Latest / Two Girls, One TBR / Landyn Hill: Dark Cowboy Romance & Trauma Bonded

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Landyn Hill: Dark Cowboy Romance & Trauma Bonded · Two Girls, One TBR

• 0:04
  Hey ebook babes, welcome back to 2 Girls 1 TBR, your chaotic book
• 0:09
  besties. Here to wreck your reading list.
• 0:11
  1 morally Gray man at a time. I'm Rebecca.
• 0:15
  And I'm Chelsea, we're coming to you from our own corners of the
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  bookish world today. But don't worry, we brought
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  enough spice and opinions to fill the whole digital space.
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  Today we are diving into the darker side of the shelf with an
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  author who refuses to let their characters off easy.
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  We're talking about trauma, messy recovery, and what a bad
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  boy needs more than just a leather coat to be interesting.
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  So how are you doing over there? Oh, I'm doing, I'm tired from
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  working so much. I haven't had a lot of reading
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  time, but I've been listening to my audio books.
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  Let's see, I'm on the Blood and Ash series, like book three.
• 1:00
  I think it is Graphic audio. And then last night I started
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  for Phillies and Monsters on Kindle Unlimited.
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  Hint, hint into today. What about you?
• 1:17
  I am still reading this one here, Taken by Touch and Torment
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  by Maggie Senseri. This is the second book in the
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  duet. It is really good.
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  I just been so busy I haven't had a chance to read as much.
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  But I'm about halfway now and it is really good.
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  And there's so much happening in this book because it's very,
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  they're in a world of like, you know, there's doms and
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  submissive kind of stuff is happening.
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  And it's good. It's good.
• 1:48
  And when you get to book 2, you find out more about Scarlet, who
• 1:54
  she is, what she is, that kind of deal.
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  And she's been using her abilities, we'll just say, to
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  enter the minds of these powerful vampires to try to save
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  herself, in essence. But it's very I'm liking.
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  It. But again, it's a it's a duet
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  and Maggie sincere. If you get an opportunity, read
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  them. It's again, very easy read, very
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  good. But.
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  I love duet, hard duologies, whatever we want to call them.
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  And make sure you check your triggers though, so that kind of
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  stuff bothers you, you know, anybody out there?
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  But it's me now. I like dark stuff, so it was
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  good. But now because we have a
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  special person coming on and it's going to be Landon Hill and
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  she does dark cowboy romances, I myself have never read a cowboy
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  romance. But you have been reading and
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  you so far have been enjoying her book.
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  Yeah, yeah. So I'm, I'm so used to like now
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  I've read other cowboy romances like Elsie Silver and but going
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  on to like the dark side. It's been very interesting.
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  And I really liked like her author's note in the beginning.
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  And I hope we can like talk to her about it when she gets on.
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  But yeah, it's it's definitely very good, like the cowboy
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  because you expect Cowboys to be like rough, you know?
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  And so like getting that in the other books that I read that are
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  that are more like contemporary, not dark side, it's always kind
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  of like, oh, they're softies, you know, like you don't really
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  get like that rough feel. But she really has nailed it so
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  far. Yes.
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  That sounds good. So they're kind of leaning more
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  towards the villain kind of vibe kind of thing.
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  Yes, yeah. So that is good.
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  Like very dark cowboy like hiding in the shadows like.
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  So it's the cowboy with the Black Hat, Kind of.
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  Exactly. The Black Hat, black outfit,
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  yes. I like it.
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  Oh, I'm excited to talk to her about it now.
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  Now we also have because in honor of her for her episode, we
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  have our two drinks special for her.
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  Now again, this will be on our Instagram on our highlights
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  under Sips. The first one is the bitter
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  truth. It's for a hero who has a past
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  written in blood and a future he's willing to burn down.
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  That sounds good. And then if you don't, of
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  course, if you don't want anything alcoholic, we do have
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  the mocktail. And that's the silver lining.
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  That's for the heroine who built a wall of ice but is finally
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  finding a reason to let it melt. Adorable.
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  I love it. Again, I really want to see
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  people. I want to see people make up.
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  We have to. I agree with Heather.
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  Someday, if we ever may, I have made us a Patreon page, but I've
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  not haven't done anything with it.
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  But I think we someday should do, and we should make these
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  drinks. Yeah, and.
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  See what they are. The problem is, is sometimes we
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  record in the morning and it's not as appropriate, I mean, but
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  we could be doing our mocktails. We could be earlier.
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  Yes, we got to start waking them.
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  But they're they're always fancy.
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  I've, I've never did like the mixing of drinks or anything.
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  Like, yeah, I normally I'll just open like a wine cooler, have
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  wine or I've had like ski on, you know, on the ice, you know,
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  on the box, that kind. Of thing, now I have an idea
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  that like, I need to go in because I've got, you know, her
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  book 1 of this series. I need to make either the
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  mocktail or the poison. Oh yeah.
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  And like do a little drink outfit book.
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  That would be fun. Yeah, well, that would be super
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  fun. A 2 girls 1 TBR special you know
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  post for it. I like that Heather said.
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  She wants to make different drinks too.
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  I haven't. We haven't got her to do it yet
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  though. But she's more brave than I
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  because she she has the the shaker and all that.
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  Oh yeah, she's got her cute cups and everything, Yeah.
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  Oh, I know I miss Heather today, but we will see her.
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  She'll be back with us next week.
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  Now, if you caught our teaser on bookstagram yesterday, you saw
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  us reveal the recipes for these two drinks that we were just
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  talking about. We designed these to match the
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  dark cowboy energy of Landon's Trauma Bonded series, which by
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  the way, is officially out in the world as of 2 days ago.
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  The aesthetic of this series is so Moody, you can just feel the
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  duality in these recipes. It's that balance between the
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  bitter reality of a traumatic past and the silver lining of a
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  hard earned recovery that Landon is known for.
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  And now that For Saints and Outlaws is finally in our hands,
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  we had to bring the mastermind behind it onto the show.
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  So we will be back just here in a couple moments with Landon.
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  We are so incredibly excited to have Landon Hill with us today.
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  Congratulations on the release of For Saints and Outlaws this
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  past Tuesday. We have been seeing the teasers
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  of this book all over our feeds and we are obsessed with the
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  vibe you brought to the genre. Absolutely, and the best part is
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  that the story isn't over yet. That's right, already deep into
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  writing book four in the series. So welcome to the show.
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  We are so ready to pick your brain about these dark Cowboys
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  of your trauma bonded series we've been hearing so much
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  about. Yeah.
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  Thank you guys. I really appreciate the the
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  invite and this is just I'm excited.
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  This is going to be fun. Yeah, and I really like
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  legitimately, you're everywhere on my Instagram feed and a lot
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  of my book besties have had you on there.
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  One in particular, Angel, I think that you've met her in
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  person. Yes.
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  OK, so I met her through one of our friends and like our little
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  group that we have. And then, you know, she just has
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  gotten me in touch with a bunch of people that she is so
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  supportive and awesome. And I thought.
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  She is. She showed up.
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  I saw you right in. Yes, she surprised me.
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  Uh huh. She I had no idea she was
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  coming. Yeah, Angel's kind of like my I
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  call her like, she's like my inner voice.
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  Whenever I'm like writing new chapters, I send him to Angel
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  before I send him to anybody else.
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  I don't know yet. Yeah, she is super sweet.
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  I had met her just on Instagram, and she's like, hey, LJ Shen is
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  having a thing at the Huntington Barnes and Noble.
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  And so I just went and showed up and she made me feel so welcome.
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  Like, right away. It was like, I feel like I've
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  known her forever. Yeah, she, I, I mean, I met her
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  through Instagram too. Like, you know, I that was the
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  in Texas when she came to that signing was the first time I met
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  her. But yeah, very special.
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  Yeah, it's awesome. And then so many of our other
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  friends, like Rebecca was saying, we have another girl in
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  our group, Angela, and I've actually seen it, I think
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  Michaela in our group also. Yes.
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  She she's read your arc I think she just got.
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  It. Yep, Yep.
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  Yeah, so it's really cool getting to meet you now because
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  I've seen your books everywhere and it's exciting.
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  Thank you. You know that again, we've said
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  this many different times. It's amazing how just our little
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  world that we have created in the bookstagram and how many
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  wonderful nice people that we all have met.
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  I really haven't met anybody that I've been like, I don't
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  want to talk to them anymore unless unless you go over on
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  threads that. Seems to be the place.
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  We find those people. So much.
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  That's why I, I don't, I just don't do anything with threads
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  anymore. I've read a little bit like if
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  there's something I might see or something I'll go over there,
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  but I don't even post over there on threads anymore because it
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  seems a little toxic over. There it can be, I think for
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  sure. I, I keep it pretty light
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  hearted on threads. I mainly am like when I'm trying
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  to get arc readers or like you know, really pushing out into
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  the, in the interweb. I'll post on there like a whole
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  bunch and then I'll disappear for like 6 months because I'm
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  like OK thank you so much I'm done.
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  I've met so many just nice people.
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  Well, I met Chelsea and I've met Heather.
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  None of us knew each other on anything.
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  And I have a little. It started out as a little
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  engagement group where we would help each other and that and
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  then we weren't even though we still do that kind of stuff with
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  each other, but we talk to each other pretty much every day and
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  we know what's going on in each other's lives.
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  So I changed it and it's it's now our, you know, our book
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  family now, yes, and and it's it's so nice again, If that is
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  that is I think one of the best things that I have gotten from
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  books to gram is all my new found family.
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  Oh, I agree, absolutely. Yeah.
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  Just even like, not even as an author, but just, you know, to
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  to connect with people on a personal level.
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  I think that's really very special about this space, just
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  like getting to meet people that I wouldn't normally get to meet,
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  but now I have so much in common with.
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  Yeah, yeah. And also I was saying this about
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  our group especially is that some of the people on the
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  Internet are like my, they're my biggest fans, like, and they
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  support me so much. And I can't even rely on people
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  that I actually know in real life to support me the same way.
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  Agreed 100%. Yeah.
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  Yeah, so it's like all these girls, I'm like, I want to meet
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  them all in person. Like I want to hang out with all
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  these people because I know that they would actually, I don't
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  know, like they would be there for me in real life.
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  Agreed. Yeah.
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  He has said hopefully maybe one day we can all get together and
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  like a Kentucky, like if you go into Eastern Kentucky, they
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  have, it's the, the Natural Bridge or whatever.
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  It's like a the big stone bridge.
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  But they have all kinds of cabins and stuff and they have
• 12:00
  some that are tree house ones. I'm like, wouldn't that be so
• 12:03
  fun for everybody to get together and just have fun?
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  Because I'll see different, you know, book groups that are
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  friends and stuff, and they'll go and do that and it looks so
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  fun. Yeah.
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  Definitely have that too. Landon Brady breeders, I mean
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  Landon Brady breeders that don't know you yet while you introduce
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  yourself a little bit. Yeah, sure.
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  Yeah. My name is Landon.
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  So I actually grew up in Colorado, but we moved to Texas.
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  We're going to, it'll be 3 years this month.
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  And so people always ask why'd you leave Colorado and move to
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  Texas? The honest answer is they're,
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  they're really, we just felt called to do it, I guess.
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  Like it was just something we had travelled down here and just
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  fell in love with the area. I hate the cold.
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  And so I was like, that's a wind there.
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  Yeah. And both my husband and I, we
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  grew up and lived in the same place forever.
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  And so we're the the black sheep who left.
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  And then, yeah. So we, we've lived here in Texas
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  for three years. I started writing my first book
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  like 6 months before we moved down here.
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  And it was just a hobby. People always ask, like, how did
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  you get into writing? And the honest answer is
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  therapy. So it was, it was truly, I
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  started going to therapy and I was like, I need to get these
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  feelings, you know, these things out, but I'm not much of A
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  journal person. And so I started to like write
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  it as more of a story, not my story, but some, you know, write
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  it kind of those same feelings as a story.
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  And and that's why, you know, it came up with the trauma bonding
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  because I was like, I feel like I'm bonding with these
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  characters on this level. And and then it just all has
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  spiralled since then. But yeah, it's been a, it's been
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  a really interesting. I don't know if most authors
• 13:49
  start with the like, yeah, I'm going to really release this
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  book or if it's like, I'm going to write this book and see what
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  happens. And I feel like that was kind
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  of, that's kind of my experience for sure.
• 14:00
  Yeah, so for Phillies and Monsters, was that your actual
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  first? Yes, it was.
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  OK, cool. And I'm already seeing parallels
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  between you and Stetson because she moves from Colorado into
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  Texas. And so now that's going to bring
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  on a whole other set of questions down from.
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  Me. Yep.
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  As we go. So that's cool.
• 14:19
  Now do you do your the artwork on your covers yourself or do
• 14:24
  you have someone else do your artwork?
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  I have a cover artist. She is, her name is Kim and she
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  it's like KDG books and she does all of my book covers.
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  And then I released this last year, the special editions and
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  my friend Ella, she's an author as well.
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  She actually has done my formatting and she did my
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  special edition covers. So I actually, so I could
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  artistically I think do some of my covers.
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  I prior to being an author, I owned a stationary business and
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  I did all the artwork and stuff for my planners.
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  So I know I'm capable. I just don't like my own art.
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  I feel like most people feel that way.
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  They don't like their own enough to want to like use it on
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  something that's like, I just don't think it's good enough,
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  but it probably is. And so yeah, yes.
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  And I, I also like, I'm a big believer in like, you know,
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  supporting as many people as I can.
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  And so I very much like to work like I, I have artists that do
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  character art for me that I like to repeat.
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  And but I also like to try new ones all the time, just to
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  spread, you know, the love, I guess.
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  Yeah, and they've done a really good job.
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  I mean, you started off with was this the original cover?
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  The first one and then the rest of them really look nice.
• 15:45
  I have loved the way I'm so excited to get the 1st, the 4th
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  one done so that I can see I I'm excited to finish the series
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  just because like, I feel like it's going to feel like such a
• 15:56
  like an accomplishment. It's it's an accomplishment to
• 15:58
  release 1 and and now 3, but I think it's going to feel like
• 16:02
  like I've finished something and I'm really excited to see it all
• 16:05
  come together. Yeah, and these are
• 16:07
  interconnected standalone. Extremely, yeah.
