Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, June 10, 2016

 

[music]

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 198 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.  With me today is author Shelly Laurenston.  Now, I tried really hard to keep myself together during this interview, but I have to tell you that before we connected on Skype I was levitating in my chair, because I am so excited to have this interview!  I’m so excited to finally share it with you.  I barely kept my cool while I was doing it, and I’m barely keeping my cool talking about it now.  We talk about the book that brought Shelly into writing paranormal romance.  We talk about how her mother inspired her heroines, and we also discuss writing badass sisterhoods in romance, exploring different paranormal romance series, and my favorite part, identifying the elements of alpha women.  There’s also reminiscing about Kate Duffy, who was one of Shelly’s original editors at Kensington, and we talk about some seriously scary books that she reads for research.  We also have news about Call of Crows book three and who the hero and heroine will be.  I am so excited to finally share this interview.

This podcast is being brought to you by Clean Break, a new novel from Abby Vegas that blends chick-lit and romantic suspense into one irresistible New York story.  Bridget Jones meets Beauty and the Beast, and the Wall to Wall Books blog reviewed it as amazing, saying, “Once in a while you run across a book and you just really connect to it…  Like the author knew exactly the kind of book you loved and hit it spot-on.  This was one of those books…”  And Feeding My Addiction Book Reviews says, “If there was an award for breakthrough author, I would nominate Abby Vegas.”  Clean Break is on sale everywhere, and the first ten chapters are available for free at abbyvegasauthor.com.

The podcast transcript this month is sponsored by Kensington, publishers of Chasing the Heiress by Rachael Miles in the new Zebra Shout imprint featuring rising stars of romance at an affordable price of $4.99.  Rachael Miles’s witty and sexy Regency romance series centers on the intelligent, outspoken, and talented ladies of the Muses’ Salon and the gentlemen who strive for the love of a lady who knows her mind.  In this second installment, an heiress on the run from an arranged marriage uses her medical training to disguise herself as a sickroom maid, where an injured spy finds himself in her very capable care.  On sale now wherever books are sold.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is and where you can buy it.

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And now, without any further delay, on with the podcast!

[music]

Shelly Laurenston:  Hi, I’m Shelly Laurenston and G. A. Aiken.  Those are my two author names, and I write paranormal romance.

Sarah:  That’s a lot of names.

Shelly:  Yeah.  Well, it’s two.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Do you ever –

Shelly:  I find there’re, like, people out there with tons of names, so, but I can only manage two.

Sarah:  I can barely manage one, so even doing more than that –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – is really amazing to me.

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Now you were first published digitally, right?  Your first books –

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  – were all eBooks.

Shelly:  Yeah.  I was really lucky.  I worked with a friend at a, at my old job, and somehow – and I still to this day don’t know how it happened – we somehow got into a discussion about werewolf sex –

Sarah:  As you do.

Shelly:  – as, as one does –

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  – you know, while taking a, a, you know, break during work, and she said, oh, I’ve got this book, you know, for you to read; I think you’ll like it.  And I said okay, and I had been, I think, divorced about, about a year by that point, and I loved my job, but I was kind of like, where does it go from here?  And I took the book home, and she had marked, you know, the sections she, the, the, it was an anthology, and there was, she’d marked the story she wanted me to read, and I remember I was sitting on my couch, and I turned off the TV ‘cause I had to go to bed, and I’m thinking, God, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?  Like, what, what else is out there, you know?  And then I just picked up the book and kind of flipped to the end, and I saw something about, she knew she should be frightened being pregnant with a werewolf baby, but she wasn’t –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – and I went, oh, my God!  And I flipped back to the front, and it was MaryJanice Davidson’s Love’s Prisoner, and I was like, oh, my God!  And I’m, I’m reading, and I’m thinking, this is the best thing ever!  I’ve never read anything this cool before!  You know, ‘cause I, I grew up on romance as a, you know, I, I discovered it at the horrifying age of, like, eleven or twelve with Ashes in the Wind.

Sarah:  Many of us did, yes.

Shelly:  Yes.  Ashes in the Wind.  I actually, I actually got it for a quarter at the church bazaar.  I don’t think they knew it was on the table, and –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – and so, but, you know, as I read the books, I loved them, but I also thought, you know, the hoop skirts and all the details about furniture, and that stuff just wasn’t what I loved to, to write about, and then I read MaryJanice’s book, and I mean, she had a, like, you know, this really cool chick, and she had guns, and she was, you know, not afraid to be tough, and I thought, oh, yeah, this is it.  And that’s kind of how I got there.  You know, it’s like I read this book, the next thing I know I was, I was writing, and as I was writing, I, the friend, she actually was part of several Yahoo groups back in the day in, like, I guess, ’03, and she read it first, and she really liked it.  She said, you know, how ‘bout we get some other opinions, and it turned out that one of the opinions she got was an editor for Triskelion, which had just started at the time, and they asked to publish it.  And I was like, yeah, sure, why not?  ‘Cause the best part is I had no expectations, ‘cause I, you know, the three heroines were, you know, minorities, and, and I thought, you know, and they were loud, and they were rude, and they were cursing, and I thought, no way is this, you know, this is just for fun, this is just for me.  And it kind of took off from there, and I haven’t really looked back since.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  One of the things that I want to ask you about in particular –

Shelly:  Sure.

Sarah:  – is your heroines –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – ‘cause when I, when I mentioned to another author, whose name is Alisha Rai, that I was trying to maybe set up an interview with you –

Shelly:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – basically, we’d just finished reading the Crows, and we just basically screamed at each other.

Shelly:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Like, oh, my God!  I know!  They’re so good!  So first, before I ask any other questions –

Shelly:  Right.

Sarah:  – thank you!  Thank you for that series!

Shelly:  Oh!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That series has blown my mind.  I love it so much.

Shelly:  Thank you!

Sarah:  Like, I really like the G. A. Aiken books, and I realize that having someone just sort of squee at you uncontrollably can get a little uncomfortable, so I’ll keep this short.  I love the G. A. Aiken books because they are like campy, blood-soaked fairy tales.

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs] Exactly.  That’s exactly –

Sarah:  And it’s like, are you in a really shitty mood?  You are going to love this.  Like, they, are you having a bad breakup?  This is what you need.  You need a little bit of Annwyl, and she’s just going to, like, blood-soak everything, and you’ll feel much better.  And then you’ll be, like, oh, my God, you were right!  The Crows are just, they’re like, they’re like you cloned all of the best parts of the Dragon books and then turned them loose on north, Norse missol- – I’m going to saying this correctly – Norse mythology.

Shelly:  [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah:  What you write about so often is female friendship and female strength.

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  And one of the things that Alisha pointed out to me that is so, so true is that there are many, many writers who have built brands around what she called the badass brotherhood, and you have done it consistently with badass sisterhoods.  You write circles of women.  Is that something that you set out to do?

Shelly:  Yes.  I think my biggest problem has, with media in general, is women, when they are warriors, when they are the heroine or the main, you know, char-, they’re always alone.

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  They’re either, you know, the hero comes along eventually, and so they’ve got this partner, but they, they rarely have friends.  If they have friends, their friends, they, all they ever talk about is the guy.

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  There’s never that kind of relationship, and you know, when I did get divorced, it was my girlfriends who were there for me, and like, you know, they made sure I had plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas and, you know, and, and I was, when my mom died, you know, it was, come over to my house.  You’re coming over right now.  I was like, well, no.  No, no, no, you’re coming over right now!  I’m making you spaghetti.  I was like, okay, ‘cause I love your spaghetti.  So, you know –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – I mean –

Sarah:  Grieving and carbs go together.  These are wise women.

Shelly:  Yes.  Exactly!  And so, you know, when you have that kind of camaraderie, I was sad to not see it in, in the media I was watching, ‘cause that’s been so important to me.  You know, I don’t have a lot of friends, but the ones I have, I’m very close to, and so I really wanted to get that across in my work.  It was really important to me, and so from the very, for my first series, which was the Magnus Pack, you know, the center was the three best friends and what they had been through in their lives, and how they had bonded over their, you know, weirdness and their uniqueness and, and the fact that, you know, they were a lot of woman to take kind of thing.

[Laughter]

Shelly:  And so it kind of grew from there, and so it was the same thing, you know, with the Crows, where I, you know, yeah, it’s like I see these great, you know, badass boys, but – and I love the boys, I don’t have a problem with the boys, but I really wanted to start seeing some women uniting together, you know.  I kind of call it the pride effect, you know, like, I, I love the idea of, when I started researching lions for my Pride series I really, I discovered that, you know, to be honest, the males were, it was like two males, and they were there, but just literally to protect the cubs from other males.  They were there for breeding and to protect the cubs from other males.  Otherwise, it was all sisterhood.

