot of governments, good and bad, wanting to get their hands on it, but also some pretty big corporations. That’s the background. The tête-à-tête, if you like, between Australia and the US, really centers around the history of Woomera, which is real and some fictitious pieces that I build in to the place to support the plot obviously. But in reality there’s a

    34 min

  8. 04/23/2024

    Amy Harmon – Butch Cassidy Revisited

    Amy Harmon grew up in a remote Utah valley, very close to where the famed outlaw Butch Cassidy really lived. Quite a few years before her, of course. The folklore surrounding his Robin Hood reputation has always fascinated her. She’s far too young to have seen the famous movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford first time round, but she’s excavated the history and shed a whole new light on the story and her latest book, The Outlaw Noble Salt. Hi, I’m your host, Jenny Wheeler, and in this week’s Binge Reading episode, Amy talks about the mystery surrounding Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, the American outlaw, train robber and leader of a gang called The Wild Bunch. It’s officially recorded that he died in a shootout with local authorities in Bolivia in 1908. But did he really? Amy’s book is a fascinating and heart-touching re-imagining of the story. Mystery and Thriller Giveaway Our Giveaway this week – We always have free books to Giveaway -. is Mystery Thriller And Suspense Freebies. MYSTERY, THRILLER & SUSPENSE FREEBIES And the range is huge with something to suit every taste ,from historicals like Poisoned Legacy, Book One in my Of Gold& Blood Gold Rush romance series through to cozies and contemporary psychological thrillers. Find the link to download these books in the show notes for the episode on the website. The Joys Of Binge Reading.com. DOWNLOAD FREE BOOKS Before we get to Amy, a reminder. You can help defray the costs of the production of the show by buying me a cup of coffee at buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx. And if you enjoy the show, leave us a review, so others will find us too. Word of mouth is still the best recommendation and the way for others to find the show and discover great books they will love to read. Links to items mentioned in the show Movie: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064115/ Folklore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Eliot Ness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Ness Gladys Knight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Knight Books Amy has loved in the past or is reading now: Louise L’Amour – Western classics: https://www.louislamour.com/ Lucy Maud Montgomery: https://lmmontgomery.ca/about/lmm/her-life Anne of Green Gables: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anne-of-Green-Gables Baroness Orczy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel Paullina Simons The Bronze Horseman: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/47499.Paullina_Simons Susanna Kearsley: susannakearsley.com Poets: William Butler Yeats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats Emily Dickinson: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emily-Dickinson Introducing author Amy Harmon Amy Harmon: re-imagining the Burch Cassidy story But now here’s Amy. Hello there, Amy, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Amy Harmon: I am so excited to talk to you, Jenny. Jenny Wheeler: You’ve written more than 20 books and the most recent one is The Outlaw Noble Salt, and it retells the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance story, The Wild Bunch Story. If we are of a certain age, we saw the movie years ago, so it’s well known. What did you feel you could bring new to it? Amy Harmon: I have always been drawn to the story, and I think it’s because I grew up in a valley, just north of the valley where Butch Cassidy, who wasn’t known as Butch Cassidy in his early years, he was Robert Parker, lived. He was born very close to where I was born, a hundred years apart. We were born in small town Utah at the end of the Wild West era. He was the last of this very short time period that defined in the West. And I have always been interested in him. I’ve always felt a connection to him. Beyond just of course, the movie which came out in 1969, which predates me a little bit. I didn’t grow up with the movie, but it was very much the Western lore that is part of this place where I grew up, and so I think I’ve always been drawn to him. Living near the Butch Cassidy valley Every year my family goes through that valley on our way to California. It’s our family reunion trip. My parents were both raised in California, so we all gather there and every year I hit that valley about the same time coming home. The valley has called me and probably two years ago coming through it, I just felt called to it and decided was I was going to answer the call and start looking more into the story of Butch Cassidy and what I could add that was beyond maybe what people thought they knew. Because there’s a lot more to him than I think people know. Jenny Wheeler: Did you feel that, Butch’s reputation needed rescuing or that the image that had been left of him wasn’t quite true to what you think he deserved? Amy Harmon: I think Butch’s reputation was a mixed one, In Utah he had quite a good reputation. And that comes through in the story. Even though he was an outlaw, he had this Robin Hood reputation, this Gentleman Outlaw if you will. He was very, respected in some quarters because he lived with a certain ethos of ‘do no harm.’ So he robbed, but he gave his winnings to the poor and he didn’t harm anyone and he didn’t hurt anyone. It was this part of his personality. That was also interesting to me, that he had these lines that he drew for himself. What I wanted to resuscitate or what I wanted to maybe explore was the way that Butch Cassidy felt about himself. And the more research I did, the more the sense of regret that I felt. And I think there’s a bit of channeling that happens when you really dig deep into someone else’s life. You start to feel the way they may have felt. And I really felt his regret. I think he got pulled into a life that he didn’t realize he was being pulled into. Butch Cassidy – living with regret And that sense of that it was too late really came through. When I went through his history, I really felt like he regretted the choices that he made as a young man and then could never quite get out of the life and that he’d made for himself. And so, this was my chance to give him a different ending. And I felt that sense of euphoria or this sense of maybe I gave him some redemption that life didn’t give him. Jenny Wheeler: Yes, and in the book, it comes through that I believe that he committed virtually no murders himself. He got into The Wild Bunch gang as they were called, and there were some mean-spirited men there who killed without too much conscience, and of course he was associated with those men, is how you see it. Yeah, he was associated. I don’t know that the things that even The Wild Bunch that the men he was associated with, I don’t think any of those things happened when he was with those men. That was a line. and he’s adamant about that, the people he was with or got wrapped up in, as far as the robberies he was pretty adamant about that. When he was on a job that those things didn’t happen. And of course at the end of the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the movie, there’s a shootout and if you’re shooting, somebody’s gonna get hurt. I don’t know how much he can really claim that he didn’t hurt anyone. Amy Harmon: But that was the reputation, that he never killed anyone. Did Butch die in a Bolivian shoot out? Jenny Wheeler: In the book he’s got a brother who also causes him some difficulties. Did he have a brother? Is that a true part of the story? Amy Harmon: He, Butch Cassidy or Robert Parker, was the oldest of 13 children. He had lots of brothers and lots of sisters, but there was a brother named Dan that wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps and he ran him off. He was adamant about his brother not getting involved. And so it was from that I then took the inspiration for the character Van. I didn’t want to make a villain out of a real person. And I do think that Dan Parker went on and made good. He struggled a bit and got involved with things he shouldn’t. And like I said, Butch Cassidy had to run him off. But it gave me some inspiration for some characters that were fictionalized in the story. Jenny Wheeler: As you mentioned, in the movie, sadly I’m old enough to have actually seen that movie when I was a younger person, but in the movie, they do die in the shootout in Bolivia, and that’s a long standing point of discussion whether that really did happen or not. I read a little bit online and one of the thoughts was that they have since exhumed bones down there and found that they were not Robert Parker’s bones. Tell us about that strange, ambiguous ending. Amy Harmon: It’s a strange ambiguous ending. I actually think the movie is a great movie. I think the movie captures the sparkle and the wit and the personality of Butch Cassidy. I really think it was well captured. And I think the ending was perfectly ambiguous because we really don’t know. It was believed that for a long time that he was that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid were killed in Bolivia, in a shootout. There are have been so many people that have (investigated,) that are still Butch Cassidy hunters, still are obsessed with him. They and have gone on these long, treasure hunting, treasure seeking journeys. Family insists Butch came home But his family, his youngest sister, insists that he came back to the little valley in Utah that’s just over the hill from the valley I grew up in. She insists he came back, which is pretty hard evidence. And it is believed that he is buried on the family’s property. They all went to their graves keeping that secret. If he is buried there, no one knows where. And it makes sense that they wouldn’t want anyone to know because there would be no way that he would be left to rest in peace. So that is the belief that his family, members of his family had. And that is kind of testified to, but as far as hard evidence, bones or remains or anything like that, there have been n

    39 min
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