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  So they're and that's been I think maybe a challenge like
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  promoting it and getting arc readers and stuff because a lot
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  of stuff, especially in, you know, the the romance genre or
• 16:19
  kind of this this cowboy romance genre, they're interconnected
• 16:23
  standalones, but you can read them.
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  There might be a little spoilers but you can read them in
• 16:27
  whatever order you want or you can pick up.
• 16:29
  These are heavily connected so like I try and tell people do
• 16:33
  not start with the one that sounds interesting and then
• 16:36
  because it'll ruin the others. Yeah.
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  Because it's not just the romance piece that you'll like
• 16:41
  find out about. There's like things, you know,
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  because I try and incorporate a lot of mystery and a lot of
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  trauma and stuff that that doesn't get resolved and tell
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  other books. Right.
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  I've read there's another series.
• 16:54
  It's like a small town romance series and just some suspense.
• 16:58
  And but yeah, she has like there's a background theme that
• 17:02
  like, doesn't get resolved for the whole series.
• 17:04
  And so yeah, OK, so and with yours, I've already met Dale and
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  I absolutely love her. She's the girlfriend that we all
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  need. Absolutely.
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  And I saw that book 2 is her book.
• 17:16
  Yes. Yeah.
• 17:17
  And I'm excited to see #3 So I haven't gotten the ARC and but
• 17:21
  some of my friends have. But I'm interested to see who
• 17:23
  book 3 and 4 are about. Yes, I know I get lots of
• 17:27
  questions about book 4. Can you tell us, can you spoil
• 17:31
  for us if anybody hasn't read it yet who book 3 is about?
• 17:35
  Book 3 is going to be Valentina. So she is actually, she's kind
• 17:39
  of the protagonist in book 2. She's the evil sister to the
• 17:45
  MMC. And I tried really, you know, I
• 17:48
  wrote her pretty authentically. Like she's pretty.
• 17:51
  I poured a lot of myself into her.
• 17:53
  My postpartum rage, it was Valentina.
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  And so that's kind of this character.
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  I put a lot of rage into her. And so she's really, really bad
• 18:02
  in the second one. And then she gets, I think a
• 18:05
  redemption arc in the third one. And so that's the OR the, the
• 18:09
  FMC. And then the MMC is also one of
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  the protagonists in the second book.
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  And so it's a, it's a lot of redemption arcs and, and peeling
• 18:20
  back like what makes people evil and like why people maybe act
• 18:25
  the way they do and they're not actually evil, they're just
• 18:28
  misunderstood. Yeah.
• 18:30
  Cool, now you talk a lot about like non linear linear healing.
• 18:34
  For those of us who are just diving into your world, what
• 18:38
  does that look like with dark romance?
• 18:41
  Why is it more compelling than a character who just gets over
• 18:44
  their past? That kind of thing.
• 18:47
  Sure, in my experience, I guess like every author writes it from
• 18:50
  their own perspective. In my experience, I don't think
• 18:54
  I've ever fully healed from anything like I guess in in some
• 18:59
  sense you do right? You move on, you, you heal,
• 19:02
  you're able to progress in life, you're able to grow as a person,
• 19:06
  as a character, you know that kind of thing.
• 19:08
  But that shapes then how you face life, you know, in the
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  future. So, you know, you're have
• 19:15
  parents who expect you to be, you know, super hard working and
• 19:20
  you know, like always get the job done before you get to do
• 19:22
  something fun. Well, then that creates a person
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  or a character who, you know, carries a lot of guilt, like
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  like taking time off to do something fun when I know I have
• 19:32
  this To Do List to do. So yes, you heal, but I don't
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  think that like I think that's part of the human experience.
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  You're never actually done healing.
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  You're never actually done growing.
• 19:41
  You know, I just think as as a person that impacts how you then
• 19:45
  do it the next time. I, I understand that a lot
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  because you can take that like with grief, you know, like if
• 19:52
  somebody, you know, cuz like my dad passed away, my brother
• 19:55
  passed away. You know, I still feel that it's
• 19:58
  with me all the time. You just learn to live with that
• 20:02
  feeling, I guess, you know, cuz like some people are like, oh,
• 20:05
  it's been, you know, this many years.
• 20:07
  You should be over that. Yeah.
• 20:09
  Never, and I mean that can be an all kinds of experiences, but I,
• 20:13
  I don't think we ever truly get over those kind of things.
• 20:17
  I think it's just, you know, you just learn to move on and live
• 20:22
  with that with you. You just right.
• 20:25
  It's never just a finish line. Kind of thing.
• 20:27
  I think people who feel like they cross a finish line are
• 20:30
  just better at compartmentalizing and like,
• 20:33
  able to put it away. And that's just my perspective,
• 20:35
  right? That's just me.
• 20:36
  I mean, there could be different perspectives, but in my
• 20:39
  experience, like the people I know who are like, yeah, I'm
• 20:42
  better. They're just truly able to put
• 20:45
  it away, but it's not actually gone.
• 20:48
  Yeah, in your author's note, I had kind of mentioned this
• 20:54
  before we start recording, but I love that you said you were
• 20:56
  chronic over share. You just want to belong.
• 21:00
  And through this writing you can kind of tell like you get that
• 21:03
  dark, the dark stuff that's kind of like within all of us.
• 21:06
  You can kind of get that onto the page.
• 21:08
  And I can see how that can be very healing.
• 21:11
  Can you speak a little bit more to that, like any, anything that
• 21:15
  you've kind of, I know you said postpartum, you touched on that
• 21:17
  a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit
• 21:19
  more about your experience and how that might help readers that
• 21:22
  are dealing with the same things?
• 21:24
  Yeah, I it was funny in my street team and this is just
• 21:31
  because the the third book is like on my mind right now.
• 21:34
  So that's the one I'm I'm most able to pick apart.
• 21:37
  But in my street team, just the other day we were talking about
• 21:40
  how book three makes you feel like damage and like kind of
• 21:45
  like this, like this raw sadness.
• 21:47
  And I accidentally, I can't remember what I was trying to
• 21:50
  type, but it said daddy issues and then I sent it.
• 21:52
  And then I would realize I was like, well, that actually
• 21:54
  applies. So, so I, I think that like for,
• 21:58
  for me, Stetson was so each book focuses on a different
• 22:05
  perspective of trauma. So the first one is like meant
• 22:09
  to look like she, you know, they're, this is past trauma.
• 22:13
  Like in the present day, She's not actively going through the
• 22:15
  trauma. This is something that happened
• 22:17
  years and years and years ago and it's shape to she is.
• 22:21
  And now she has to decide like, do I let that continue to, you
• 22:25
  know, control my life or do I take it and become who I want to
• 22:28
  be instead of what this makes me be The second one, Like they're
• 22:32
  actively going through trauma. And I, and I, I know that like
• 22:35
  people there, I actually had a lot of Arc readers who like,
• 22:38
  couldn't read it because it was too painful, which in itself was
• 22:42
  kind of affirmation for me. You know, I wanted people to
• 22:46
  feel it. And if that's too much for
• 22:47
  people, that's absolutely OK. Like, you have to protect it.
• 22:50
  I put all the warnings in there, like your mental health is more
• 22:52
  important than reading a book, But I wanted people to feel
• 22:56
  that. And so I, the second book is a
• 22:59
  lot more like sad and grief and some of that stuff and that I
• 23:02
  was I was pregnant at the time and I was kind of grieving like
• 23:08
  my former life. My daughter is a blessing.
• 23:10
  I am, I'm we worked very hard to get her.
• 23:16
  And so I'm very grateful. That doesn't mean like, I'm
• 23:20
  pretty honest when people ask, like I grieved this life that I
• 23:23
  had, you know, before I had kids because it'll never be the same
• 23:26
  again. And my husband has a lot of
• 23:28
  health issues and that's going to be really, really prevalent
• 23:31
  in the 4th book. The third book is like, you're
• 23:34
  somebody else's trauma. So that's the perspective is
• 23:37
  like you're this evil person and that's she's also pretty
• 23:41
  prevalent to myself. I would consider myself like a
• 23:44
  pretty happy person, but I underneath it all am a pretty
• 23:47
  angry person and I have to deal with like those like how to
• 23:50
  interact with people and my daughter, you know, not getting
• 23:53
  frustrated at her because it's not her fault.
• 23:55
  Like those things are, are mine and my husband, who he's a St.
• 23:59
  I don't know how he puts up with me half the time, but like those
• 24:01
  things. And that's, that's come from a
• 24:03
  lot of, you know, working with a therapist and stuff.
• 24:05
  And so I had really good parents, but I had a lot of bad
• 24:09
  stuff happened to me as a, you know, as a young girl.
• 24:11
  And I think that that's unresolved for a very long time.
• 24:16
  And so these are all things that I'm like working through.
• 24:19
  And so then the 4th book is going to be super heavily it's,
• 24:22
  it's about watching somebody else go through trauma.
• 24:25
  That's kind of the perspective and how helpless and hopeless,
• 24:28
  and I think that's going to be the hardest one for me to write,
• 24:30
  if I'm being honest. Yeah.
• 24:32
  I've restarted it 3 or 4 different times just because
• 24:35
  it's it's really hard to like relive that because that's
• 24:37
  definitely the most fresh for me.
• 24:39
  Yeah. So I haven't gotten to read
• 24:41
  obviously book three that just released a couple days ago.
• 24:44
  And by the time that we put this out, yeah.
• 24:46
  But I already kind of feel a kinship with Valentina a little
• 24:49
  bit because it's like you said, like we're kind of the we can
• 24:51
  always kind of be the villain in somebody else's story for sure.
• 24:54
  And sometimes we're just like, we own that and we're like, OK,
• 24:57
  you want me to to be the villain and I'm the villain.
• 24:59
  Right. So I love that you kind of put
• 25:02
  that in there and that a lot of us readers are kind of the Black
• 25:04
  Cats, the black sheep, and we feel that way.
• 25:08
  And so, yeah, I'm really excited to get this in my hands and to
• 25:12
  read it. So yeah, thank you for putting
• 25:16
  that in these books, because a lot of people, like you said,
• 25:19
  like we all have to watch our own mental health.
• 25:21
  And so there are triggers for some of us, but it's also really
• 25:24
  nice to know that we're not alone in feeling these ways and
• 25:28
  letting the dark come out a little bit.
• 25:30
  Yeah, I feel like it's really healing, at least for myself and
• 25:34
  for the people I've talked to, to be able to be like, like, I
• 25:37
  don't have to be sunshine and rainbows all the time.
• 25:39
  Like I can feel my feels and you still accept who I am.
• 25:44
  And that's, I tried really hard to put that in there.
• 25:47
  And I love the romance pieces of it, but it's probably the girl
• 25:50
  gang that that does it for me truly.
• 25:53
  Like that's probably the most healing part in all of it is is
• 25:58
  this girl gang? Because I wouldn't say I have
• 26:01
  I've got I've got a really, really close group of friends,
• 26:05
  but I have been betrayed by more women and girls in my life that
• 26:08
  I have men. And I think those cut deeper
• 26:12
  than than like a boyfriend cheating or you know what,
• 26:15
  whatever. I think a girl betraying your
• 26:17
  best friend, betraying you hurts a million times worse than any
• 26:20
  guy. And so I just, I think that a
• 26:22
  lot of, you know, trying to build this, this girl gang in
• 26:26
  this book that's been as healing as as any of the romance pieces
• 26:30
  of it. And in For Saints and Outlaws
• 26:34
  with Valentina, since I haven't met her yet, is she, I mean, is
• 26:37
  she kind of more like cold and guarded?
• 26:39
  And do you find that that's like, do you find it's a
• 26:42
  challenge to make readers fall in love with that kind of
• 26:45
  character or did you have a hard time?
• 26:47
  Like what was your kind of your process with her?
• 26:49
  I knew people were going to hate her in the second one.
• 26:52
  I mean, I wrote, I wanted it to be that way.
• 26:54
  I wanted people to be like, there is no redemption for her.
• 26:57
  She's horrible. She's responsible for so many
• 27:00
  horrible things happening to this character that we love
• 27:03
  because we all have people like that in our life where your best
• 27:06
  friend was hurt by your other best friend or you know, you
• 27:11
  know, whatever the case might be, right?
• 27:15
  And having to pick sides. In a yeah and having to pick
• 27:17
  sides. And so I knew because before I
• 27:19
  even released who the the FMC in the third book was going to be,
• 27:22
  I had people like they were like, do not make the third book
• 27:25
  about Valentina. Like I will not read it.
• 27:27
  There is no redemption. I refuse.
• 27:30
  I was like, OK, whatever. And to be honest with you,
• 27:34
  Valentina has been my favorite character that I've written so
• 27:36
  far for sure, without a doubt. It didn't necessarily start that
• 27:41
  way, but I was, I think I resonate the most with her like
• 27:45
  these feelings of just like being so alone and so isolated
• 27:51
  and maybe that's just again, the part of life I'm in.
• 27:54
  Like I've got a 7 month old baby and it is pretty isolating and
• 27:57
  it is pretty lonely, especially living in a different state than
• 28:01
  every friend and every family member I've ever had.
• 28:03
  It is very lonely. And so I think that I was able
• 28:05
  to like pour so much of that into to her story, but she was
• 28:10
  not hard for me to like from the beginning because I was her.
• 28:13
  I was like, if only people understood me.
• 28:16
  I understand what you're saying. When I had my first child, I was
• 28:20
  in Kentucky. All my family was in
• 28:22
  Pennsylvania. And also I am the the black
• 28:25
  sheep of my family. Most of my family, we do not
• 28:28
  speak, unfortunately. And so I was very alone.
• 28:33
  And I think when you have your first child, you think you know,
• 28:38
  but you don't know until you have that baby.
• 28:40
  It's, it's hard. It is very isolating, you know,
• 28:44
  especially if you don't have a support group close by.
• 28:49
  Of course, I had my husband and that kind of thing.