Sarah:  So, bonking and babysitters, basically.

Shelly:  Yeah, pretty much.  You know, they were, ‘cause once, if they were pushed out, then any cubs that were, you know, still cubs and not two years old were killed, and so they had to have them, but otherwise it was a sisterhood of these, you know, badass lionesses who, they were the ones who went out hunting, and they were the ones who, you know, protected the, you know, area and did all this stuff and, you know, went to head to head with the, the hyenas, and, and that, to me, is, is kind of what I kind of base, I think, all my heroines on is the, the sisterhood, where we love our men, they’re there for us, we will protect them with our lives, but at the same time, we’re not going to forget our sisters.  We’re not going to suddenly become the girl who only hangs out with the girls when we’re alone.

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And only hangs out with their friends when they don’t have a boyfriend.

Shelly:  Exactly!  Exact-

Sarah:  And that you can have characters who have really great sex lives and really hot boyfriends but also hang out with their girlfriends.

Shelly:  Mm-hmm.  Girlfriends always remain important.  In my world, they, the girlfriends always remain important no matter what.  They’re still the sisters, they’re still part of their lives, so, you know, it’s, it’s, I, I just can’t imagine – ‘cause otherwise, you’re just alone, and that’s just –

Sarah:  That sucks.

Shelly:  – you know, and, and, and that sucks!  And, you know, what if something happens to the guy?  You know?  I mean, you, you know, it’s happily ever after, but sometimes happily ever after ends abruptly –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and then you don’t have that sisterhood, then how do you get through it?  You know, my sisters were there for me when I needed ‘em.  I don’t have an actual sister, but the, you know, I, I, like, I said my, I call them my adopted California family because, you know, it was just me out here, and suddenly I was on my own, and they were there to pick me up and, and be there for me.  That meant everything.

Sarah:  And so you’ve written them and the spirit of what they did into all of your books.

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  I think that is such a powerful message, because a lot of the times, I think, in romance, one heroine is diminished in the next book if she’s not the heroine.

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  So there’s such a distance between the, the heroine who is the subject of that book and the women who are not the subject of that book.

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Like, they can’t be too close to her in terms of prominence and how much there is there.  You know, she has to, the, the heroine has to have this sort of singular isolation a lot of times as the heroine, and with, with your characters – and it’s a pretty unique, it’s a pretty unique world, and it’s really, it’s really hard to recog-, to recommend books, by the way, if somebody comes to me and goes, oh, my God, I really love Shelly Laurenston!  What else do I read?  You read G. A. Aiken and, ahhh, yeah, that’s all I’ve got, ‘cause there’s not a lot of people who write like you.  There’re not a lot of characters who are all female and all equally as alpha as they need to be in all of the books.

Shelly:  [Laughs] Yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  What do you think are the, the qualities of a, of an alpha heroine?  ‘Cause you write a lot of alpha women.

Shelly:  I think it’s – wow, that’s a good question.  I, you know, I hadn’t really thought about it?  It’s just something I write ‘cause I, you know, I, it’s funny, when I was growing up, you know, I, I had, you know, both my parents, and, and my dad was, you know, strong male and, and, and my mom, though, was Southern.  She was North Carolina, she was very, you know, qui-, she wasn’t quiet.  She was, she loved to laugh, and she loved to have a good time, but she was an introvert, and she liked to do her thing, and she liked to read her, you know, her Agatha Christie and be left alone and have her lunches by herself and, but I, I think when I was younger I thought of her as kind of weaker, and then she was actually shot in a holdup when I was about fifteen.

Sarah:  Oh, my God!

Shelly:  Yeah, when I was about fifteen.  She used to own a little card store, and she sold it, but she kept working there part time just for the hell of it, ‘cause she knew everybody, and everybody loved her, and she, one day these kids came in, they, they shot her, and because she knew everybody, she was right next to an OTB, which is off-track betting in New York, and one of the guys in there was a fireman who knew her and adored her, and he actually called in a copter to airlift her to the – and that’s what saved her life.  And –

Sarah:  Holy smoke!

Shelly:  – I realized after that how strong she was as a woman, because she just, she never let it get her down.  Like, it, you know, she, it traumatized her, and she still had P, PTSD and, you know, she’d hear a car backfire and she’d jump –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Shelly:  – you know, and I mean we’re talking ten, fifteen years later, but she never let it destroy her or define her, and it just, you know, that’s when I realized there was more, much more to her than I was actually seeing or giving her credit for, and that’s where I think it started, you know, where this realizing that strength doesn’t always have to be, you know, in your face, I’m so stuff, I’m going to take you down, I’m going to blah blah blah, you know.  There’re some who are just quietly strong, and there’re some who are loudly strong, and there are some who, you know, they don’t say anything or do anything until you really make ‘em mad.  And my mom was like, my dad used to say, he goes, look, if your mom starts crying, just run.

[Laughter]

Shelly:  He goes, she’s the only woman I know who cries when she’s really mad and she’s about to go off, and I was like, oh, okay, you know, and –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – and so, you know, but she also cried at Hallmark commercials!  Like, it used to amaze me.  I was like, I’d look at her and go, are you crying at this commercial?  She’s like –

Sarah:  [Tiny voice] Yes.

Shelly:  – well, it’s just so sweet!  You know, that was just – so she wasn’t afraid to be soft, and she wasn’t afraid to be, you know, to love and to love dogs and babies and, you know, that whole thing and, and, but, my God, the woman was like a, you know, a bear when, if she thought someone was, you know, offending her daughter or, you know, putting her son at risk or anything like that.  Then, that’s when the claws came out, and so, you know, I think l learned from her that strength isn’t about who is the, you know, who’s willing to chest bang you, you know, and get in your face.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  You know?  [Laughs] And so that’s kind of where I base my alphas off of, and you know, I try and write varying ones.  I don’t try and write the, I try really hard not to write the same character over and over again, you know, and, and it’s kind of where, you know, like, with my dragons, it was like, you know, first there was Annwyl, and she was, like, balls out, you know, sword in hand, shield ready to go, you know.  She didn’t care who she –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  – destroyed to get to what, you know, to protect her people, you know, and then I had the, you know, the quiet poisoner, and, and then I had, you know, and, and the, then I had the character that was, like, so quiet and, and so, but deadly.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  Like, you just knew this woman would, you know, just destroy you, and that’s, you know, kind of where I just started to grow from that, ‘cause I just had this, I realized there was just all these different type of alpha females out there, and I’ve been lucky that I’ve known so many and watched them.

Sarah:  I also love how so many of your heroines are introverts?

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I am, I am a very, very, very, very much an introvert, and people don’t believe me when I tell them that, but –

Shelly:  Well, there’s, I, I discovered very late in life that there’s a difference between introvert and shy, and –

Sarah:  Yes!

Shelly:  – I used to explain, I always used to tell people I was shy, and they’d look at me and they’d go, you’re not shy.  I was like, no, I’m really shy, but I’m not.  I’m actually not shy; what I am is an introvert.  There are times I just, I, I remember I’d have to – ugh! – when I worked in healthcare, ugh, my nightmare years –

Sarah:  Oh, God!

Shelly:  – and, and I, and, like, it was, it was like marketing, but still, ugh.  So, and I remember, I’d have to go to these team-building, you know, things with the whole gang for, like, several days in a row, and when I left I’d come home and I would literally take days off before I could go back to work just to decompress from having to, as I said, fake-smile for the la-, you know, for three days and pretend I didn’t hate every second of being there and, and just, you know, I just hated it, and it’s the same thing.  It’s that, you know, that introvert nature where, you know, we can, I like, I call it gunfire, you know, short, controlled bursts of gunfire.  You know, it’s like I can do, you know, a great day, night, you know, with my friends, I can go out to dinner, we can go to movies and hang out, but my God, I don’t necessarily want to see them the next day.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, no, you need to decompress.

Shelly:  Yeah.  You need to decompress, and that’s this, you know, and so, yeah, I, I’m a hardcore introvert, and so that kind of started to get to my writing, where there were some characters where I was like, not everybody wants to hang out.  Not everybody wants to be, you know – and that’s why I had so much fun with The Undoing, ‘cause she was such a blatant introvert, where she’s under desks, and she’s hiding in, you know, cabinets, and anything to get away from people trying to talk to her when she just wanted to read her books and be like, she was kind of basically my mom a little bit, you know –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – she just wanted to be left alone to read her book.  You know, why are you bothering me?  I just want to read my book, you know.  And so that’s when she was fun.

Sarah:  I’m going to sit in a hot car and hide from all of you people!

Shelly:  Yes, exactly.

Sarah:  One of the things I love about that particular character, about Jace in, in The Undoing, is that her introversion does not mean that she doesn’t want to talk to you or she doesn’t have friends.  She just has a very limited amount of energy to spend on other people.

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  And when she –

Shelly:  And that’s what that means.  Yeah.

Sarah:  Yeah, totally!  Have you ever read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking?

Shelly:  I actually have that book!  I have not read it yet – [laughs]

Sarah:  Okay –

Shelly:  – but I do have it.  I bought it just for that reason.

Sarah:  It’s going to blow your mind.  Like, I, I remember –

Shelly:  Okay.

Sarah:  – reading that book on a train with my husband, and I would, like, keep interrupting his reading to read him parts of this book, like, I’m in this book!  You don’t understand how much I’m in this book!  And when I read that and it gave me, like, this whole framework and language to understand introversion, it was, it was really life-changing.  It also made me realize that even when I’m at an event that I love, like a conference full of romance readers, which is awesome, I need to block off two, two and a half hours every day to go be in total silence with no humans.

Shelly:  Oh, yeah.  I, I did the same thing.  I, I haven’t gone to a con in a long time, but when I’ve gone to RT I would, you know, I, I usually wouldn’t get downstairs ‘til, like, four or five –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – and then, you know, I’d spend more time, I’d write up in my room, I’d watch TV, I’d do all that stuff, and then I’d come downstairs, and then I’d, you know, then I’d, I’d go to the bar and I’d hang out with everybody and, and I loved it, you know –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and then, but when the night was done I was in my room, door closed, TV back on to block out, you know, everything, and I could just sit there and watch TV and just decompress, and then actually when I’d get back, when I was still, ‘cause I was still working full time when I started writing, I would actually come, you know, home, and I would not go back to work for three or four days to just sit in my apartment –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – with the dog –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and do nothing but watch TV.  [Laughs] And, you know, kind of get over the, you know, the whole experience –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and then I’d go back to work.

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  I couldn’t go, I couldn’t just jump back into work.  I, I’m amazed by people who can.

Sarah:  And, and, and that being around other people, just being in a room with bunches and bunches of people can be so draining.

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  You don’t even have to talk to them; it’s just draining.

Shelly:  It is, yeah, yeah, it is.

Sarah:  So, speaking of the, the Crows series –

Shelly:  Mm-hmm?

Sarah:  – which I have introduced to so many people, and they have all been so excited about, I know you just turned in –

Shelly:  Thank you for that!

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh, no!  Thank you!  I love this book so much!

Shelly:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Do you know when book three is going to come out?  Do you know what the plan is for that one?

Shelly:  It’s going to be the summer of, this, next summer.  Not this summer, but –

Sarah:  Summer of 2017.

Shelly:  Yes.  It’ll be the 2017 summer.

Sarah:  Okay.  So if you by accident, like, attached it to an email to me I would never tell anyone.

Shelly:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I would never breathe a word.  Ever.  Seriously.

Shelly:  Well, it’s still going through the editing process, but I’m sure that, you know –

Sarah:  Well, tell that person to hurry it up.  I actually –

Shelly:  [Laughs] We should work out something.

Sarah:  – I have to tell you, because I know you’ll understand this story.  So I have, we, we, my family and I just moved, and I finally had this piece of art that Kate Duffy gave me framed?

Shelly:  Oh, God.

Sarah:  It is the original oil painting of a romance cover, because they used to have these boards, like, painted by an artist, and they’d photograph the board –

Shelly:  Wow.

Sarah:  – and then they’d just chuck it, ‘cause they paid –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – like, fifteen hundred bucks for it, so I have John DeSalvo in a hot pink gladiator toga –

Shelly:  Oh, God!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – standing over me while I work, and, like, every time I turn around I think, oh, you know, I think about Kate, and I think about really good editors, and I think about –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – how people take care of the genre, and it’s just, oh, it’s so lovely.

Shelly:  [Laughs] Kate is always close to my heart.  She was the one who, like, she was, she was my first big, you know, New York editor, and she was great, ‘cause she made it all, like, perfect, ‘cause when I pitched to her at one of the RTs and – I think in St. Louis, but I’m not exactly positive, I can’t exactly remember, but – and she was so nice to me, and I was really, you know, I was, I wasn’t, I didn’t know what to expect, so I was expecting, you know, kind of cold like that, you know, New York publisher, editor character you see in every rom-com movie, and she was so sweet, and she was so nice, and I said, you know, I’ve got a book, and you know, I pitched this one story to her, and she said, this sounds great, but it wasn’t nearly finished, and, but I had finished the lion, my first lion story for the Pride, and, with Mace, and I thought, you know, let me just pitch that to her and see if she’ll be interested, and – ‘cause it had already been out in eBook –

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  – and I told her, I said, you know, it’s been with Triskelion, and she was like, well, what’s the sales on that?  And I just looked at her, and she was like, yeah, don’t worry, send it to me.

[Laughter]

Shelly:  ‘Cause she knew and I knew I was barely, like, making enough for lunch, you know, for –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – [laughs] – from my, those early days, and so I went ahead and I, you know, I, I went through it again, and I edited it, and I sent it, and I, what I did was I FedExed it to her, and I –

Sarah:  [Laughs] You remember those days?

Shelly:  Yeah, I FedExed the manuscript to her, you know, and it was so funny because I was about to go to the doctor, I had to go to the OB-GYN, and, and the, first I get an email, and I just looked, you know, you know when you’re just about to go out the door and you’re like, let me just check email?

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  And I checked my email real fast, and there’s an email from her:  call me.

Sarah:  Oh, God.

Shelly:  And then I was like, ah!  Ah!  So I start shaking, and then my phone rings –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – and it’s her, and she’s like, I love this book, and I remember nothing had ever sounded as good in my life as Kate Duffy telling you how much she loves your work, because there was just something so enthusiastic and so warm and so, you know, just like, she, when she loved your work, you knew it, and she let you know it, and it meant everything.  And she’s like, we want this book.  I want this book.  I have to have – I was like, uh, okay!  You know, and, and I’m just so excited, and I’m like, okay, okay, that’s great!  You know, and then before I’m leaving I’m emailing all my friends, Kate Duffy, I’m on the phone with Kate Duffy!  You know, just –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – completely freaking out.

Sarah:  And when she liked your work or she liked an author, she would introduce people to them like they were a freaking rock star, even if their book –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – hadn’t come out yet.

Shelly:  Yes, she did.

Sarah:  She was as enthusiastic about the books that she bought and the books that she wrote or, or worked on –

Shelly:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – as she was about, like, meeting a movie star.

Shelly:  Yes.  She really was, and it was amazing, and, and so I’ve always, you know, such a warm spot in my heart for her, ‘cause, you know, her death just devastated me, ‘cause I was like, wait a minute, I, but I’ve got this book I’m finishing for her!  You know?

[Laughter]

Shelly:  What do you mean?  So, you know, so, yeah, she’s, and she’s had that effect on a lot, a lot of authors, because she was just so – I was so lucky, and it was funny because I had, you know, was kind of done with the eBook thing, you know, as things transpired and changed, and so I kind of in a, you know, pissy mood kind of emailed this, the guy who was handling the RT interviews at the time, the pitch meetings –

Sarah:  Uh-huh.

Shelly:  – and said, hey, you know, if you have anything available I’d love one, you know, and he’s, you know, and so he did.  He set me up with Kate and, and, and some agent, and the agent one didn’t go too good, but the, the one with Kate did, but I was really, I remember I freaked out when I saw it.  I was like, Kate, Kate Duffy?

Sarah:  Oh, my God!

Shelly:  Kate Duffy?  ‘Cause, like, I knew her.  I knew of her.  Like, I hadn’t met her, but I knew of her, and I knew that was, Kensington was my goal.  Like, that was my –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – down, down the road a few years, you know, after I get, you know, more, you know, get a little more books under my belt, I’d like to go to Kensington, and so when – it was such a luck thing, and it was only ‘cause I think I had made, I had given the guy, like, several baskets.  Like, I built a couple of baskets and sent it to him for the books and stuff, and, and you know, bookmarks and all stuff, and –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and, so he just, I think he just was like, hey, I’ll just give her Kate Duffy.  I was like, thank you, God!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  ‘Cause it was like the best thing ever.  It just, all the timing just worked out so perfectly, but yeah, I just, I loved working with her.  I loved working with her.

Sarah:  She, she was the, the, like you, she was the first person who looked at what I was doing as a blogger and was like, n-, no, no-no, keeping doing this.  This is, this is good.  You should keep doing this.  I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but it’s good –

Shelly:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – and I don’t understand it, but you should keep doing it, and I was like, okay, Kate Duffy’s talking words to me.  What do I do with myself at this moment?