• 28:51
  But it's, it is, it's very, it's very lonely.
• 28:55
  And then I, of course, I've gone on and I had two more children
• 28:58
  within five years. So I had three of them and it
• 29:01
  was so overwhelming. I've, I've told Chelsea this
• 29:04
  before, I've told Heather it would be so overwhelming that I
• 29:07
  would close and lock myself in my closet and I would cry
• 29:10
  because it was just so much. But of course mine are getting
• 29:14
  bigger different problems now, but with them.
• 29:17
  I don't think they ever go away, yeah.
• 29:20
  But I, I understand 100% what you're saying and I know what
• 29:25
  that feeling is. And it's, it is very lonely.
• 29:28
  But yeah, it does get, it does get better as they get better.
• 29:32
  It's funny that you pray for them and you want them and you
• 29:35
  like need them in your life, but at the same time it is really
• 29:37
  hard coping with the fact that it is the hardest job ever.
• 29:42
  You're not getting any sleep and you don't feel like yourself
• 29:45
  anymore. You couldn't prepare for it.
• 29:47
  No, yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing that prepares
• 29:50
  you for that. Yeah, it's a reawakening for
• 29:52
  everybody and anybody that says differently, I great.
• 29:55
  That's great for you. It's not my experience.
• 29:58
  Agreed. Yeah, I and I, and I want to
• 30:01
  touch on so book 3 has like some pretty heavy like trauma in
• 30:06
  relation to some sexual content, right.
• 30:09
  So and the rage and the sadness and stuff that I got from
• 30:15
  postpartum, I poured into kind of, you know, these, these
• 30:19
  encounters for her. All that to say too, though,
• 30:23
  like all of that kind of came from a place of things that had
• 30:26
  happened to me as a kid. And I think as adults, we either
• 30:30
  don't acknowledge that it happened or we are like, it was
• 30:34
  so long ago. It's not a big deal.
• 30:36
  Or, you know, everybody copes with it a little bit
• 30:39
  differently. And like my hope, I just want
• 30:41
  people to not feel alone because even though like my feelings or
• 30:46
  you know, what I'm experiencing, my rage is coming right now from
• 30:50
  postpartum. You know, somebody else could
• 30:52
  come at it from, you know, the assaults or something, you know,
• 30:56
  where parents being horrible or, you know, whatever.
• 31:00
  The feeling is the same. I mean, the, the emotion is the
• 31:03
  same. And so like for me, I like, I
• 31:05
  hope it's not necessarily linear in the sense that like you have
• 31:09
  to have gone through this to relate to this, to feel this
• 31:12
  like everybody. I think it's emotions are.
• 31:16
  I don't know if that makes sense.
• 31:17
  Yeah, absolutely. Trauma is trauma.
• 31:20
  Exactly. It doesn't matter where it's
• 31:22
  coming from and, and, and all those type of events, no matter
• 31:26
  what they are that happened to you in your life, it follows
• 31:30
  with you. It's part of you.
• 31:32
  And for myself, like I have been the last 17 years, I have been
• 31:38
  unpacking. I was, I always say I'm like,
• 31:41
  I'm packing boxes in my mind of events that happened when I was
• 31:46
  a child and stuff like that and realizing this was not normal.
• 31:50
  No. And, and you know, it's taken me
• 31:54
  a long time to get to where I'm at that I'm, I'm not, I'm not
• 31:58
  going to say I'm accepting of it, but I at least I have more
• 32:02
  like labels and things like that I can put on them.
• 32:06
  So I understand 100% what you're saying.
• 32:08
  Absolutely. It was important for me to work
• 32:11
  through this stuff so that I could help my daughter.
• 32:13
  I guess I didn't grow up understanding what consent
• 32:17
  looked like. I didn't understand, you know,
• 32:19
  even friendship relationships, you know, setting boundaries
• 32:22
  and, and being able to say no. And, you know, I, if I didn't
• 32:26
  want to do something that didn't mean that I'm lazy or worthless,
• 32:31
  you know, like all these things that unintentionally get put on
• 32:36
  you as a child that you then carry with you.
• 32:38
  And so like, I wanted to be able to, to work through these things
• 32:41
  so that like I can teach my daughter at least like what
• 32:45
  consent looks like. Because again, I didn't, I
• 32:47
  didn't know until I was in college that things that had
• 32:49
  happened to me had not been, were OK.
• 32:53
  But you just, you don't, you know, you don't know until you
• 32:55
  know, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:57
  That is actually very profound because I've talked about things
• 33:02
  like with people where I'm like, oh, that's not normal like that.
• 33:05
  That wasn't supposed to happen. Even something as small as when
• 33:08
  I used to walk through the halls in high school, you'd have
• 33:10
  somebody grab your butt or, you know, stuff like that, and it's
• 33:13
  like, that's sexual assault. I didn't realize that.
• 33:17
  Yeah. For sure, yeah.
• 33:19
  It's crazy the things that like are allowed to go on or you feel
• 33:22
  like just, oh, it's normal, you think.
• 33:25
  They're normal. Yeah.
• 33:27
  I think those were just things that just happened, right?
• 33:30
  And that kind of stuff. I remember I was in, I believe
• 33:33
  it was like 8th grade, something like that.
• 33:35
  And this one boy that I knew, he came and he grabbed me and I
• 33:39
  smacked him and he never did it again.
• 33:42
  But but looking back at it with my, you know, my eyes now, I
• 33:46
  mean, how how did he think that was OK to do that kind of thing?
• 33:51
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:53
  It's very interesting how our lives when we grew up, the time
• 33:58
  of the time period. When we went to high.
• 34:00
  School and all that. What was acceptable or what they
• 34:04
  thought they could be? I would be so upset of something
• 34:08
  like that or my Oh my gosh, said something like that or somebody
• 34:12
  did or even my sons. I mean, it doesn't.
• 34:13
  Matter, daughter or. I'd be like, Oh yeah, I would be
• 34:18
  now that you. Are now that you are a mom,
• 34:20
  they'll land in like as you're writing, do you kind of have a
• 34:23
  hard time being like, do you ever imagine your daughter in
• 34:26
  these situations or has that not hit yet?
• 34:29
  And I just opened up. So no, I haven't really imagined
• 34:35
  to read if she had. If she.
• 34:37
  Had a stalker and he was stalking her for 10 years.
• 34:42
  No, I, I think we'd have a different conversation, but I do
• 34:46
  I, we have talked a lot about this, like I am anxious for her
• 34:52
  to like go to school and you know, I'll be at APTA meeting
• 34:55
  and they're like, what does your mom do?
• 34:57
  And my daughter's, like she writes porn.
• 35:01
  I, I have thought about that a lot, you know, going to, to
• 35:06
  paradise and like, I'm here, no. Let me ask, let me ask you this
• 35:11
  question because like, I don't know why this is.
• 35:15
  I I think all like romantic see, you know, you know everything
• 35:20
  romance books, all that it's very good literature, all this.
• 35:23
  What is up with these people? Just because there is intimacy,
• 35:29
  open door, all that stuff, they're like, that's not
• 35:32
  literature, that's just smut. I do not agree with that
• 35:36
  statement at all because you'll see a lot of these male authors,
• 35:40
  like the one will say like thrown.
• 35:44
  It's not thrown of glass because that's Sarah.
• 35:46
  What is it? What is the one?
• 35:48
  It's the throne. The one They did the TV show on
• 35:50
  HBO. Oh game.
• 35:51
  Of Thrones Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones, I get it,
• 35:54
  confused all the time. A Throne of Dust, like when he
• 35:56
  was writing it and they said like he would have like all
• 35:58
  these stories and stuff like, you know, sexual things that
• 36:01
  happen and that, but they were like, Oh, that's great
• 36:04
  literature. That's perfect.
• 36:07
  But now if a woman writes it and writes about a woman having, you
• 36:11
  know, experiences and, and really getting into it and
• 36:15
  stuff, it's like, that's smut. Yeah, I don't know.
• 36:19
  I've embraced, Yeah, I've embraced the smut culture.
• 36:22
  I'm like, you're right. I do.
• 36:24
  I write smut. I don't know.
• 36:25
  I think that it just is societal norms, right?
• 36:29
  Like in, unfortunately, in the world we live in, men can get
• 36:32
  away with more than women can. And I think I seen a post just
• 36:37
  the other day that was like, you know, people are saying that,
• 36:41
  you know, these romance novels and stuff that's not, you know,
• 36:44
  literature or whatever, but it's it's open this door and now
• 36:49
  people are reading more than they ever have.
• 36:51
  And it's this whole I mean. Like.
• 36:54
  Book people are willing to spend money on books that, you know
• 36:57
  they've already got 10 copies of.
• 36:59
  And so it's also helped with the economy.
• 37:00
  I'm like, name a man that. Preach.
• 37:04
  Preach. Yeah.
• 37:06
  So I don't know, it's been fun. I, I have a hard time.
• 37:11
  I have like the world's best husband who's the most
• 37:13
  supportive and I mean, he works insane hours so that I can stay
• 37:17
  home with our daughter and, and, you know, work on the weekends
• 37:21
  and write and, you know, he, he's, he's a great help.
• 37:24
  So I have a hard time. I'm like I know other people are
• 37:26
  struggling but I can't relate. Yeah, like I need my husband.
• 37:32
  Actually, Yeah, I love my. Husband.
• 37:34
  Yeah. Yeah, I saw that you referred to
• 37:36
  him as your golden retriever. Like cinnamon roll, he is
• 37:40
  character. And so I did want to ask, how do
• 37:45
  you are these male main characters?
• 37:47
  Like are they literally just live in your mind or are there
• 37:50
  people that you are? I don't want to say people like
• 37:53
  I don't want to disrespect your husband or anything.
• 37:55
  Are there parts of him in these characters or where do you get
• 37:58
  that inspiration? Or is it just in your messed up
• 37:59
  mind? Yeah, I think, you know,
• 38:03
  everybody has kinks, I guess. And I have a very good
• 38:07
  supportive husband who's willing to try anything.
• 38:10
  Oh, that's a good husband. Yes, I guess it's you know, it's
• 38:13
  kind of one of those things that like he is a total cinnamon
• 38:18
  roll. And I think just like past
• 38:20
  experiences and and things that have happened to me in the past,
• 38:23
  I have like these, you know, dark D mini shadows that, you
• 38:29
  know, like I like to write about because it gives me control over
• 38:32
  these real things in my life that I didn't have control over.
• 38:35
  And then I can reshape them into somebody that I, you know,
• 38:39
  control. I guess it's all about control.
• 38:41
  I guess kind of that, that concept, right.
• 38:43
  So I'm able to kind of reframe that.
• 38:45
  And I don't know, I guess I've just always been a little bit
• 38:48
  more drawn to the dark side, even though like it's one of
• 38:51
  those things like I every girl likes, you know, a bad boy, but
• 38:53
  then you should marry somebody who's not.
• 38:56
  I get to to have my bad boys on page and then I get to have a
• 39:00
  husband to showers me in love and praise and doubts on me and
• 39:05
  I get the best of both worlds. We've talked about that before
• 39:07
  where it's like, yeah, all these got like all these book
• 39:10
  boyfriends, they're great on page, but you really would not
• 39:13
  want to be around them in real life.
• 39:14
  Let's let's be honest, we don't want that.
• 39:18
  The red. Flag my husband.
• 39:19
  Yeah, my husband references Gus. I don't know if you've gotten to
• 39:22
  the scene, but where he comes in her hair and he's like, would
• 39:26
  you be mad? I'm like yes I would literally
• 39:29
  light you on fire. It's like but you wrote it.
• 39:33
  Yeah, I'm like, that wouldn't be so bad.
• 39:37
  Now my my husband is extremely supportive of me.
• 39:40
  He buys me any book that I want because just over Christmas he
• 39:44
  bought me 30 some books that were on my list that I wanted.
• 39:48
  But he is though he I don't know.
• 39:50
  Have you read the Plated Prisoner series by Ray Kennedy?
• 39:55
  Well, there is the main male character, so I can't tell you
• 39:59
  his name because you have to read it someday.
• 40:02
  But my husband is him. OK.
• 40:04
  And because he does things as you read through the series, he
• 40:09
  will burn the world for her, for the main, the female main
• 40:14
  character in that series, and that is my husband.
• 40:16
  And plus, my husband has a dirty mouth just like it.
• 40:19
  Yeah, so I have that. My husband is not.
• 40:21
  I wouldn't call him a cinnamon roll.
• 40:23
  He's he's. He's like, he's maybe that's why
• 40:26
  I'm so deep in my villain era. Yeah, it's because it's him.
• 40:30
  Because I, I know, I know if I came in the house and I said to
• 40:34
  him, this person was outside being mean to me, like this
• 40:37
  would happen to me. But if I did that, he would be
• 40:39
  instantly. He would be out there and he'd
• 40:41
  be ready to fight. Yeah.
• 40:42
  Because that's how he is. So he's my.
• 40:45
  But I can't tell you who that is.
• 40:46
  So someday. OK, I'll read it a.
• 40:48
  Chance and you read it, you will understand 100% who I'm talking
• 40:53
  about. OK, noted.
• 40:56
  Since we had talked a little bit, I know I keep referring to
• 40:59
  Book 1 because that's what I'm reading right now.
• 41:01
  But for anybody, like I said, that is a new reader finding you
• 41:06
  today from our podcast. So I had mentioned Dale, who I
• 41:10
  absolutely love. Is there, Is there somebody that
• 41:14
  you base her off of? Is she a little bit of yourself
• 41:16
  or is she like the friend that you wish you had?
• 41:19
  What was the inspiration for her?
• 41:22
  I would say she's kind of a mix of a couple of friends that I've
• 41:25
  had throughout my life. It's funny.
• 41:27
  So she is a teacher and so I was a teacher.