Shelly:  Yes!

Sarah:  And I remember when I met her, it was RWA in Dallas, and I was, like, eight and a half months pregnant, and I was like –

Shelly:  Oh, God.

Sarah:  – a small planet.  I like, and it was, like, 99 degrees, so I checked into the hotel, and I didn’t leave until I went to the airport, ‘cause why would I go outside?  It was 95, and I was hugely pregnant –

Shelly:  Right.

Sarah:  – and so I was a very slow-moving person –

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – and I couldn’t, and I couldn’t drink at the bar because, you know, hugely pregnant, and so I, I ended up sitting next to her and, like, getting introduced to all these authors that she was excited to, to meet.  I think she’d just purchased HelenKay Dimon’s books and was introducing me to HelenKay –

Shelly:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and it was like, oh, you, you know who I am, and you know what I do, and you’re not mad that I’m here?  ‘Cause at that time people were like, why are the bloggers here?

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That’s bad.  They should go.  Yuck.  Cooties!  So you’ve had a very long and successful career writing paranormal –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and I keep hearing all these people talking about how paranormal’s dead, and I hear many readers going, nuh-uh!  Is it ever, is it ever discouraging to hear that the genre that you love and that you write on, that you write in is, is, is dying and dead, or do you just sort of be like, yeah, I’ve got alpha heroines who want to eat people to write about, so bye.

Shelly:  [Laughs] Well, you know, it’s funny, when I first, when I, the, when I first started writing and, you know, I remember I joined some loop, and –

Sarah:  Be careful of doing that!

Shelly:  Oh, I would never do it now, but this is then, you know.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  And so they, and they asked you, like, a little questionnaire, you know, when you join, you know, like what do you write, and what do you do, and, and I don’t think I, I hadn’t been picked up yet by Triskelion, I hadn’t, you know, I was just, literally just starting.  I was just trying to, like, put my feet, you know, my little feet in the water, and I said, I said paranormal romance, and, and immediately someone was like, oh, yeah, that’s too bad it’s, you know, fading away, but, you know, we’re interested to see what you’ve got.  Like, and I was like, oh, here we go.  I, I never went back.  I never went back to that loop.  I was like, all right, if that’s your attitude, I was like, you know.  So from the very beginning everybody was telling me it was dying or dead –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and no one was interested, and I was just like, well, whatever, ‘cause at the time I had no plans.  It wasn’t like I was, you know, I, I, it wasn’t like as soon as I started writing I was like, I’m going to get a New York deal, and I’m going to get big, and I’m going to get blah blah blah, and – I had no plans, which drives some of my friends crazy.  They’re like, well, who’s that?  I’m like, I don’t know.  Because –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – you know.  Well, what, who’s the, you know, who’s the agent from?  I’m like, I don’t know.  I didn’t know any people, I didn’t, I didn’t try and learn.  I was just kind of, like, doing my own thing, which is my way –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  – and, and that kind of –

Sarah:  I know this way.

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I, I am a frequent flyer on Seat-of-Your-Pants Airline.  I’ve got a lot of miles.

Shelly:  Yes!  That’s, and that’s how I write!

Sarah:  Yes!  [Laughs]

Shelly:  That’s how I write:  total seat of my pants.  Total seat of my pants.  Drives my editor crazy, because that means when, like, I was supposed to turn in the Crows three weeks earlier, and I’m still like, I’ll give it to you next week; I’m almost done.  Then I go, okay, I need another week.  And then I’m like, I just need another week, ‘cause I keep changing and fixing and trying to make things works, and I’m like, I’m almost there dude, I’m almost there.  Just give me a little more time.  [Laughs] And thankfully she has the patience of a saint, ‘cause –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – I do it to her almost every book, ‘cause I just think I’m almost there, then I go, nope, this isn’t working, and I kill, like, fifty pages or a hundred pages and, ‘cause suddenly I’ve got this idea, or something might work better, or, you know, and I go in, I just rip it out and start over, or I start messing with what I already have, and until I’m happy with it, it doesn’t go, so, you know, and so I, but that’s like – I’ve tried, you know, when I was younger, I remember, I would try to, you know, map it out, you know, my story, and by the time I was done mapping it out, I was so bored with it I never wanted to look at it again.  It’s, I, you know, I admire people who are that, you know, organized, and they can write their whole, you know, have their whole thing mapped out, and then they just go in and they just write it, but once I do that I lose all interest, so for me and my ADHD ways, I have to kind of, like, just run with it, ‘cause that’s where the entertainment comes, ‘cause then I’m in my head, but of course then I’m in my head constantly.  For three weeks on the auth-, what I call my author lockdown, I was completely in a, like, I lived on chicken noodle soup – well, rotini and chicken, ‘cause I’m an adult, so – rotini and chicken soup and, and the, calling in the, like, a local, like, delivery service?

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  I think I’m putting someone’s kid through college or something because I, yes, every day, it’s like I, literally, one guy, I actually told him, he goes, look, I just wanted you to know, I’m going on vacation for two weeks.  I didn’t even know his name!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  But he felt like he’d seen me so often at this point, he was like, I just want to let you know, so don’t freak out if you don’t see me for a while, ‘cause I’m going on vacation for two weeks.  I was like, um, all right, thanks for the, thank you for the heads up.  You know, and so – [laughs]

Sarah:  Good to know.

Shelly:  – and so –

Sarah:  I probably wouldn’t have noticed.  [Laughs]

Shelly:  Yeah, so I, ‘cause I get so locked in that all I think about is, like, where’s it going, what am I doing, and, like, I, I go to sleep at, you know, and, and that’s where I’m like, what do I do tomorrow, and then when I get up I’m thinking about it.  It never, you know, it’s, it’s, like, all-consuming, and so, but it just, it’s, but that’s just, so far that’s the only way I’ve been able to work, you know.  I can do, like, little outlines, like big chunky bits of, well, she’ll go here, and she’ll do this, and they’ll have this, but the, like, the, really, the fine tuning, that hap-, that happens while I’m editing and rewriting and rereading.  That’s the only way I can do it so far, so.

Sarah:  And you, and you have to sort of surprise yourself.

Shelly:  Yes!  ‘Cause if I get bored I just assume everyone else is getting bored, and that was the thing – it was so funny.  I feel so bad for my editor, ‘cause I actually gave her, like, the first hundred pages, like, back in January or something, and then when I actually finished, you know, the book and sat down and started reading those first day, I was like, she’s going to kill me, but I have to rip this whole thing apart.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  Like, just the first hundred, they were just really bad, and, and I just hated them, and, and I was bored by them, and I thought, if I’m bored, everyone’s going to be bored, so I just, you know, so I said, yeah, I need another week, and I have to change those first hundred pages.  I’m really sorry!  And then I was just kind of –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – and then I’m afraid to even look at my email, ‘cause I’m afraid she’s going to yell at me in my email, so I haven’t looked.  [Laughs] But thankfully she was fine with it, but, yeah, it’s like, you know, I just, you know, it’s, it’s that, it’s, it’s the only way I can, I’ve been able to make this work for me.  But so far, so, so good!  I mean, seems to be effective, so I don’t want to –

Sarah:  Well, I, I haven’t heard any readers complaining.

Shelly:  Oh, I have, but –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – for different 

Sarah:  It’s a different thing.

Shelly:  Yeah, that’s different, you know.

Sarah:  They’re probably complaining that you, you didn’t write fast enough.

Shelly:  I get that a lot.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  I do get that a lot and, and, you know, and I get it, and it’s hard.  It, it does get frustrating, ‘cause I see some authors who consistently, you know, they do a good job, but they’re putting out books, like, every three months, and I’m like, how do you do that?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  You know, like, how do you do that, ‘cause there’s so much of me, literally, just sitting sometimes and staring off and thinking –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and playing things in my head and thinking, heh, that’s funny.  I should use that.  I mean, I don’t know how they just, like, they sit themselves down and they just bang, bang, bang, and I just can’t seem to make that happen, and it frustrates the hell out of me, but – [laughs] – but at the same time, I also know that what I, the fear I have is I, you know, become what I call the Acme, you know, an Acme company of publishing and –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – start putting out books and then, but, but then people are disappointed because all the characters are the same, or the storyline’s the same, or haven’t we been here before, or, you know, and I, I don’t want to do that either.  I want to surprise and delight with each new book, so, and that takes time for me, you know, for me personally.

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  So I kind of have to use that and go with it.

Sarah:  I remember doing an interview for the, for this podcast with a couple of authors and, and one of them, I think, was Julie James, and I was saying, do you remember when one book a year was, like, fast?

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Like, putting out one book a year was, like, such an enormously fast pace!  Like, my goodness!

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And now, like, one book a year is like, oh.  [Laughs]

Shelly:  Yeah, yeah.  Like, you’re, like, some kind of flawed being –

Sarah:  I’m, yeah, no.

Shelly:  – ‘cause you’re only putting out – and it’s funny, I watch, I, I started watching Castle on TNT, and he was, like, this mystery writer, and he’s putting out a book a year, and I go, that must be lovely.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  To have a full year to sit around and play with your detective friend, and then write a book when you feel like it, you know, and have a whole year to get it done, and I was like, man, that must be just great!  And I, I always think these damn mystery writers with their damn –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – year to write a book, you know, and –

Sarah:  Nobody complains ‘cause they’re men.

Shelly:  – but, but romance readers are so voracious, which is great –

Sarah:  We are very voracious.

Shelly:  – but also, like, a lot of pressure –

Sarah:  Just a little.

Shelly:  – ‘cause they’re like, okay, I mean, literally, they’ll buy the book, you know, the book releases, they’ll buy it, they tell me they love it, and that’s great, and then the next sentence is, so when is your next one coming out?  And I’m like, okay, look, I don’t know.

[Laughter]

Shelly:  I can’t handle this pressure right now!

Sarah:  Or you have people who are reviewing the book, once it’s listed on Goodreads, but you haven’t finished it yet?

Shelly:  I’m sorry?

Sarah:  There are people who will sometimes review a book on Goodreads because the publisher has listed it, but you haven’t quite finished it yet?  And so authors –

Shelly:  Oh, God.

Sarah:  – are like, how did you, how did you review the book?  I haven’t finished writing it yet!  I can never go on the Internet again.  [Laughs]

Shelly:  Oh, God, no, I have not.  Well, ‘cause I won’t hand my book over until I’m done.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  So, I mean, I sometimes will give a hundred pages, but I, you know, my editor, thank God, she never has unleashed that.  ‘Cause she knows I’m crazy.  She knows that I’m the one who’s like, you know, like I just did to her, like, you know those hundred pages I sent you?  Yeah, well, guess what.  You know, so –

Sarah:  You can use them to line the birdcage.

Shelly:  Yeah.  And one time, I remember, I had handed over, I think, three chapters and then promptly forgot about them, that I did it, and then I went and I wrote the book, and of course I rewrote those, ‘cause they were the first three chapters.  I rewrote them a bunch of times, and suddenly I’m looking at some, I think it was my release, and they had the, like, the first chapter or two of the book, of, of the early stuff I sent, and I freaked out on them –

Sarah:  [Laughs] Oh, no.

Shelly:  – ‘cause I was like, you can have this in the book!  I, I’ve re-, I’ve done changes, it’s, it’s different!  You know, I, my hands are, like, gesturing while I’m talking to the guy on the phone.  I’m like, I’m sorry, but it’s not the same!  And he’s, okay, okay, we’ll take it out.  But, you know, so – [laughs] – you know, so they, and it’s always sad, ‘cause they always ask me, they’re like, hey, do you have a chapter you can send me for the back of the book?  I’m like, no.

Sarah:  No, sorry.

Shelly:  No, ‘cause I, I’ve, I’m sure I’ll rewrite it, ‘cause I al-, I mean, as it is, I rewrite the first three chapters a billion times before I can even move forward, and then when I get to the end, I go back and usually re- [laughs]

Sarah:  Rewrite it again!

Shelly:  Exactly!

Sarah:  So with the Crows series, can you tell us a little bit about book three?  Are you able to tell us anything about it?

Shelly:  Yeah, now that I’ve handed it off.  If you had asked me this when I was still working on it, I would have been like, no.  And it –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – the conversation would have ended!  No, I’m sorry, I have nothing to tell you.  But, I mean, at this point it’s, it’s Erin and Stieg, who I adore, ‘cause he’s, like, my angriest Viking, ‘cause he’s just, he’s, he’s not miserable, he just doesn’t smile or anything.  He’s just like, he just looks like your gorgeous, grumpy grandpa.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yes.  I was going to say, he’s cranky.

Shelly:  He’s cranky.  He’s my cranky boy, and I love cranky guys.  I love, you know, ‘cause my dad was cranky.  He was, you know, he was, you never knew what mood that man was coming in the house with, you know, and it was funny, ‘cause one time I came downstairs and was like, hey, Dad!  And he was like, he was so angry, he was, his, he was leaning forward, like, he was a big guy, so, like, six feet, and he, but he was, like, walking forward, and he slammed the keys down, and I went, okay, see ya, bye!  And I ran up the house, and he heard me go upstairs and say to my mom, I don’t know what’s going on, but Dad’s in a bad mood.  I’m out of here.  And I went and grabbed my car keys and left the house, and so when I got back she said, thank you for doing that, ‘cause he actually heard you, and he calmed down.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, no!  [Laughs]

Shelly:  ‘Cause he was in such a bad mood, I was like, my brother and I would just evacuate, and we were like –

Sarah:  We need to leave.

Shelly:  – Dad’s in a bad mood!  Get out, get out, get out!  Which is like – [laughs]

Sarah:  Go, go, go, go, go!  Out the door, don’t stop!  [Laughs]

Shelly:  Don’t look back!  Don’t look back!  You know, and so, yeah, and – wait, what were we talking about?  I totally lost –

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Book three with cranky –

Shelly:  Book three, yes!  Okay, so –

Sarah:  – cranky Stieg and Erin.

Shelly:  – Stieg is fun.  This is, yeah, I love my cra-, cranky man, and so Stieg was fun, but Erin was a lot of fun to write, ‘cause she’s –

Sarah:  Uh, yeah!

Shelly:  – she is just, you know, she even describes herself, she goes, yeah, I’m a dick.  Like, she just – [laughs] –

Sarah:  She –

Shelly:  – she understands that about herself, she enjoys it.  She just feels the world is just too uptight, and so everybody’s uptight, and everybody’s stressed out, and so her way of trying to alleviate that is by being kind of an asshole, and so, you know, and she’s not afraid to be an asshole to anybody, so there’s, like, a lot of, like, the gods don’t like her, and the –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – you know, and she fights with, you know, like, Odin, and she, you know, and, and so, and other, other –

Sarah:  Come on, Odin –

Shelly:  – groups don’t like her, the nuns don’t like her, the, you know –

Sarah:  – Odin needs to be fought with, though.  I mean, Odin needs to have an argument –

Shelly:  I know.

Sarah:  – with people.  He has it coming.

Shelly:  I know.  I love my Odin.  I mean, and it’s funny, ‘cause everybody does their different Odins, like, everybody has their, like – you know, I watched the, the show Vikings, which I adore –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – and, like, the moon, I adore that show, and Lagertha, and oh!  Ragnar and his brother, oh!  Love it all!  And, and –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – and his Odin was, like, the older guy, like, almost like Gandalf, like, you know, older guy with the big hat and, and the walking stick and the white beard, and yet I see a more, like, bodybuilder kind of, like, works out at the gym kind of, you know, that’s my kind of, you know, old Viking.  Like, you know, just full of, you know, like, ugh, strength and, and, and just difficult, and based on, like, when I did research on him, he wasn’t, he was really kind of, like, he was the god everybody called on last, because he was such a bastard –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and that was kind of fascinating, ‘cause, you know, when you watch, you know, movies and, like, you know, and, and all that stuff, it’s, he’s the older father who loves his family and blah blah blah –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  – but you know, and, and, and the reality, he was a harsh god, and you did not call on him lightly, and so I had a lot of, you know, I have a lot of fun with that, ‘cause, you know, the more difficult I find people are, the more I just, like, oh-ho!  Yeah, this is good!

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  You know, it gives me more to play with than, you know, the nice old gentleman.  I, you know, I love, I love my cranky old people.  I love making, you know, like, her, her, you know, Nina from The Undoing, she was fun, and –

Sarah:  Oh, lord.

Shelly:  [Laughs] I know, I know!  You know, and, ‘cause I, I, you know, I never really knew, I knew frail, physically frail old people, but not mentally.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Shelly:  You know, and, and they were, they could be a little bit, you know, dangerous, and so that kind of, that kind of gets in there, ‘cause I have more fun with that as a writer, and so yeah, so, Odin was a lot of fun, and so, but yeah, so, Erin was kind of a blast to write, and now we really get down to the wire with, you know, the, the Gullveig storyline, the arc, and –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  – it’s all coming to a head, so.

Sarah:  Is this a trilogy?

Shelly:  It is a trilogy for this particular story arc.