• 41:31
  And so like all of the experience she brings in that
• 41:34
  sense is all my experience and understanding as as like an
• 41:37
  educator. But as far as like her
• 41:39
  personality, she's somebody that I don't want to say like my so,
• 41:44
  like I have some really good friends, but they're like pieces
• 41:47
  of her. She's she's my imaginary best
• 41:49
  friend who like I pulled, you know, all of these bits and
• 41:53
  pieces from from my friends and from like the kind of friend I
• 41:56
  want to be. And then I'm poured it into to
• 41:59
  Dale. That's what I love about her so
• 42:02
  far. Like I'm really excited now for
• 42:04
  for me to get to book 2 so I can read more about her.
• 42:06
  But she's just like the cool chick that you like.
• 42:10
  I don't know, you like always wanted to be or you always
• 42:12
  wanted her to be her best friend.
• 42:13
  Like I just I adore her already. I absolutely love her.
• 42:16
  So I'm I'm not excited to get to her trauma, but I am.
• 42:20
  But I am excited to get to know her more.
• 42:23
  Yeah, yeah, I and it's funny. So I try really hard not to read
• 42:26
  reviews. Authors aren't supposed to read
• 42:28
  reviews. But when I very first released
• 42:30
  the first book, I had a lot of reviews, like, talk about how
• 42:34
  unfinished it felt and how these characters would get, like,
• 42:37
  introduced and then you wouldn't know anything about them.
• 42:40
  And I mean, that was all because I was like setting it up for
• 42:42
  four books, right? But there's a character that you
• 42:45
  haven't met yet at the end of the book.
• 42:47
  And she has quickly become everybody's favorite, which is
• 42:52
  so funny because she was like a last minute addition because I
• 42:55
  was like, Stetson means to have more than one friend.
• 42:58
  Like, you don't have to. But for real growth, like you
• 43:02
  got to be able to like make friends.
• 43:04
  Yes. Yes.
• 43:06
  So it's funny, I added her at the last minute and people are
• 43:08
  always like, I feel like she was thrown in there and she was
• 43:11
  thrown in there, but she's become like everybody's
• 43:14
  favorite. So I'm excited to explore more
• 43:16
  about her just because she's like Dale but not.
• 43:19
  OK, I'm excited to meet her now. I love talking to you about all
• 43:23
  this stuff, like getting to know you in person.
• 43:26
  It just puts such a like personal thing on like getting
• 43:30
  to read these books. And so I just I just love it.
• 43:32
  I'm so. Excited.
• 43:34
  I think that is one of my favorite things since we started
• 43:36
  doing this is to get to know the person behind the stories that
• 43:42
  we all fall in love with. And I think that is one of the
• 43:45
  best bonuses for being able to do this little podcast that we
• 43:50
  get to do these kind of things. And I love it.
• 43:53
  Yeah, no, I agree. It's and it's like fun at book.
• 43:56
  I've only been to a couple big book signings.
• 43:58
  But to meet these authors, you know, and get to pick their
• 44:01
  brain and be like, you know, how did you come up with these super
• 44:05
  dark characters? And even that makes me feel like
• 44:08
  not alone because, you know, you just pull them out of thin air.
• 44:12
  And, you know, the third book was supposed to look totally
• 44:14
  different than it did. There was supposed to be a
• 44:16
  different MMC, the whole thing. And people don't understand who
• 44:21
  don't write. You cannot force these
• 44:23
  characters to be anything than what they are.
• 44:26
  Like you can write it and it will never feel complete unless
• 44:30
  you actually write it the way they intended to be.
• 44:32
  They they take over like you literally.
• 44:35
  They are human beings in my mind.
• 44:38
  And so it's, it's fun to meet people who create these people
• 44:41
  because you're like, what's going on in there?
• 44:44
  Yeah, seated like normal people like like Rebecca and I who do
• 44:47
  not write, that's like a crazy thing to hear.
• 44:50
  And it's so funny. My brother's husband, he was
• 44:52
  like a writer for a show. And my brother's like, yeah, you
• 44:55
  kind of have to be like a little bit crazy cuz they, you guys
• 44:58
  like hear voices in your head or like, and they're just like it's
• 45:01
  a play in there or what is happening.
• 45:03
  And so it is cool. I would love to hear more about
• 45:06
  how that works for you. Like, is it in your sleep?
• 45:09
  Is it just during the day? Like when do these things come
• 45:12
  to you? It's so I guess backtrack a
• 45:17
  little. Some authors are planners and
• 45:20
  they like make an outline and they've got this.
• 45:23
  I'm not. I will write a general outline
• 45:27
  of like how I want things to start and how I think want
• 45:30
  things to finish. And then everything in between
• 45:32
  is whatever comes out of these characters, Valve.
• 45:36
  And so I guess like I get a lot of ideas late at night, which
• 45:40
  does to restrict my sleeping son because I'm like laying there.
• 45:43
  I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to get up and write all this stuff
• 45:46
  down or I'm going to forget for tomorrow.
• 45:48
  And before I had a baby, it was obviously a lot easier to to get
• 45:51
  this stuff down on page. I would say I have a harder time
• 45:53
  now just like focusing because I feel like I almost have to like
• 45:56
  drop myself into the world when I get ready to write.
• 45:59
  Otherwise it feels not third person.
• 46:01
  I mean, I'm still writing in first person, but I feel third
• 46:03
  person because I'm like, I'm not like actually invested.
• 46:07
  I'm just like trying to get words out.
• 46:09
  And so it's this book has been really, really challenging
• 46:12
  because I'm like trying to maintain kind of like this, you
• 46:17
  know, the focus that I've only got 20 minute stretches while my
• 46:21
  daughter naps or whatever. And so it's been, it's been a
• 46:24
  major challenge. I think this 4th book is going
• 46:27
  to be I, like I've said, the hardest 1 yet, just because like
• 46:31
  my time to really drop into the world is very limited.
• 46:35
  Yeah, and for a creative person, that's difficult cuz like you
• 46:38
  get into a zone and then being pulled out of the zone is like
• 46:41
  one of the worst things. I don't know if that's ADHD or
• 46:44
  creative, however we want to call it.
• 46:46
  Yeah, that is tough. And I can see where, you know,
• 46:51
  like some of those like dark feelings are probably coming out
• 46:53
  of those situations too. And for sure, Yeah, for sure.
• 46:57
  Yeah, definitely. I, I am a pretty, I'm a, I'm a
• 47:01
  very independent person. I've lived by myself since I was
• 47:03
  18. I have had a million jobs to,
• 47:06
  you know, keep myself afloat. I put myself through college.
• 47:09
  Like, I'm a very, very independent person And I, I like
• 47:13
  human interaction. I, I call myself like a
• 47:16
  extroverted introvert. Like I have this big of a
• 47:19
  battery and I want to go do stuff, but as soon as I'm done,
• 47:22
  I'm done. And like people who are like,
• 47:24
  well, let's hang out this week. I'm like, I don't want to make a
• 47:26
  plan just in case I don't feel up to it.
• 47:29
  Making a plan stresses me out. We're going to play by ear, OK?
• 47:32
  Yeah. And so then to have a baby that
• 47:36
  you like you, it don't matter, you were on all the time.
• 47:42
  That has definitely brought a lot of like, how do I deal with
• 47:46
  this? Because that's just not who I
• 47:48
  am. But I understand 100% with that.
• 47:52
  I mean like I said, it gets better now.
• 47:55
  Like if you ever decide to have a second child, to me, having my
• 48:00
  second child was the hardest. The first, it was more, you
• 48:04
  know, it was just the unknown, you know, that kind of thing.
• 48:07
  And then I had to figure out, well, this little person I'm in
• 48:10
  charge of, I remember that the day I had him and they took my
• 48:15
  epidural out and then I was, I was finally able that I wasn't
• 48:18
  numb. I could walk and I went into the
• 48:20
  shower and my husband, he was my husband at the time.
• 48:23
  He was just my fiance at that time.
• 48:25
  But this is when I knew I loved him is when he helped me and
• 48:29
  helped clean me up after having the baby.
• 48:32
  That is love when someone is willing to do that and not, you
• 48:36
  know, kind of that bothered him and he took care of me and all
• 48:39
  that. But I remember they brought my
• 48:41
  son in and they're like, here's your baby.
• 48:43
  They just pushed him in the bathroom in the little bassinet.
• 48:46
  I know. That was that crystal moment.
• 48:48
  And you know, that crystallizing moment, I was like, my God, I'm
• 48:53
  in charge of this little person, you know, because I had just, I
• 48:57
  had just turned 30 at that point and I was just like, I'm like,
• 49:02
  Oh my God, you know, all my life I was like, I was preparing for
• 49:05
  this. I always wanted to have a child.
• 49:07
  And then that moment happened and they're like, here's your
• 49:09
  baby. And then I, I got used to it,
• 49:12
  you know, and I got in a routine and I took care of him.
• 49:14
  And then within 2 1/2 years, then we had our second son.
• 49:19
  And that was the hardest thing because then I had to split
• 49:21
  myself between 2 little people. I was prepared for the.
• 49:25
  Birth. That part I was ready, but I
• 49:28
  wasn't prepared for being pulled in 400 different directions at
• 49:33
  that point. But if you have any more beyond
• 49:36
  two, if you go 3-4, you're already crazy.
• 49:40
  This is what I keep telling everybody.
• 49:41
  You have any more than that, you're already crazy.
• 49:44
  And it doesn't matter because when I had my daughter, the
• 49:46
  third one, she just got mixed in the fray and it was fine.
• 49:50
  Yeah, that was it. But I understand 100% what
• 49:53
  you're saying, 100% now. I'm going to ask you.
• 49:57
  I'm going to go. I'm going to go to our friends
• 50:00
  question because this cracks my soul inside.
• 50:04
  Because she cracks my soul inside.
• 50:07
  She had some very, very good question.
• 50:10
  Now first question, if you didn't write the romance genre,
• 50:15
  what would you write? Or do you think that I don't
• 50:17
  even I don't even like to read books without smut in them.
• 50:20
  I don't know. Like Throne of Glass is probably
• 50:22
  the only series I've ever read that doesn't have smut in it,
• 50:26
  you know, romance and stuff. Like I think that I mean, from a
• 50:30
  young age I was boy crazy and I like loved this idea of romance.
• 50:34
  I mean, I read romance books as a, you know, a teenager
• 50:37
  Twilight. I was a Twilight freak.
• 50:41
  So I think yeah, I probably wouldn't, I probably wouldn't
• 50:43
  write, if I'm being honest. I don't think that there would
• 50:46
  be maybe like a autobiography of somebody's life, but I would
• 50:50
  still probably focus on the relationships and the romance,
• 50:52
  so I don't. Know, let's put a spin on that,
• 50:55
  let's say, because you've learned more towards the cowboy.
• 50:57
  So what about do you have any other plans for other things
• 51:01
  within the romance genre? Not in the near future.
• 51:04
  I've got a couple more cowboy romances already going in here,
• 51:09
  but I have said that if I do something else, I really want to
• 51:13
  write like a baseball cuz I love baseball and all that stuff.
• 51:17
  So I would totally write like a baseball romance.
• 51:19
  And then someday I will write a pirate romance because Pirates
• 51:23
  of the Caribbean was like my peak.
• 51:27
  Oh yeah, for sure. You know, that.
• 51:29
  And Twilight were like my childhood and there's enough.
• 51:32
  I mean, I love Twilight and vampires and all the stuff, but
• 51:34
  they're so that's so flooded. I'm like, I'm going to write a
• 51:37
  pirate romance. Yes, I love Johnny Depp gets the
• 51:41
  girl instead of I will but but Johnny Depp gets the girl, yes.
• 51:46
  I love Johnny Depp, I have said this before.
• 51:48
  He is on my shortlist. Johnny Depp, I will take that
• 51:52
  man. I don't care.
• 51:53
  But I mean, he's in his 60s now. I don't care, I will.
• 51:56
  I don't either. Jason Momoa I will take that man
• 52:00
  any day cuz he can he could pick me up and throw me so I I'm not
• 52:05
  a wave. I've said this before cuz he I
• 52:08
  love him too cuz he was with a a fan and she was disabled and she
• 52:13
  wanted to take a picture with him and he's like here I'll hold
• 52:16
  you up so that she could stand to take this picture with him.
• 52:19
  And she's like I'm not then. And he said he said well good
• 52:24
  thing you have me. And he just picked her up like
• 52:27
  she was nothing and held her up. And I'm like, yeah, but why?
• 52:30
  You melt it on my heart. And then it's that Jensen
• 52:34
  Ackles. Is that as?
• 52:35
  I was gonna say that's my top. That's my top right there.
• 52:39
  I'm. Telling you I fell in love with
• 52:41
  him when he was on Dark Angel, that was when I fell in love
• 52:45
  with him. I don't know if you've ever seen
• 52:46
  that. It's with Jessica Alba it's it's
• 52:50
  a dystopian world and they make these super soldiers and she has
• 52:55
  a barcode tattooed on the back of her neck and she meets him.
• 52:58
  I think. I believe it's either the end of
• 53:00
  her season or season 2. That's where I fell in love with
• 53:05
  yeah, and I just started. Natural for me, but.
• 53:08
  I just started watching Supernatural.
• 53:10
  I'm on season 1, episode 4. Yeah, it's on.
• 53:13
  It's on. I think Prime has it and you can
• 53:16
  watch all 15 seasons. Yeah, he's so.
• 53:20
  Delicious. He really is.
• 53:21
  He really? Is and just in like real life
• 53:25
  and just does that he's. Just And he's a girl dad.
• 53:29
  Like I love them both. They're both girl dads and all
• 53:31
  that. Yeah, I'm always like, man, good
• 53:34
  pick, good pick. Now the next question.
• 53:39
  Now this is this again. This is her question.
• 53:42
  Now out. Of your character, let's real
• 53:45
  quick, let's just give her like a little shout out or so we know
• 53:48
  who we're talking about. It's on Instagram.
• 53:50
  She's sugar in spicy under score books and it's our friend
• 53:53
  Angela. So she's the one that's coming
• 53:55
  with these questions for you. Angela's good because she is an
• 53:58
  enormous fan of yours, but now this is her question.
• 54:01
  Out of your characters, they have to fuck one, fight one or
• 54:07
  marry one. And she said that's her thing.
• 54:09
  Man, OK, OK, I'm I'm marrying, marrying Raphael because for the
• 54:18
  long term that's I think he's right.
• 54:21
  You're right. Fuck one is Gus for sure.
• 54:28
  I got it. And then fight one.
• 54:32
  Oh man, I would fight Mateo because I think I could take him
• 54:35
  because he would be too nice to like fight back.
• 54:41
  I love that. I love that.
• 54:44
  And my answer will change when we get through the ticket core,
• 54:47
  just so you know. OK, we're going to have you on
• 54:49
  again so that we can we. Guess you'll have to come back
• 54:52
  and visit us now. When does?
• 54:54
  When does book 4? Anticipate hope is October,
• 54:58
  November in a perfect world. You are busting these out.
• 55:02
  I'm trying. I I had this imaginary goal that
• 55:05
  I was like, I'm going to get this series done in two years.
• 55:07
  Because I think that is going to make a huge difference for
• 55:10
  readers who don't want to pick it up yet.
• 55:12
  Because it's not a completed series.
• 55:13
  Because I'm a reader who doesn't like cliffhangers, which I know
• 55:17
  is like such a oxymoron because I write vile clip hangers, but I
• 55:23
  I don't like them. And so most of the time I won't
• 55:25
  pick up a series until it's done.
• 55:26
  And I know that that's stopping a lot of people from picking up
• 55:30
  the series just because like, they're waiting for it to be
• 55:33
  finished so they can just binge it.
• 55:35
  And so I think that finishing it is going to open not like a
• 55:39
  whole new world, but it's going to open some doors for me.
• 55:42
  And so I'm like, I'm going to get this done.
• 55:44
  Like I want to get this done. I want to feel like good about
• 55:48
  it. Like I want to get it out there
• 55:50
  and then move on to the next thing, which is already going.
• 55:53
  I'm like, you got to stay focused.
• 55:55
  Yeah, I mean, you've already got a pretty good fan base going
• 55:58
  from, like I said, from what I've seen in the book community
• 56:01
  so far. And it is really exciting.
• 56:03
  Like to know at least to have that projection of I'm trying to
• 56:07
  have this done by this time. Because then like people like me
• 56:10
  who are starting it right now, I know that once I fall in love
• 56:12
  with your series and your writing, that I'm going to be
• 56:14
  able, I'll pretty much be able to binge it in between some of
• 56:17
  my other art creeds or some other of the ones that are
• 56:20
  coming out. Like, like what I do with a lot
• 56:22
  of these interconnected standalones is I will read them
• 56:24
  in between other books. So I love that I can now space
• 56:28
  out your trauma bonded series and kind of like read 1 and then
• 56:31
  read like a romanticity or something.
• 56:33
  And then now I can go back to my trauma bonded.
• 56:35
  So I think you're doing it wonderfully.
• 56:39
  Yeah, I have. I mean, if you want to speak
• 56:41
  about any of the challenges that you've had as an indie author
• 56:45
  or, or anything you want to vent out for the world, yeah.
• 56:50
  I mean, it's, it's hard. It's been really hard.
• 56:52
  I think I'm in kind of a difficult genre.
• 56:55
  And I think that maybe has been my biggest challenge because,
• 56:58
  you know, dark romance and cowboy romance, there's lovers
• 57:02
  of both. But to find the people who like
• 57:05
  want the middle is really, it's really hard to like find those
• 57:09
  people. Because in the beginning I had a
• 57:11
  lot of cowboy romance readers pick up my book because like a
• 57:14
  lot of the friends I had made and stuff, they were cowboy
• 57:16
  romance authors and different stuff, but they picked it up and
• 57:19
  it was way too dark. And so then I got like a lot of
• 57:21
  like, not negative, but some negative attention because they
• 57:25
  were like, this is like messed up and dark and you know, it's
• 57:29
  not your fluffy romance, which is fine, right?
• 57:31
  Everybody's in should have their preferences.
• 57:34
  But it was really hard to find my readers and I feel like I
• 57:38
  found a lot, but I feel like it's still untapped.
• 57:41
  I I don't think that I really haven't Like I've never gone any
• 57:46
  sort of viral. I've never gone any sort of like
• 57:48
  I still haven't found, you know, the channel.
• 57:51
  I'm still clicking. I'm still clicking looking for
• 57:54
  the channel. So that's been really
• 57:56
  frustrating. Just like I know they're out
• 57:58
  there, I know they're out there. I just, I can't find them yet.
• 58:02
  And then the other piece. I could say you found me because
• 58:07
  I, I have never read a cowboy romance cuz I don't, I don't
• 58:12
  typically read contemporary romance, right?
• 58:15
  I am very deep and very, I told you, I'm in the villain era and
• 58:19
  I read romanticy, dark fantasy, but I do read dark romance.
• 58:24
  You know that I love the dark. I like, you know, if we talk
• 58:27
  about Star Wars, I prefer the dark side, you know, that's my
• 58:32
  vibe. And so I mean, you have sold me
• 58:34
  just just talking here and just here and everything.
• 58:38
  And of course, you're listening to Chelsea talk about it.
• 58:41
  That fits my vibe. So I know there's a lot of
• 58:45
  people out there like. Me and I think that's what's
• 58:48
  hard yeah. Like to to, to explain that to
• 58:51
  people, you know, they either see it and they're like, oh,
• 58:54
  it's a, you know, a cowboy book or they see it that's a dark
• 58:57
  romance book. But they're not like seeing the
• 58:59
  the bridge, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:01
  So it'll happen eventually, but. I can see that like if people
• 59:05
  are like Elsie Silver and then they come into yours and it's
• 59:08
  like, it is not the same. But I was, I was talking about
• 59:11
  this off camera with Rebecca, is that when I read, and this isn't
• 59:16
  to say like those contemporary cowboy romances aren't good, but
• 59:19
  when I read them, I'm kind of like, where's the cowboy?
• 59:22
  Like where's the grid? Where's the rough?
• 59:24
  And so you're bringing that to like this genre that you've kind
• 59:28
  of created because I haven't really ever read any other dark
• 59:31
  cowboy romances. You're creating something that's
• 59:34
  really cool and like you're actually getting that like that
• 59:38
  dark, like the Yellowstone. Yeah.
• 59:41
  The Yellowstone, take him to the train station.
• 59:43
  Like dark cowboy romance like that is morally grey.
• 59:46
  That is dark cowboy. And I think that you, yeah, we
• 59:49
  just need to get it in more people's hands.
• 59:51
  And like, that's hard. To know, I don't know how you
• 59:55
  get it into more people's hands. I think promoting, Oh my gosh,
• 59:59
  I'm. Like, you're an author, you're
• 1:00:00
  not a book marketer. And that's what's so difficult,
• 1:00:03
  yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  Well, I mean, you're taking like the cowboy and you're making him
• 1:00:08
  like the truly morally grey. You know he is.
• 1:00:12
  You know, he's not just, you know, just a just a cowboy.
• 1:00:15
  Like I know exactly what you're saying, but you have that you're
• 1:00:19
  you're bringing that villain vibe with.
• 1:00:21
  And. I'm telling you, there are so
• 1:00:24
  many of us out there that love that.
• 1:00:26
  And then like I said, I've never, I've never had an
• 1:00:30
  interest in writing, reading a cowboy romance, you know,
• 1:00:33
  contemporary, you know what I mean?
• 1:00:34
  So this has very much piqued my interest and it is definitely
• 1:00:40
  now part of my wheelhouse. And I'm so excited for people to
• 1:00:44
  find you and to actually realize what your books are.
• 1:00:49
  Because if because like you were saying, if people think it's one
• 1:00:52
  or the other and they're. Looking at the word monster on
• 1:00:55
  the first one throws so many people off.
• 1:00:57
  They're like they think it's like horses and monsters.
• 1:01:00
  I'm like the guy is a monster but not like an actual monster
• 1:01:05
  like Dang it. One girl I know on here she
• 1:01:10
  loves like the monster books I I.
• 1:01:12
  Myself. Oh, that's fine.
• 1:01:13
  Get into it, you know, that's not my my thing.
• 1:01:16
  And it was like an octopus and stuff.
• 1:01:19
  And Oh yeah, the, the tentacles go a lot of places.
• 1:01:22
  I have questions, you know, you know.
• 1:01:25
  Every old flood, every old is taking care of.
• 1:01:29
  You, you know, like the the kiss of the basilisk, you know, isn't
• 1:01:32
  that how you pronounce? It that one, Yeah.
• 1:01:34
  Oh, you read that? And I and, and there's so many
• 1:01:37
  puts and I'm like, that's interesting.
• 1:01:41
  I have, I, it's, I don't know. But I, I just, I have not gotten
• 1:01:46
  into that quite genre. I'm more, you know, they're more
• 1:01:51
  of the dark, the broody, the fame and vampires.
• 1:01:54
  Right now I'm on a vamp myself, personally.
• 1:01:56
  I'm on a vampire kick right now. That's what I, yeah, that's what
• 1:01:59
  I've been, oh, I had when I had pirates.
• 1:02:01
  And then I I'm into vampires and then I don't know what I'm going
• 1:02:06
  to be doing next. Cowboys.
• 1:02:08
  I could. Do Cowboys.
• 1:02:10
  Cowboys. Yep.
• 1:02:12
  I. Seen some?
• 1:02:13
  Good, they had some good videos on Instagram of some lovely
• 1:02:17
  Cowboys on us and they're and they're like the real, the kind
• 1:02:20
  that could throw us. Not not these little skinny
• 1:02:22
  ones. I'm talking about the because I
• 1:02:25
  don't need a like a six pack 6 pack man.
• 1:02:27
  I want a man that can grab a hold of me like I said Samoa,
• 1:02:32
  and throw me. Yeah, you know, I'm not Jax
• 1:02:35
  Teller, the from from Sons of Anarchy.
• 1:02:39
  So that's what Gus's brother is based off of.
• 1:02:42
  That's his looks and vibe and the whole thing.
• 1:02:45
  OK, let's let's cast some people real quick then.
• 1:02:49
  So Gus, because Gus to me and like he is black cowboy hat, you
• 1:02:55
  know, he's like fading into the shadows.
• 1:02:57
  You kind of see him. He's got like the 5:00 shadow or
• 1:02:59
  maybe a beard going on sometimes, you know, like, and
• 1:03:02
  he's, he's just kind of blending in what is, who is.
• 1:03:05
  He so he is based on Kit Harington, who?
• 1:03:11
  I love oh. Yes, but cowboy, right.
• 1:03:14
  But that's that's when I sent my cover.
• 1:03:16
  You know, my artists and stuff. Yeah, inspiration.
• 1:03:19
  Now I was like him. This is who it is.
• 1:03:23
  Perfect. And I freaking love him in Game
• 1:03:24
  of Thrones. Yeah, too.
• 1:03:25
  And so now, yes. Girl, now that when I'm
• 1:03:28
  finishing this I'm going to be like so good.
• 1:03:32
  I love that we're gonna need to we're gonna need to like post
• 1:03:35
  these. Have you done that yet with?
• 1:03:38
  100 years. Girl, OK, we might need to help
• 1:03:40
  you out with it or something. OK now book 2 who is our meal
• 1:03:46
  main character? Mateo.
• 1:03:48
  Mateo. OK, so you have met him?
• 1:03:50
  Probably yet so he is I don't know.
• 1:03:53
  I guess he's loosely based on the guy in three 365 days.
• 1:04:03
  He's he's a male lead in a lot of things.
• 1:04:07
  I'm trying to think of what his name.
• 1:04:08
  Is Oh yes, I don't know if it's Michael or Michelle Marone.
• 1:04:14
  Yeah, so him, but like more Hispanic than Italian.
• 1:04:20
  Italian. OK, Yeah, he's in.
• 1:04:22
  He's in. What's the thriller that just
• 1:04:24
  came out? Yes, yeah, I just watched it.
• 1:04:27
  The House maid. The house maid, OK, yeah, yeah,
• 1:04:31
  yes. And he I seen.
• 1:04:32
  Trailers for that. OK, yeah, so he was good.
• 1:04:35
  His character is very small and the house maid but I think it
• 1:04:38
  takes more like he gets more in the next books but man is he a
• 1:04:43
  good looking. Yes.
• 1:04:44
  Oh my gosh, yeah. Specimen.
• 1:04:46
  OK, love that book three, our male main character.
• 1:04:50
  Is actually based on the other, so I don't know if you've seen
• 1:04:55
  365 there is the other male lead.
• 1:04:59
  OK, let's. See, I had the names pulled up
• 1:05:02
  yesterday and I was like. Simone Cesina, he's a good
• 1:05:07
  looking man, if that's who we're talking about.
• 1:05:09
  He's like at the shaved head. Does he in that movie?
• 1:05:13
  Maybe not, I don't know. He pops up when I typed in 365
• 1:05:17
  days. Yeah, or I'm sure.
• 1:05:19
  I'm sure it probably is. Did you say his name to me when
• 1:05:24
  you wrote me? I thought I did, yeah.
• 1:05:26
  Oh, let me look. Let me look who you have listed.
• 1:05:28
  I remember you had Justin Baldoni on one of them.
• 1:05:32
  OK, it's not that. You said that name, Yeah, I
• 1:05:35
  think, but I don't know. Matteo.
• 1:05:36
  Matteo is kind of a mix between Justin Baldoni and the Michael
• 1:05:43
  or Michelle. Well, this and this Simone
• 1:05:46
  Sasina guy, he's, he's very attractive.
• 1:05:48
  Yeah, you have Simone Sasina. Yeah, OK.
• 1:05:50
  Yeah, that's what I thought. And then you have McRae.
• 1:05:53
  I don't know how to say his name.
• 1:05:54
  Charlie Hunnam. Yeah.
• 1:05:56
  HUNNA that's. Charlie Hunnam, Yes.
• 1:06:00
  Yeah, that's. Hannam OK, that's a.
• 1:06:02
  Jacks anything right? Or a Jacks.
• 1:06:03
  Teller, Jacks Teller. Yep.
• 1:06:06
  Goodness girl, I found the shaved head picture.