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  So, you know, whether I go back to it, ‘cause originally I, I originally wrote that whole, the Crows and the Ravens first started in a book called Hunting Season –

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  – which I wrote years and years ago because – [laughs] – the publisher at Triskelion said, we want a book with crows.

Sarah:  Uh –

Shelly:  Literally, that’s how they tell me things.  Like, the first –

Sarah:  That was my question!  How did you get to Crows?  What was the –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – source of that idea?  I had no idea!

Shelly:  Yeah, ‘cause with Pride, that started because they said, we want a lion, and my friend said to me, what are you, McDonald’s?

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  They’re now just ordering up stories from you?  And I was like, yeah, well, I was like, nah, no big deal, ‘cause at the time I was like, yeah, okay, fine, I’ll give ‘em lions.  So when they came to me and said, we want something with crows, I went, crows?!  I said, those black birds outside my house with the spindly little legs?  Those crows?  That’s what you want?  And she’s like, yeah, so I was like, uh, okay, let me see what I can come up with.  So I kind of, like, pull, I have a lot of, like, research books, ‘cause I love books, and so I’m pulling out stuff and looking, and I said, my first idea was something with, like, bounty hunters, there are a group of bounty hunters, and she said, oh, we already have a series with bounty hunters.  Can you come up with something else?

Sarah:  Ugh!

[Laughter]

Shelly:  So I said, ugh, okay, let me see what I can do.  So I go back to the books, and at that point I had decided there’s no way I’m having them – you know, I had shifters.  There’s no way I’m having them turn into little birds with the little legs.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and so I said, okay, but they’ll have wings, and so I started researching, and I had this little book called The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Runes –

Sarah:  Huh!

Shelly:  – and I started going, like, I literally just picked it up, like, oh, what’s in here?  And I started realizing it was, oh, gods, and some of the runes have gods associated with them, and then I started research-, and then they’d have a breakdown of, like, what was the god’s, you know, connection, and one of them, Skuld, was crows, and I was like, wait a minute, that could work!

Sarah:  Ohhh!

Shelly:  Then the gods, you know, will, the gods can choose these women, and then I realized that she was also, used to work with the Valkyries and used to choose from the souls of the dying, and I was like, wait a minute!  Okay!  I, oh, okay!  And then, you know, and then I was like, you know, wanted to get a little color in there, as I say, I like to get a little color there, so I was like, well, wait, how am I going to get, like, you know, some blacks and some, you know, and Hispanics and some Asians and, and I thought, ah!  The slaves.  And that’s when I – [laughs] – ran with it!  Plus, they really don’t, they realize that the Vikings actually traveled a lot farther than just Britain and –

Sarah:  Yeah!

Shelly:  – you know, they came to North American, and I thought, they could, for all we know, they could have gone to Africa.  And so I was like, let’s have some fun with this.  So it all kind of just, really just kind of came together from the request of, can we have something with crows?  And that’s –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – how I got there, and Hunting Season was very limited, though.  It was, I only had Odin and I only had Skuld as the gods.  I mean, the others were there, but you never really saw them, and then it was only the Ravens and Crows.

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  But when I decided to do this series, I looked at having more clans and more gods, ‘cause I thought it’d just be more fun to kind of mix ‘em up, you know –

Sarah:  Yeah!

Shelly:  – and then of course as I was working on that, I had them all hate everybody, hate each other and then –

Sarah:  Well, of course!

Shelly:  – they’d really hate the Crows and, you know, and then I thought, well, how would they feel about having, you know, these “slaves,” you know, or descendants of slaves, you know, being actual, actually chosen by the gods and blessed with, you know, god-given abilities, and I thought, oh, that’s going to be, that’s going to cause a problem, so that was kind of, you know, so I, I just kept, it just kept growing and expanding.

Sarah:  Especially because the other clans are very into their, their Scandinavian bloodline –

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  – and they’re, you know, descended from, you know, eight or nine generations of Thor Magnus Gorversonsonsonsons.

Shelly:  Yes, yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Like, they are very into their own bloodline, and here you have –

Shelly:  Right.

Sarah:  – all of these different women of color just sort of sticking it to their little supremacy, like, hahaha!

Shelly:  Yeah – [laughs] – exactly!

Sarah:  And you’re scared of us!  And we have pets!  Neener neener neener.

Shelly:  [Laughs] Exactly.  And so that made it even more fun to, you know, work on just having that kind of little bit, you know, ‘cause I remember when, I think, I did Hunting Season, the way I described them, and I don’t know if I actually, if it made it through the edit, but I remember I described the Crows as – well, I described, I described the Ravens as, they look like Hitler Youth –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – and I described the Crows as a Benetton ad, ‘cause remember those old Benetton ads in the ‘80s and ‘90s?

Sarah:  Yes!

Shelly:  I said they look like a Benetton ad, and so – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Please tell me they’re all wearing color-blocked Rugbys?

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  And those super, super clean Keds with the laces tied a certain way?

Shelly:  Yes, exactly.  That’s exactly it.

Sarah:  I was, I was very impressionable during the age of Benetton, and I could not afford any of it –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – but gosh, did I want it!

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs] And so that’s kind of how I described them, ‘cause, yeah, they’re very into their – which, you know, kind of, especially for Erin –

Sarah:  Oh –

Shelly:  – it makes it kind of fun with her kind of, like, so, like, you know, hey, Hitler Youth!  Hey, you know –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and just – [laughs]

Sarah:  She just loves to fuck with people.

Shelly:  She just does.  She does, she enjoys it.  It is, is what makes her glow with pride and happiness.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Do you ever play the game Dragon Age: Inquisition?

Shelly:  I have!

Sarah:  She reminds me a little bit of Sera, who’s this elf who gives no shits and likes to pl-, likes to play pranks on people?

Shelly:  Oh, God.

Sarah:  If you haven’t met Sera yet, she’s, she’s a little bit like, like Erin.

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Only not quite as violent.

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So I gave the –

Shelly:  Crows are violent.

Sarah:  Oh, yes.  They’re, they’re, they’re just lovely.  Are you the first person to ask why the hell do the Nordic gods keep losing stuff?  Like, why are they so bad at keeping track of their own shit?  What is the problem?

Shelly:  You know, I – [laughs] – I really kind of came up with that, I was writing, ‘cause I remember I was researching, and I found out about the apples and how the apples were the only thing that kept them young, and yet she lost the damn apples.

Sarah:  Right!  Like, wouldn’t you want to keep track of that?

Shelly:  Yeah!  She lost the damn apples, and then, so everybody just kind of grew old until they got those apples back, and I thought, well, why would you make that, you know, like, why wouldn’t you have that in a safe somewhere?  You know, protected or, or, you know, like, watched by, you know, vicious animals.  Like, why are you wandering around with a basket of apples you can lose, and so, and that’s kind of where I got that idea from, ‘cause it’s, yeah, I just thought it was kind of funny.  It’s like, you know, they, they have all this stuff in Rheingold and blah blah blah, and yet they manage to lose it very often, and then there’re problems from it.  And so – [laughs]

Sarah:  Like, I have a kind of expensive face oil that I order, and I have to talk myself into ordering it every time it runs out, but it works great, doesn’t make me break out, you know, I, and it’s, it’s kind of expensive for a thing that you put on your face.  I know exactly where that is, and I am not losing it.

Shelly:  Yes!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  If I had a magic apple that kept me young, like, I would never even let it out of my sight, and yet they’re like, oh, darn, I lost my super-powerful thing that causes gods to come in from the netherworld.

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, darn.  Like, oopsie!  One of these guys needs, like, Norse god LoJack.

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs] Exactly.

Sarah:  They need to keep track of their shit.

Shelly:  Yeah, ‘cause that’s really like a high percentage, you know, especially with Hunting Season?  Hunting Season was all about them finding stuff.

Sarah:  Is this yours?  Yeah, sorry.

Shelly:  That was literally what they did for, like, most of the book except until they were, the Crows had been started to be hunted by a, a bad guy, but it was just kind of funny, ‘cause that was like, that was what they did, and so, but, you know, this one, I, I started with that but expanded from there for, give ‘em, like, an actual, you know –

Sarah:  Problem.

Shelly:  – bad guy to really – yeah, proper bad guy or bad lady – [laughs] – to work with.

Sarah:  Well, of course it’s a bad lady.

Shelly:  I know!  [Laughs] Sometimes they are fun, ‘cause I can have fun with her, ‘cause she was – I love Gullveig because when I researched her, she’s like, what was his line?  It was something in the Poetic Edda, I think, where it said something like, she is the – oh, everywhere she went, something about, like, literally bad feelings.  Like, everywhere she went, she just made everyone feel miserable, just by walking through a room, ‘cause she – and the fact that they all want her dead so badly –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – which I was fascinated by, they really wanted her dead, like, and nothing they did, ‘cause they kept trying –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and they just couldn’t kill her.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  And I thought, wow.  [Laughs] That’s a lot of hate.