• 1:06:08
  Yeah, that's so that's. OK, yes, OK.
• 1:06:14
  How about let's, I guess let's give our female main characters
• 1:06:17
  a moment. Have you?
• 1:06:18
  Have you? Care casted any of them?
• 1:06:19
  No, it's harder really. They're so much.
• 1:06:21
  Harder you and all. Of them, that's really that's I
• 1:06:24
  you picture yourself as the female lead always.
• 1:06:26
  So I'm like, I don't know. I did like the art that you've
• 1:06:29
  had done for them. They're beautiful.
• 1:06:33
  And yeah, it is hard to cast them though, because they have
• 1:06:36
  like their own. Yeah.
• 1:06:39
  I don't need to know who you would pick.
• 1:06:42
  But I know. For because we've got Stetson
• 1:06:49
  bond. Yeah, So Stetson is based on
• 1:06:52
  Estella Warren. OK.
• 1:06:55
  So have you seen the movie Kangaroo Jack?
• 1:06:59
  She's. Pretty.
• 1:07:00
  Yeah, OK. Yeah, she almost looks like Kate
• 1:07:03
  Upton. A little.
• 1:07:04
  Bit Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so that's Stetson.
• 1:07:10
  Dale is based on a girl I know. Love that.
• 1:07:14
  She's just, like, real short, got super long, beautiful hair.
• 1:07:21
  Yeah. Her physical look is, for
• 1:07:22
  whatever reason, I picked her. And in my mind, that's all I can
• 1:07:25
  picture for Dale. I love it.
• 1:07:27
  What a compliment for your yeah? Valentina is, I don't know, just
• 1:07:32
  like more my imagination. She's very, I don't know, like
• 1:07:39
  beautiful, you know, tan skin and this really fiery red hair
• 1:07:44
  and like very fit. I don't, I don't know.
• 1:07:46
  She's very much kind of your more supermodel status kind of
• 1:07:50
  character. And then Faith is like short
• 1:07:54
  ballerina. She always wears her hair in
• 1:07:57
  like a top blonde bun, like really innocent, always
• 1:08:01
  blushing. I don't, I don't.
• 1:08:04
  I can't think of a character off the top of my head.
• 1:08:05
  Like maybe like Ellie fanning or something kind.
• 1:08:07
  Of is, yeah, OK. I think it'd be really fun if
• 1:08:10
  people that are listening to this or your some of your fan
• 1:08:13
  base or new people, if they're listening to give us their fan
• 1:08:16
  cast based on what you said and what they know of the
• 1:08:18
  characters. I think we might need to do a
• 1:08:20
  little call to action and see what people think about it.
• 1:08:23
  Yeah. I would love that, yeah.
• 1:08:25
  Especially Angela, the one who sent these questions for you.
• 1:08:28
  I would love to know what she envisions in her head when she's
• 1:08:31
  reading it. Yeah, it's definitely a part I
• 1:08:34
  love is when we get to ask you as the author what you see in
• 1:08:38
  your mind because you know, I know what I see when I'm
• 1:08:42
  reading, you know, different things.
• 1:08:43
  But when you see what you truly what you see, it makes it so
• 1:08:49
  good. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:08:51
  See my problem is like for the longest time every male main
• 1:08:53
  character was Henry Cavill or Tabble.
• 1:08:55
  However. You see it?
• 1:08:56
  Yeah. Because I absolutely adore him,
• 1:08:58
  but now that I'm. Still seeing?
• 1:09:00
  But now that I'm seeing some of the men that you're pulling out,
• 1:09:03
  I need to broaden my horizons a little.
• 1:09:05
  Bit here. I do like Henry.
• 1:09:07
  I guess we could add him to the list as well.
• 1:09:09
  Yeah, I love. CC Hunnam too, I absolutely love
• 1:09:12
  him. Yeah, I.
• 1:09:13
  Don't know if I know who he is. I might know him if I see it.
• 1:09:15
  Rebecca, Google him. Yeah.
• 1:09:20
  They were I thought they were going to use him for.
• 1:09:22
  I really wanted him for 50 Shades of Grey.
• 1:09:24
  Yeah, that's who they I know that they had talked about that
• 1:09:27
  didn't work out. Yeah, casting him and the only
• 1:09:30
  other male character that gets talked about, which I imagine
• 1:09:34
  you've met him. I guess I don't totally know how
• 1:09:35
  far you are in for Phillies and Monsters is the it's the guy she
• 1:09:42
  goes on dates with. Nathan.
• 1:09:44
  Yeah. Yeah, I already don't like him.
• 1:09:49
  I imagine him being like the most like coiffed like.
• 1:09:53
  So he's based on character. Yeah, He's based on Chad Michael
• 1:09:57
  Murray. That's his no?
• 1:09:59
  But I love Chad Michael Murray but like.
• 1:10:01
  Oh yeah, me too. Like now, Chad Michael Murray, I
• 1:10:03
  can totally see it. Yeah, back in the day.
• 1:10:07
  Yeah, back in the day. Thank you.
• 1:10:09
  Yeah. I could see it though.
• 1:10:12
  That's a good, that's a good cast.
• 1:10:15
  I always think of Henry I. Respect it, Yeah.
• 1:10:18
  I always think of Henry Cavill. Is it Cavill?
• 1:10:21
  What is it? How do we pronounce?
• 1:10:22
  His name? Cavill Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:10:25
  I always think of that interview he did, I think it was with
• 1:10:28
  Jimmy Fallon, and he asked him what did he do for cardio.
• 1:10:32
  Yep. There's other ways.
• 1:10:36
  There's other ways to do cardio. I'm like, oh, he's so good.
• 1:10:40
  Yeah. I I, yeah, he could just, you
• 1:10:43
  know, there's. Certain.
• 1:10:44
  Actors that could just say whatever to me and I would be.
• 1:10:49
  I also love he also has like that because he picked like the
• 1:10:54
  off screen girl, you know like not an actress.
• 1:10:57
  He gets like bonus points for that too.
• 1:10:59
  Yeah, a great. It just makes you feel like, oh,
• 1:11:02
  she's just a normal girl that could have been anyone.
• 1:11:05
  It could have been me. I love it.
• 1:11:09
  I always felt that way about Paul Walker, too.
• 1:11:13
  Yes. Landon, I did have a question I
• 1:11:15
  wanted to ask you about. I mean, you're obviously busy.
• 1:11:19
  You're a fairly new Mama, You're writing.
• 1:11:22
  Do you have anything that you're reading right now or any
• 1:11:26
  favorite authors? What can you give us?
• 1:11:29
  On that, yeah, it's really hard to read.
• 1:11:32
  I imagine every author tells has a different perspective.
• 1:11:35
  It is really hard for me to read when I'm writing, especially
• 1:11:38
  like right now when I'm in the trenches of trying to flush out.
• 1:11:41
  Even when it looks like when I get to the editing phase, I can
• 1:11:44
  do quite a bit of reading just because, like, I need a break
• 1:11:47
  from that world. But right now I only have like
• 1:11:50
  such short windows to get into the world anyway.
• 1:11:53
  It's really hard to add other things.
• 1:11:56
  I am reading. I just finished, well, I'm
• 1:12:01
  listening to, I just finished Quicksilver and I started
• 1:12:03
  Brimstone. Like I listened to that in the
• 1:12:05
  car when my daughter and I go to the library or what, you know,
• 1:12:08
  whatever. And so we listen to to that.
• 1:12:11
  I'm going to have to stop doing soon because she's going to
• 1:12:13
  start repeating things, but I can still get away with it.
• 1:12:17
  And so that's, I mean, and that's the only thing I've read
• 1:12:20
  and or listened to in a long time just because it's, it's so
• 1:12:23
  hard to get into that, that space where I can do it.
• 1:12:26
  I, I mean, I have a list am I along of especially indie
• 1:12:31
  authors that I have met at conventions and stuff.
• 1:12:34
  I always buy books. Do I ever get to read them?
• 1:12:37
  Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, It's hard even being in
• 1:12:41
  this bookish community space. We've talked about it on other
• 1:12:44
  episodes, how it's like if the FOMO is real and all these new
• 1:12:48
  books are coming out, but it's like we still have like lives
• 1:12:51
  that are going on. And for you, you've got actual
• 1:12:53
  characters living in your head, like telling you things.
• 1:12:56
  And so like, I can't even imagine how you juggle all of
• 1:12:59
  that. It is hard.
• 1:13:01
  Yeah, so I'm tipping my hat to you for for doing all that.
• 1:13:05
  But like I and it's cool to get that perspective of like, yeah,
• 1:13:08
  you really don't have time to sit and read because like I
• 1:13:11
  said, you've got, you've got your own imagination and your
• 1:13:15
  characters talking to you. You're trying to write, you're
• 1:13:17
  trying to still have a life and time for everybody else.
• 1:13:21
  So it's wild. So maybe you can start reading
• 1:13:24
  at the end of Book 4. That's my hope, yeah.
• 1:13:27
  Although I'm like, again, I'm like, I've already got the next
• 1:13:30
  thing plotted. And I I, it's, it's more in my
• 1:13:32
  head than Book 4 right now. And sometimes I'm like, well,
• 1:13:35
  should I just sit down and write it?
• 1:13:37
  Because then it'll be out of my head.
• 1:13:39
  But I'm afraid if I do that, then I'm like, not going to be
• 1:13:41
  focused enough on book 4 to finish it.
• 1:13:43
  So I'm like, no, just stay quiet.
• 1:13:46
  But it's always. There I do.
• 1:13:51
  I do have a question now for Chelsea now, because as you
• 1:13:55
  know, Chelsea does, she does narration.
• 1:13:59
  Now, is it hard for you when you're doing narration to do
• 1:14:04
  like the broken but surviving kind of like the dark type of
• 1:14:08
  narration? Is it hard for you to do that
• 1:14:10
  type of dialogue? So yes and no, I actually like
• 1:14:15
  find that it's very like, I like it.
• 1:14:18
  I like doing the uncomfortable and I think for a lot of people,
• 1:14:21
  like there are so many narrators that don't even like doing spice
• 1:14:25
  and so I don't it's just really fun for me.
• 1:14:28
  I don't really have like anything that I can articulate
• 1:14:31
  as to why I like it or why it doesn't bother me.
• 1:14:33
  But everything is a challenge, that's for sure, especially
• 1:14:36
  with, like, the book I'm doing right now.
• 1:14:39
  I'm doing it solo, but it really should be like a dual or a duet.
• 1:14:45
  And so it is hard, like, especially getting down in that
• 1:14:48
  lower register of a voice, like, to do male voices and to still
• 1:14:52
  get their emotion behind it because not Emily, am I trying
• 1:14:55
  to, like, just get my voice there.
• 1:14:56
  But now I'm trying to put their emotions into it.
• 1:14:59
  And that's actually really tough because I don't speak like a man
• 1:15:03
  all the time. So it is hard, yeah, but I
• 1:15:07
  really enjoy and as I'm reading, like I do get voices in my mind.
• 1:15:11
  I don't know if like everybody reads that way, but like I can
• 1:15:14
  hear them in my head when I'm when I'm reading.
• 1:15:18
  Now, Landon, now when you're reading now, because I know
• 1:15:21
  you're creating and everything, but do you see a full movie in
• 1:15:24
  your mind when you do read? Because they said that there's a
• 1:15:28
  percentage of people that don't see anything, and that shocks my
• 1:15:33
  mind. I hear them, I see them.
• 1:15:36
  I might be looking through like the female main character's
• 1:15:39
  eyes, even though it's not per SE that I feel that it's me, but
• 1:15:44
  a lot of times I may be looking through her eyes, but then I'll
• 1:15:46
  see her. I see that now some people see
• 1:15:51
  like them like in like big time, like big detail.
• 1:15:54
  I don't know if I'm like at that end of the spectrum of it, but I
• 1:15:58
  do see like a movie in my mind and I hear their voices and
• 1:16:01
  stuff, but it but that does shock me that some people see
• 1:16:05
  nothing. I think I see, I definitely see
• 1:16:09
  it. I'm a really fast reader.
• 1:16:11
  I like, I don't want to say a skimmer, but I'm, I'm borderline
• 1:16:16
  probably as more of a skimmer. And so I do see it happening.
• 1:16:20
  I wouldn't say because like you were talking about voices and
• 1:16:22
  the emotion and stuff. I don't think I ever hear voices
• 1:16:25
  in my like when I'm reading somebody else's work.
• 1:16:28
  I don't even know what Gus's voice sounds like in my head.
• 1:16:33
  Like I'm like trying to think about it.
• 1:16:34
  I'm like, somebody asked me. There was like, does Stetson
• 1:16:36
  have a Southern accent? And I was like, I don't know.
• 1:16:38
  I've never even thought about it.
• 1:16:39
  I don't think so. Yeah.
• 1:16:42
  And so like, I, I see it, but I don't really hear it, which is
• 1:16:46
  interesting. I think if I someday get to do
• 1:16:48
  I'm in audio, it's going to be an out of body experience
• 1:16:51
  because like to actually get to to hear their voices and their
• 1:16:56
  thoughts and stuff coming back at me is going to be, like I
• 1:16:59
  said, an out of body experience for sure.
• 1:17:02
  Yeah, and it's always hard to do with audiobooks on, even just
• 1:17:05
  coming from a narrator's perspective, it's really hard
• 1:17:09
  knowing what an author wants. And so it's like sometimes when
• 1:17:12
  you audition, you just kind of like you're trying to just kind
• 1:17:16
  of read it and still story tell. But then you don't want to
• 1:17:19
  overact with some authors. And then some authors really
• 1:17:22
  want all the emotion, and then some authors don't.
• 1:17:25
  And so it is kind of a challenge.
• 1:17:27
  I'm sure, yeah. Doing that.
• 1:17:29
  And so it is nice. I would say that it's probably
• 1:17:31
  nice that you don't really have crazy expectations quite yet and
• 1:17:35
  you don't like necessarily hear them in your head because then
• 1:17:37
  somebody can like provide that to you and you can go right,
• 1:17:40
  yes, that's what I wanted to hear or like, yes, that sounds
• 1:17:42
  good for sure. Instead of being like so set and
• 1:17:45
  like, yes, this is what it needs to sound like.
• 1:17:48
  And I'm looking for a very, you know, a very certain kind of
• 1:17:51
  voice and person. So it's nice that you're open.
• 1:17:55
  Yeah. Oh yeah, I would literally that
• 1:17:59
  it's I want to get an audio book put together so bad.
• 1:18:03
  I mean, to hear their voices would be yeah, amazing.
• 1:18:08
  We're. Going to have to talk more on
• 1:18:09
  the side, not that I'm like pushing myself but if there's
• 1:18:12
  anything but if there's anything I can do to help.
• 1:18:14
  You great? Yeah.
• 1:18:15
  If there's anything I can do to help you, like start the process
• 1:18:17
  because there's so many options, yeah, like acx.com, like you can
• 1:18:21
  do kind of do it yourself and not lose your rights to things.
• 1:18:24
  So I mean, it would be definitely absolutely awesome if
• 1:18:27
  you can get an agency to pick it up cuz I think that you, like I
• 1:18:30
  said, I think you have something really special the way that you
• 1:18:33
  write and picturing things in my head, like I can picture the
• 1:18:36
  ranch, I can picture the house. Like I have that all in my mind
• 1:18:40
  as I'm reading your book. There has been no point where
• 1:18:42
  I'm like confused or I can't picture.
• 1:18:45
  That's good to hear what's going on.
• 1:18:46
  Glad. Yeah, so very like.
• 1:18:49
  So that means you do very good world building, yes, so.
• 1:18:51
  They try I. Really see it?
• 1:18:53
  Yeah, like I really feel like I was dumped right into it and I'm
• 1:18:56
  not even picturing anything from like a show in particular.
• 1:18:59
  Yeah, like, like, I don't know, I kind of get like the
• 1:19:02
  Yellowstone vibes, but at the same time, like I'm picturing
• 1:19:04
  Texas. Like I and I've never even been
• 1:19:06
  to Texas, but what my mind thinks Texas looks like.
• 1:19:08
  Like I've right. Yeah, you.
• 1:19:11
  It's perfect. So good.
• 1:19:13
  See that that tells a lot about your writing and that that you
• 1:19:16
  can that she is seeing it not and you're building that visual
• 1:19:22
  whatever. See, I love that when an author
• 1:19:25
  can get me that I can truly see everything that that is going
• 1:19:30
  on. And if you know what I get a
• 1:19:32
  physical emotion from a book, I always know what's really good.
• 1:19:36
  Yeah, yeah. And it's not like.
• 1:19:38
  Sounds of it that yours. Feels, yeah, it's not like so
• 1:19:41
  inundated with details that you're bored, but you're like,
• 1:19:43
  it's just really good painted picture.
• 1:19:47
  Thank you, I appreciate it. Now let's see huh?
• 1:19:52
  Now what would you say out of your series and out how many
• 1:19:55
  Peppers would you give your series?
• 1:19:58
  Cuz that's always my question because I don't read any.
• 1:20:01
  I don't. Anybody reads a book in our
• 1:20:04
  group and Rebecca goes, does it have spice?
• 1:20:07
  Yeah, I think it's gotten spicier with each one.
• 1:20:12
  I think the first one, I was maybe a little more afraid to
• 1:20:15
  write like pretty explicit scenes just because I, you know,
• 1:20:19
  I was like, I didn't even when I tell my mom that I had wrote a
• 1:20:21
  book and then I finally did just because she was like asked about
• 1:20:25
  it. But to this day, she's never
• 1:20:27
  read it. I've been like, do not read it.
• 1:20:28
  Like this will not be good for our relationship.
• 1:20:31
  Do not read it. So I think I go ahead.
• 1:20:35
  Well, let me ask you, like when you're writing those type of
• 1:20:38
  scenes and stuff, is it Cuz now I spoke with author Stephanie
• 1:20:43
  Storm. We did 222 episodes ago.
• 1:20:46
  She is actually 3 episodes ago. She is hilarious because she was
• 1:20:49
  talking about writing a scene in hers and she said she was
• 1:20:54
  talking to her editor and her I don't know what the other person
• 1:20:57
  was. It was two of the people that
• 1:20:58
  she works with with her book and they're like, you know, like we
• 1:21:02
  are professionals and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:21:04
  And she's like getting not embarrassed, but she's getting
• 1:21:06
  she needed a glass of wine because she was talking about
• 1:21:09
  woman on woman action and she's like, I don't know how to and it
• 1:21:13
  was hilarious. But do you, do you have those
• 1:21:16
  same kind of feelings now as you've, you know, as you
• 1:21:21
  continue to write or, or have you gotten much more comfortable
• 1:21:25
  in the smutty spicy stuff? I would say more comfortable.
• 1:21:29
  And to be honest with you, I've always been the person who had a
• 1:21:32
  pretty like dirty, dark sense of humor.
• 1:21:34
  And I was always the girl that was like saying or doing things,
• 1:21:38
  you know, in a group that was like, everybody was like, what
• 1:21:41
  are you doing? I just think the first time I
• 1:21:43
  wrote something, it's I, I compare it to like standing in a
• 1:21:46
  room naked in front of everybody.
• 1:21:48
  You know, that's what it feels like to write a book and publish
• 1:21:51
  it because now people are like actually getting a poke inside
• 1:21:53
  your brain and they're like, you write about a guy who comes in
• 1:21:58
  her hair. Like, wouldn't you like, you
• 1:22:00
  know that? So, so I think that like, I was
• 1:22:02
  really afraid in the first one. The second one, I really went
• 1:22:05
  like female empowerment, which was really fun for me to write.
• 1:22:08
  And this third one, which I mean, I knew it was spicy, but
• 1:22:12
  all so far, like the people who have messaged me, they're like,
• 1:22:15
  this was like way ramped up. I'm like, well, you're welcome.
• 1:22:18
  See now again, that's another thing that sells me on it that
• 1:22:23
  it's because the only I think the only book that I truly have
• 1:22:27
  series right now that I could say that isn't quote spicy.
• 1:22:31
  Spicy is throne of Glass and I only have the first book.
• 1:22:34
  I haven't read this series, but everything else.
• 1:22:37
  Yeah. Everything else I have is.
• 1:22:39
  I would say the first one's probably like 3 Peppers, the
• 1:22:43
  second one is, I don't know, 3 1/2 Peppers, and the fourth one
• 1:22:46
  is definitely 4 Peppers. See, I like that.
• 1:22:50
  See, again, there are lots of people like me yeah, yeah,
• 1:22:54
  that's why I always ask the question every single time yeah,
• 1:23:01
  let's see here now I'm going to do I'm going to ask you 3 I'm
• 1:23:05
  going to say three different statements you tell me is it a
• 1:23:07
  scream or a dream The. Dream is bad, We had to tell
• 1:23:12
  Ravenna. Remember.
• 1:23:13
  Oh yeah, we had to trope was. Bad Dream was good.
• 1:23:16
  OK. The Who did this to you trope.
• 1:23:21
  Dream. Vigilante justice.
• 1:23:26
  Dream. Enemies to lovers with a he
• 1:23:31
  wants to UN alive her. Have you sure you've not read my
• 1:23:36
  books? I was just going to say this is.
• 1:23:38
  Like the recipe of all? Around Have you been speaking
• 1:23:44
  into my computer? Now, what is out of all the
• 1:23:50
  tropes that are out there, what do you think your favorite trope
• 1:23:53
  is? And what is your favorite trope
• 1:23:55
  to write? I.
• 1:23:57
  Mean I love enemies, lovers. I think that's pretty common.
• 1:23:59
  Just like that that concept. I love like a bad boy, like the
• 1:24:04
  the I don't really know what to call it, but like there's the
• 1:24:06
  bad boy and the girl makes him soft for her, you know, and like
• 1:24:10
  only for her kind of thing. I love lessons in seduction.
• 1:24:15
  That's a fun one that I really enjoy.
• 1:24:19
  I don't know. I'm trying to think of any that
• 1:24:21
  I don't like. I don't like a cheating trope.
• 1:24:23
  I feel like that one is pretty common.
• 1:24:25
  Like people don't like it, which is so funny.
• 1:24:29
  I'm not gonna say why, it's funny.
• 1:24:31
  Do we? Is this one of those?
• 1:24:32
  We have to read it to find out what you're.
• 1:24:34
  Talking about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:37
  I have to write it for you to find out.
• 1:24:39
  But I don't know. I, I don't think I probably have
• 1:24:41
  too much of A favorite. I mean, cowboy romance is, I
• 1:24:44
  mean, Cowboys is for sure like right up there as far as like my
• 1:24:47
  favorite genres and tropes and stuff.
• 1:24:50
  Morally Gray. I don't know.
• 1:24:53
  Yeah, now, now for me, the one that is not my not the biggest
• 1:24:58
  fan of is the like a bully romance.
• 1:25:02
  That's the thing, I'm not. That's a trope that I would send
• 1:25:06
  to the grave. Chelsea, I know what yours is.
• 1:25:08
  Yours typically is a miscommunication.
• 1:25:11
  Oh I hate that's always the one that gets her.
• 1:25:14
  It drives. Me.
• 1:25:14
  It gets you crazy. I hate it because it's so
• 1:25:18
  relatable. I think that's part of what
• 1:25:20
  drives me nuts. I'm always like if people would
• 1:25:22
  just talk. But also why, like it is
• 1:25:26
  relatable, but also I am so not that person.
• 1:25:28
  Like I me neither. I am the communicator and like,
• 1:25:31
  I will sit you down and we're going to have an uncomfortable
• 1:25:33
  conversation. And so that's why it's like I
• 1:25:35
  hate reading it because I'm like, but I and I talked about
• 1:25:38
  it before, like I both love and hate like a third act breakup.
• 1:25:42
  I so I hate it, but I literally will read any book.
• 1:25:46
  It's they're my favorite to read because they make my heart
• 1:25:48
  clench and I'm always like, then the coming back together is
• 1:25:51
  always so good. Yeah, I love them.
• 1:25:54
  Yeah, I I actually hate a third act breakup.
• 1:25:56
  That's definitely a scream for me.
• 1:25:58
  They haven't, but I do hate them.
• 1:26:00
  Yeah. Any of your so I have learned
• 1:26:05
  that like a lot of people come and ask authors and some of it's
• 1:26:08
  like borderline inappropriate when they want to ask about your
• 1:26:11
  sex life and stuff like that. But we so we don't have to go
• 1:26:13
  that far. But do you have any like tropes
• 1:26:16
  in your relationship with your husband?
• 1:26:18
  Like I did 1A while back where it was like we had the third act
• 1:26:21
  breakup, we had small town we we lived like 10 minutes away from
• 1:26:26
  each other. So do you guys have any love
• 1:26:28
  story tropes? Definitely the small town.
• 1:26:32
  I feel like we were. I think there was some
• 1:26:36
  miscommunication trope in there. We he thought we were dating.
• 1:26:42
  I had no idea we were dating. Oh, so cute.
• 1:26:46
  I was dating other people trying to think, I don't know, I mean,
• 1:26:53
  like what I like he is for sure, you know, a cinnamon roll.
• 1:26:56
  And I would say I'm more of like the black cat and he's kind of
• 1:27:00
  the golden retriever, like those kinds of things.
• 1:27:02
  He's for sure my thought that, you know, the soft to my heart,
• 1:27:05
  like, for sure rough, you know, softens all my rough edges.
• 1:27:09
  But I don't know, is like, like caretaker.
• 1:27:12
  Is that kind of a kind of that, that kind of idea, I guess is a,
• 1:27:15
  is a common trope for us. Yeah.
• 1:27:17
  So that stuff. He just loved that he thought
• 1:27:20
  you were only dating him and he you did not know.
• 1:27:22
  I have no idea. And how funny because that's
• 1:27:26
  normally like, if you, if you think about gender norms, that's
• 1:27:30
  usually the other way around. And so I love when that happens
• 1:27:34
  to a man, he's like, listen, I've been set on you and you're
• 1:27:38
  out, well, dating other people. What's going on here?
• 1:27:41
  I love that for you. How long did it take for you to
• 1:27:45
  realize that you were dating him and didn't know that you were
• 1:27:48
  dating him? We started talking in like April
• 1:27:52
  and we talked and he came over and hung out at my house a
• 1:27:55
  couple times. And I mean like true golden
• 1:27:58
  retriever said. He sat on the opposite end of
• 1:28:01
  the couch. I just like thought I was like
• 1:28:04
  bro and he was like getting away from his house.
• 1:28:07
  Like I just thought we were friends, but I really wanted to
• 1:28:10
  date. And so I just was like stopped
• 1:28:12
  talking to him because I was like, I want somebody who's
• 1:28:14
  serious and who wants to date. And but he like continued to
• 1:28:18
  talk to me. And then we like kind of got
• 1:28:21
  back together a month later. And then we really started to
• 1:28:24
  sort of go on dates and stuff. But it wasn't until the middle
• 1:28:27
  of June, we were camping and I was like, So what are we, you
• 1:28:31
  know, like he's like, well, I thought, we've been dating this
• 1:28:34
  whole time. Oh that is so cute.
• 1:28:38
  So I got. To tell you some secrets here
• 1:28:40
  because. I love, I love it.
• 1:28:42
  Oh, you're yes, he is. A little cinnamon roll he is.
• 1:28:46
  He through and through. How many years have you guys
• 1:28:49
  been married? We it will be 4 in June.
• 1:28:52
  We've been married 4 in June and together 7.
• 1:28:58
  Awesome, Chelsea just celebrated her milestone.
• 1:29:01
  Yeah, our ten. Yeah.
• 1:29:03
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:29:04
  And my milestone comes up here in September.
• 1:29:07
  I'll be married 15. Wow, that's very cool.
• 1:29:11
  Yeah. Awesome.
• 1:29:11
  This is my second time around though.
• 1:29:14
  I was married once before and I was married for almost a well, I
• 1:29:18
  was married for about 11 years, but when our 11th wedding
• 1:29:20
  anniversary happened, that was during the divorce period.