Sarah:  She is everybody’s toxic friend.

Shelly:  Yeah, but I, but I had fun with that, ‘cause I thought, you know, her, ‘cause her name means, like, gold drink or, you know, like, different variations of gold, and I thought, well, for L.A., ‘cause I wanted to move them to L.A., ‘cause the original were set in the tri-state, so Jersey –

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  – New York, and I thought it would be fun, ‘cause I hadn’t done a story, you know, a, a series that was based on L.A., and I’ve been living here now for quite a while, so I thought, you know, maybe it’s time, you know, that you accept the fact that you’re not moving back to the east coast.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  You know, it was so funny, ‘cause I mean, to this day I still go, but their food’s not good enough, like, ‘cause I miss, like, my good Italian, I miss my really good Chinese, oh, my God, and the fact that Chinese restaurants, at least in the city, in Manhattan, can, you know, they’re open, like, practically twenty-four hours, you know.  I get, I’m, I need some fresh, you know, fried rice at three o’clock in the morning, I can get it.  But out here –

Sarah:  No, and it’ll deliver, it’ll deliver within, like, half an hour!

Shelly:  They’ll deliver it!  Here, man, things close down, like, in my little neighborhood, they close down at nine.  I’m like, what am I, in the South?  You know –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – ‘cause everything’s quiet, you know, and so, yeah, it was, it’s, it’s, but I finally had to accept the fact that I was not moving back and, and, ‘cause I, I mean I get chilly now, you know, when it’s like, ooh, it’s seventy, I better put on that sweatshirt.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  Whereas I remember the days of, like, you know, I’d go out and do film shoots, ‘cause I went to film school for grad school, and I’d put on, you know, two pairs of thermals and, you know, thermal underwear, and then my jeans, and a big sweatshirt, and a supe-, big sweater over that, and a big jacket, and I was like, let’s go!  We’re going out in the snow to shoot!  You know, and – [laughs] – those days are over.  I’m, like, such a milquetoast now when it comes to weather.  I’m like, oh, it’s so chilly!

[Laughter]

Shelly:  What is it, seventy-two?

Sarah:  My sister-in-law lives in southern Arizona, and my in-laws used to live in Connecticut, and so she would come visit in the spring, and it would be, like, seventy-five, right?

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  My kids are running around in shorts and T-shirts.  It’s May, it’s seventy-five!  This is so great!  And she’s got, like, a sweatshirt and a down jacket and a hat!

Shelly:  Yeah!  Yes!

Sarah:  She’s freezing, and my kids are like, what is wrong with you?

Shelly:  I know.

Sarah:  It’s so warm!  She’s like, it’s freezing right now!  Oh, my God, it’s cold!

Shelly:  I mean, I miss the days, ‘cause the one thing I used to always laugh about, ‘cause I’m from Long Island originally, and the one thing I always laughed about was the girls, especially college girls, who’d walk around with this big heavy sweatshirt with their college name on it and shorts, and I’m like –

Sarah:  Yes!

Shelly:  – why are you in shorts?  I don’t understand.  If you’re cold enough to wear a sweatshirt, why aren’t you wearing pants?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  And you know what?  I totally wore that.

Shelly:  Yeah!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I totally wore – and when I was in, when I was younger and we would spend the, spend part of the summer in south Jersey, which is, like, a whole other micro-cult-, culture of clothing –

Shelly:  Right.

Sarah:  – I would totally wear shorts and a sweatshirt regularly, and it never occurred to me until I was an adult how weird that was.

Shelly:  Yeah!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Like, what was I thinking?  And now it’s like shorts, sweatshirt, and Ugg boots.  Like, only part of you is sweaty –

Shelly:  Oh, yeah.  Exactly!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – but only, from your ankles to your waist, you’re fine.

Shelly:  Yeah!

Sarah:  Everything else is too hot!

Shelly:  [Laughs] Exactly.  Exactly, yeah, so, but, yeah, so I’m, I’m, I’m here, so I thought, okay, let me write a book, you know, a series that’s based out in L.A., and, you know, the thing about L.A., it’s like, it’s got the Hollywood vibe, and I thought, well, Gullveig is perfect for out here –

Sarah:  Yeah!

Shelly:  – ‘cause these, you know, these broads are all about the bling and all about the, you know, style and what you drive and, you know, and, and she’s perfect for that, ‘cause for her it’s all about the jewelry and the gold and the, you know, she is, the worst of women is what they actually called her.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Whoa!

Shelly:  Yeah, she’s, like, you know, basically, basically, that kind of money-grubbing gold-digger, is basically what they kind of called her in the Poetic Edda, but they only mention her once, but, you know, once I latched onto her I was like, ooh, I can have fun with this, and –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Shelly:  – and so it was a, you know, perfect kind of finding when I was looking for a bad guy.  I was like, who’s L.A. enough?  And then, you know, and having her take over the agency, you know –

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  – Betty’s agency, and Betty, who I adore with, like, the sun –

Sarah:  Oh, gosh.  Can she have her own romance?  Like, have a secondary romance?

Shelly:  I know!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I would love that.

Shelly:  ‘Cause she’s so much – I just love her.  I just love her so much!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Well, I, I recommended these books to Elyse, who, who reviews for me at Smart Bitches, and her husband, Rich, who’s a huge fantasy reader, and he asked me to tell you that he loves them so much he is dragging out the second book, because he knows he has to wait for the third, and for, like, a straight week he greeted Elyse when she came home from work with, I have to tell you what happened in this book!  Oh, my gosh!  Like, he was about to start hitting her with his e-reader, he was so into it.

Shelly:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  He wanted to ask, wanted me to ask you –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – if you had plans to expand into the other clans, like the Giant Killers.  Like, if you’re going past book three, are you going to move into the other clans at all?

Shelly:  Yeah, I’ve thought about that.  I mean, I’m kind of, you know, when I started writing and I wasn’t sure, you know, it was like they were kind of background, but the more I wrote, the more interesting they became to me, you know, just like, the Giant Killers is one, ‘cause they’ve got that biker attitude.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  The other one that I – and I could kind of see, like, a hero from them who’s not really into the, being that dumb and being that Thor –

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  – you know, and, and then –

Sarah:  The fact that all the Thor guys are dumb, it just gives me –

Shelly:  I know!

Sarah:  – so much amusement.  [Laughs]

Shelly:  Yeah!

Sarah:  Who’s stealing my food?  Where’s my food?

Shelly:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Did I eat it?  Where’d it go?

Shelly:  Well, you know, Thor, Thor, at, you know, it’s like, I’ve seen, it’s, once again, I’ve seen – well, I was fascinated when I read about Thor, because one of the research books I read was like, Thor killed giants.  That was his big thing.  Like, he, he didn’t care if they were children, adults, women.  He just killed giants, and that’s kind of where I got the Giant Killer name from –

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  – and so it was, I was fascinated, and I thought, well, you know, and then he would dress up as a woman sometimes to – which I thought, how ridiculous must he look as a woman – [laughs] – ‘cause he’s just, you know, like, like, he’s like the mountain from Game of Thrones and so, you know, and, and so I kind of ran with the dumb aspect of it, you know, but I thought maybe kind of have, like, a smarter guy, ‘cause I do like my men smart, and, you know, I can’t really do much with real dumb, and –

[Laughter]

Shelly:  – and so, and then I, you know, I also kind of was interested in the claws of Ran ‘cause, you know, I discovered there was, you know, this goddess who pulled, dragged ships down, and there were nine daughters who dragged ships down, and they were called the claws of Ran, ‘cause Ran was a goddess, and these were their daughters, her daughters, and so they dragged the ships down, and I thought, wow, that’s kind of interesting, so when I started writing them, they became more interesting, and so I might.  I really don’t know, you know, what’s ahead, ‘cause, you know, it’s like I haven’t really kind of gone any farther at this point.

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  I, you know, it’s like, I was like, let me just get the three done, let me just get the three done, and, you know, I pound them out, and, and now it’s kind of up to the publisher, what he, direction they are going to want to go, you know, if they want to stick with it, if they want to try something new.  I’m not sure yet, so.

Sarah:  Well, we, we want more Crows.

Shelly:  Okay.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Please.  I will, I will start calling everyone at Kensington.  More Crows, please!

Shelly:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  One of the things that Alisha Rai and I were talking about when we were discussing this book by basically yelling at each other about them was, she pointed out that when you, when the characters find their sister Crows, it’s, it’s part of being in their second life –

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  – and it’s almost like they become who they really are –

Shelly:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – when they are reborn with Skuld.