• 1:29:23
  I didn't have any kids with him, so I had all that wasted time.
• 1:29:28
  That's a waste of time. And then then I met my husband
• 1:29:31
  and then I had my son because I wasn't getting married again
• 1:29:36
  because I had to make sure he he really loved me again.
• 1:29:41
  I had my oldest son and he took care of me.
• 1:29:44
  That solidified it for me. But I still didn't marry him for
• 1:29:48
  another year and we got married just four days before our son
• 1:29:52
  turned 1. So he'll.
• 1:29:54
  Be 16. But also be 6.
• 1:29:58
  And my other one, my middle one's going to be 13.
• 1:30:01
  Next month I'm going to have two teenagers.
• 1:30:04
  Two teenage boys. Nonetheless, I know I have
• 1:30:08
  discovered things. I have found out things because
• 1:30:11
  my kids are very open. They're very open.
• 1:30:14
  They will tell me anything because I said to them because I
• 1:30:18
  don't want. I didn't want them to grow up in
• 1:30:19
  a house like I grew up in that nobody knew anything because my
• 1:30:23
  mom was weird and she didn't want to tell me anything.
• 1:30:26
  Me too me. Too.
• 1:30:29
  So I had a lot of questions, you know, and all that kind of
• 1:30:33
  stuff. And something shocked me and
• 1:30:35
  stuff when I got married the first time.
• 1:30:37
  So with them, I always tell them I'm an open book.
• 1:30:40
  You can ask me anything, that kind of thing, and they'll ask
• 1:30:43
  me things. And then sometimes I'm like,
• 1:30:44
  you're going to have really have to ask your dad.
• 1:30:47
  Yeah, I can't answer those questions.
• 1:30:49
  Yeah. But yeah, yeah, they've told me
• 1:30:54
  things and I'm like. Oh.
• 1:30:56
  I go like that too. I go great, Chelsea, you get to
• 1:31:00
  look forward to this. Hopefully your boys will be the
• 1:31:02
  same thing. They'll be open with you and not
• 1:31:05
  be weird and not ask you things. I mean, one thing I'm trying to
• 1:31:10
  instill in them already, which I don't know if it's appropriate
• 1:31:12
  or not, but I'm like, we are not going to have period ever boys.
• 1:31:18
  Like if mom has a period, any woman that you meet is going to
• 1:31:21
  have a period. It is normal.
• 1:31:23
  You treat me better when I'm on it.
• 1:31:25
  Like we are doing that in this house because I am not having
• 1:31:29
  the EW. You know, they're not going to
• 1:31:31
  grow up and be that way. I'm not.
• 1:31:32
  We've all dated somebody who's like that for sure.
• 1:31:36
  Yeah, so my boys, they're going to be gentlemen to their women,
• 1:31:40
  especially at that time of the month.
• 1:31:42
  I'll tell you what. Because that's what my point.
• 1:31:44
  They understand what that is. They understand, you know all
• 1:31:48
  that. And they have a sister that's, I
• 1:31:50
  mean, she's younger yet that time is coming.
• 1:31:53
  So I mean, they have to, to prepare for that because they're
• 1:31:57
  going to have two crazy women. Now I'm I'm going out of that
• 1:32:01
  part of my life because I get I'm in the, I'm the, what did
• 1:32:04
  they they say it's cougar. They call it, it's, I don't
• 1:32:08
  know, something with a cougar. I don't know.
• 1:32:10
  They don't call it perimenopause, but they put it
• 1:32:12
  with a cougar time. So that's me.
• 1:32:13
  So they'll have me that I'm crazy a little bit with my
• 1:32:16
  hormones and then they'll have her.
• 1:32:18
  So I'm I'm so thankful that I had her or I would have been in
• 1:32:21
  a house just of men that didn't understand anything.
• 1:32:25
  But again, I'm trying my best. So they understand and they know
• 1:32:29
  this is how you treat a lady and all that kind of thing.
• 1:32:32
  Yeah. So that's good that you're doing
• 1:32:34
  that too, Chelsea. Yeah.
• 1:32:37
  Landon, before we jump off anytime soon, and I'm kind of
• 1:32:40
  putting you on the spot, but is there anything that we haven't
• 1:32:43
  touched on that you would like for your readers to know that
• 1:32:48
  you can think of like anything about you, about your
• 1:32:51
  characters? You don't really think
• 1:32:55
  specifically. I mean, I try very hard to be a
• 1:32:57
  pretty open book as far as like, I like the author notes and
• 1:33:03
  stuff at the beginning of my books.
• 1:33:04
  I try really hard to to express, you know, what I was pouring
• 1:33:08
  into this book and like what I hope readers are, you know,
• 1:33:11
  getting out of the experience, you know, and that they're not
• 1:33:16
  alone. Like I try really hard to make a
• 1:33:17
  safe space kind of within my universe.
• 1:33:21
  I think the one thing if people don't know, like readers save
• 1:33:25
  authors just as much as authors save readers.
• 1:33:27
  I feel very much like, you know, I wrote these because I felt
• 1:33:31
  alone and I don't want other people to feel alone, but in
• 1:33:35
  them not feeling alone. And reading it now, I no longer
• 1:33:37
  feel alone either. And so it's an amazing thing to
• 1:33:42
  stand naked in a room of the people you know, and then be
• 1:33:44
  like, you know, I love you anyway.
• 1:33:46
  That kind of thing. Like it's, it's been terrifying,
• 1:33:50
  but also like one of the coolest things I've ever done just
• 1:33:52
  because like I found people who, you know, I would never have met
• 1:33:56
  otherwise who resonate so deeply with these things that in other
• 1:34:01
  settings would be my flaws or my secrets or my shadows.
• 1:34:05
  You know, these things that are negative about me, these other
• 1:34:09
  people are like, oh, I have that too.
• 1:34:11
  And now I don't feel and I think that's really special.
• 1:34:13
  I think that that's, I hope that the readers and stuff that they
• 1:34:16
  know that it's not just like a one way thing.
• 1:34:18
  I'm not just giving them something.
• 1:34:19
  I'm not just giving them words like they're giving me stuff
• 1:34:21
  too. Yeah, so that's beautiful.
• 1:34:24
  Yeah, so don't skip the author's note.
• 1:34:27
  That's one thing I would tell your readers, because even just
• 1:34:30
  from reading that, I had already felt a connection with you.
• 1:34:34
  Reading that author's note and then going into the story, and
• 1:34:36
  even more so now that we're talking in person.
• 1:34:38
  It's so awesome getting to know you.
• 1:34:41
  Yeah, yeah. This has been a great time.
• 1:34:43
  I have really enjoyed it. And I was nervous, but I had no
• 1:34:46
  reason to be. This was fun.
• 1:34:48
  Yeah, you're a natural. Yes.
• 1:34:51
  And I hope that you would like to be one of our bonus chapter
• 1:34:54
  besties so that you can rotate in every definitely with us and
• 1:35:00
  talk about different books. And of course, we want you to
• 1:35:02
  come back this fall when it comes out because this has been
• 1:35:07
  super, this is super fun. This is something that has
• 1:35:11
  blossomed and has become something so amazing.
• 1:35:13
  I really, I thank you for coming on and, you know, talking about
• 1:35:17
  your book and, and joining us because we're just crazy here.
• 1:35:21
  Yeah. Me too, and.
• 1:35:23
  We've pronounced nothing correct.
• 1:35:24
  You will. You will learn that over.
• 1:35:25
  To you. Me too.
• 1:35:27
  You know what it is? It is such a pinch me moment
• 1:35:29
  though, because I never dreamed I'd get to talk to an author on
• 1:35:34
  a podcast and like, and I really mean it.
• 1:35:36
  I see your books everywhere on my feed.
• 1:35:39
  And so maybe even if you're not seeing it or feeling it, you
• 1:35:42
  have to know you do have some, like, awesome, have some fans
• 1:35:45
  that are putting it out there and saying really good things.
• 1:35:47
  And I know you try to stay away from the reviews.
• 1:35:50
  Yeah, some people are just miserable and we just ignore
• 1:35:54
  them. But yeah, this is just so cool.
• 1:35:57
  I can't even believe that we're getting to talk to you right now
• 1:35:59
  and that you're so down to earth.
• 1:36:02
  It's so awesome. Thank you, I appreciate it.
• 1:36:06
  Yeah, I love it. No, and I agree.
• 1:36:07
  I will touch on what? Like what Chelsea said.
• 1:36:09
  You know, some people are just miserable.
• 1:36:11
  I don't understand anybody that gives horrible reviews.
• 1:36:14
  If you didn't like a book, shut up.
• 1:36:18
  Just don't write anything. Move on.
• 1:36:21
  Yeah, or just write. It wasn't for me.
• 1:36:23
  Don't bash the person. I mean like it.
• 1:36:26
  It doesn't have to be for you. Just don't bash the author for.
• 1:36:31
  And also, have you written a book?
• 1:36:32
  That's I always, that's what I always want to respond.
• 1:36:35
  I'm like please tag your book below.
• 1:36:38
  Yeah, please show me your your masterpiece of literature.
• 1:36:43
  I would love to read it. Thank you.
• 1:36:45
  Because a lot of them, you know, because they think they can say
• 1:36:48
  this stuff and they can be as cruel as they can be because
• 1:36:51
  they're behind a screen or they're behind, you know, a, you
• 1:36:56
  know, a faceless books to gram or whatever.
• 1:37:00
  And those people are, in my opinion, are cowards in a lot of
• 1:37:04
  ways because I myself, I could never do that.
• 1:37:08
  I only review books that I absolutely love.
• 1:37:10
  And I, you know, I give everything I have read is five
• 1:37:14
  star. And it's because I love them
• 1:37:16
  and, and they speak to me and that kind of stuff.
• 1:37:19
  I mean, you know, have I read things that I do not like?
• 1:37:21
  Yes. But do you see a review from me?
• 1:37:23
  No, cuz I'm not gonna do that. Cuz we don't yuck other people's
• 1:37:28
  yums. Yeah.
• 1:37:29
  Because just cuz, right. Yeah, I don't feel that way.
• 1:37:31
  That doesn't mean Chelsea would feel the same way or or Heather
• 1:37:35
  or etcetera. You know, And I think those
• 1:37:37
  people that do that are people that have too much time on their
• 1:37:40
  hands. And I will die on that hill.
• 1:37:43
  It is it is so subjective reading and so and people don't
• 1:37:47
  forget that they're it's sad for them because they're not
• 1:37:51
  enjoying it and all these people that think that they're like
• 1:37:53
  these book critics when literally nobody asked for your
• 1:37:56
  opinion. I understand that we're doing
• 1:37:57
  all these apps because it it helps with like authors and
• 1:38:01
  everything, but it's like also calm down.
• 1:38:04
  Yeah, exactly. Like you really, nobody asks you
• 1:38:08
  to critique this book as harshly as possible, right?
• 1:38:13
  But yeah, so I anyways off that soapbox.
• 1:38:16
  Yeah, well, I really do appreciate you guys having me
• 1:38:19
  on. And this has been, yeah, a lot
• 1:38:20
  of fun And I, I'm excited to, to get to chat to you guys.
• 1:38:24
  Yeah, I'm so excited to read all your books so that I can, like,
• 1:38:27
  officially talk about everything that I know after I read it.
• 1:38:30
  Yes, thank you. Well, my my DM's are open.
• 1:38:33
  You let me know and it's. True.
• 1:38:35
  I wanted to ask that too. So like, how do you feel about?
• 1:38:37
  Like, do you love when readers come and talk to you?
• 1:38:39
  Obviously, you probably don't. As long as it's like negative
• 1:38:42
  stuff, yeah, don't tag me in negative reviews and don't send
• 1:38:44
  me a message. That was like, I hated this.
• 1:38:48
  That doesn't make me feel good. But yeah, whenever a reader
• 1:38:51
  messages or emails or whatever and it's like I loved this.
• 1:38:54
  That makes me feel really good. OK.
• 1:38:56
  And there have been times where like, I've written to some
• 1:38:58
  writers or authors when I'm like, I'm at a part in the book
• 1:39:02
  where I'm like, this is what I think is happening.
• 1:39:04
  Do you enjoy? Like no.
• 1:39:06
  Oh my gosh, I want there to be. I want somebody to create like a
• 1:39:10
  conspiracy theory page for my books just because I do try
• 1:39:14
  really hard to do like the smoke and mirrors and stuff.
• 1:39:16
  I'm like, I'm waiting to hear like what do people think it's
• 1:39:19
  happening? Thank you to Landon Hill for
• 1:39:21
  joining us and giving us a glimpse into her writing world.
• 1:39:25
  If you're ready to have your heart broken and put back
• 1:39:27
  together, For Saints and Outlaws is available now.
• 1:39:30
  You can find all of Landon's books on her official website or
• 1:39:34
  by clicking our link tree. Yes, because we're we'll have a
• 1:39:38
  link to your, to your book, to whatever you prefer for us to
• 1:39:42
  send the link. We'll have it on there so
• 1:39:44
  everybody can find you. So, but thank you guys.
• 1:39:47
  Indeed, we love to do this, but also but.
• 1:39:50
  Follow us on bookstagram at Twosgirls 1 TBR.
• 1:39:53
  And of course, check out our Sips highlight for the drink
• 1:39:56
  recipes that match Landon's book.
• 1:39:59
  You give us your well, you give us your Instagram handle this
• 1:40:02
  quick if anybody's listening. Yeah, it's at Landon, LANDYN
• 1:40:08
  Hill reads. Perfect.
• 1:40:10
  And we're going to have that linked on our Instagram page and
• 1:40:12
  all of that so that they can find it.
• 1:40:13
  But want to make sure that you you got to say it on.
• 1:40:15
  Yes, thank you so much. I really do appreciate it.
• 1:40:18
  Thank you yes, cuz I'm yes cuz you'll see your your picture not
• 1:40:21
  all fancy. OK, I can't wait to watch it.
• 1:40:25
  So exciting. All right, goodnight.
• 1:40:27
  Goodnight. Bye bye.