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  Is that true for all of the characters, or is that particularly true for the Crows?  Because they, they come out of stories where, where the, where the women are, are hurt or killed in horrible, victimizing ways.

Shelly:  Yeah.  For, you know, for Jace, it was definitely true.  Her true self was allowed to, she was finally free of that cult –

Sarah:  Yep!

Shelly:  – and she was finally free of that world, and she was finally free of her husband, you know, her ex-husband –

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  – and, and now she had these sisters who understood her and accepted her and – except for Rachel.  But Rachel’s her own unique girl – and, and –

Sarah:  Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  It’s so funny when you read these characters and you’re like, yeah, I know somebody like that.  Yep.

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Know somebody like that too.

Shelly:  Just can’t let it go.

Sarah:  Nope.

Shelly:  She just can’t let it go, and, you know, and now she’s allowed to be who she is, and you know, she wants to be under a table, they’re fine, like, whatever.  She, oh, yeah, she’s under a table reading.  They, they don’t care, but with, like, Erin, Erin was who she was before –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and who she is now.  Like, you know, if she, before she had Skuld power, she probably would have said the same crap to Odin.  She probably would have done the same thing with the apple, she probably would have done, you know, like, she just wouldn’t’ve cared.  With, you know, and with – oh, God, I’m sorry – Ke-, Kita –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  Kera, Kera, I’m sorry.  [Laughs] Kera.

Sarah:  The first one!

Shelly:  Yeah, the first one.

Sarah:  I’ll be honest with you.  I, I, I have to have a window open with the, with the books, because I get the titles mixed up?

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Like, one is loose, and one is leash, and then there was undoing, and, and I’m like –

Shelly:  Yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – I, I think – well, I remember the guy with the white sweatshirt was first, but I don’t know –

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – what word goes with it, so please do not worry, ‘cause my, my brain is even worse.  So anyway.

Shelly:  Oh, God, yeah.  I, well, I have ADHD, so I’m, like, lucky I can remember anything.  I literally have to have, like, I have lists everywhere in my office with, you know, lists of names, and I have ‘em written on the board behind me so I can look and get, remember, remind myself, ‘cause I, I just, there’s so many names and so many characters from so many series, I just can’t keep ‘em all straight anymore.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  But Kera, you know, she was a Marine before –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and she was a Marine after, even though –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – she was a Crow now, and she did learn to embrace it, she still was a Marine, which worked for her, you know, and, and you’ll see in the third book, it’s really, that mixture of the Crows and the Marines was perfect for her –

Sarah:  Yes.

Shelly:  – but, you know, so there’s, it depends really on the characters.  There’re some who have been hiding in the shadows, and then this thing happens to them, and they go in this new life, and it blossoms, but, but I think in other ways about, like, for Erin, even though she’s the same as she was, her career as a tattoo artist really took off once she became a Crow.  You know, that’s where her, her artistic endeavors could really flow.  She got her own shop, and she just –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – everything just, you know, came from there.  So it kind of depends, but it’s like, now you have this second life, and I think it, you know, it maybe once again goes back to my mom.  It’s like, you know, before she was hurt, she was, you know, she was a little more uptight, she was a little, you know, things used to set her off, you know.  She’d get –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Shelly:  Man, I’ve got to tell you, once she got shot, I remember I went to her and I, I had, my dad had got me a, like a gold, like a nice little gold chain, you know, but I was, you know, an irresponsible girl, and I couldn’t find it, and I was, I went to her, like, practically shaking like, I can’t find the gold, and she just went, oh, it’s all right, we just won’t tell your father.  And I was shocked, ‘cause I thought she was going to be like, you know, you’re irresponsible, you never pay attention, you lose things, what is wrong with you?  I thought we were going to have that whole drama, and it wasn’t like that at all.  She was just like, eh –

Sarah:  Eh.

Shelly:  – and I was shocked, and I realized that, how much she had changed after being shot, ‘cause they had almost lost her, she had almost died, and she realized that, and she realized that some stuff just didn’t matter anymore.

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  You know, whether if I lost a gold chain, who cares?  I’m still her daughter, I’m still standing, I’m healthy, I’m, you know, she’s alive, Dad’s alive, everybody’s alive, you know –

Sarah:  Yep, you’re okay.

Shelly:  – and so for her – yeah, and so that’s kind of, I think, where I was coming from in the sense that, you know, you lost your life, and, and these women do die.  Like, they, they take their last breath, they die, and Skuld brings them back, so they really experience death, and – ‘cause I read somewhere, someone had a review somewhere, and she said something like, you know, the, saving her, she was, you know, from her death, and no, she did die.  Jace did die.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  And she was just brought back by Skuld, and so this is their second life, and this is their chance to embrace it and to do whatever they want and live however they want, as long as they’re, you know, keep their commitment to Skuld.  She allows them to do whatever they want to do, and, and actually with the first, the first book, Hunting Season, when I wrote the, the character, the heroine for that book, she started off as, you know, she was poor, she was abandoned in, like, a trashcan or a dumpster or something as a baby, and she was raised by nuns and that whole thing, and she became, like, a, a drug dealer and, and she did gun running, and then she helped two cops, and she got shot, and she dies, and Skuld brings her back, and then by, when the book starts, now she’s a, a professor at a New York City university who teaches, like, history, and she has her Ph.D. –

Sarah:  Yep.

Shelly:  – and she’s a published author, and that’s where kind of, you know, because now she had this chance to, to really, they, they, they not only embrace who you really are, but also they help you.  So they helped her go to school, they helped her get degrees and, and paid for that, you know, college education that a lot of people can’t afford these days and – so that’s kind of what they do in order to, you know, give these women a chance to be who they really have always wanted to be but didn’t have the chance because of circumstances, because of life, because of the way they were raised, whatever.

Sarah:  Right.  And, and they had the ability to be fearless, and they learned how to be fearless.

Shelly:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And not question what was going to happen.

Shelly:  Right.

Sarah:  ‘Cause, well, people were going to help you if you needed it.

Shelly:  Yeah.  ‘Cause they always had, they always had their backup.  They always had, they always said, like, like, they would say, Crows never fight alone.

Sarah:  Yes.  And it’s, it’s sort of like the, the antidote to, to systemic racism and rampant, you know, just all of the discrimination that tilt, tilts the scales in favor of one group over another.  That’s all gone!

Shelly:  Yes.

Sarah:  Plus you have wings.

Shelly:  Yes!

Sarah:  And you’re super brutal and violent and can kill people very easily!

Shelly:  [Laughs] Yes.

Sarah:  All right, so I have one last question that I always ask every guest –

Shelly:  Sure!

Sarah:  – and I didn’t warn you about this one ahead of time, so if you’re like, oh, crap, I don’t know what the answer is, that’s totally cool.  But I want you to know, I know you’re finished with a book.  You finished it, yay!  You finished the book!  What are you reading right now that you want to tell people about?

Shelly:  Oh!  Well, I just finished Lolita by –

Sarah:  Nabokov?

Shelly:  Yes, which surprised me – [laughs]

Sarah:  Huh!

Shelly:  – because I’ve seen the movies first.

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  I’ve always, you know, I’m, I’m a classic ‘80s kid.  I was raised, you know, my mom was like, you’re making too much noise.  TV!  Put me right in front of it.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh.

Shelly:  It was just like, hey!  You know, that’s how I was raised, so, so I was, I’m always one of those people who’s like, I haven’t read the book, but I saw the movie.  Yeah.  So I saw both.  I saw the Stanley Kubrick version, and then I saw the one with Jeremy Irons later.

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  And I loved ‘em, and then, so I read the book kind of expecting the, a similar story, and I was shocked to find out that Humbert Humbert is actually a full-on pedophile!  Like, in the movies he just sort of, like, he meets this young girl, who of course looks more like she’s fifteen or sixteen as opposed to a twelve-year-old –

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  – and, but it, it seemed like it was this one-off.  Like, oh!  You know, as opposed to this full-on pedophile from the book who talks about his nymphets and –

Sarah:  Yep!

Shelly:  – trying to be around other children, and I was like –

Sarah:  Gaaaah!

Shelly:  – wait a minute!  And I was completely freaked out, ‘cause I was, it just, I wasn’t expecting it, and I, I don’t usually go out of my way to read books on pedophiles, and so – [laughs] – you know, I mean, it was, it was good, but it was, you know, a little bit off-putting!  So –

Sarah:  Just a little.

Shelly:  Yeah.  And so, and then I moved into a book I just started about rampage killers.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  As, as you do.

Shelly:  As one does, ‘cause I do.

Sarah:  Getting ready for another Crow book, clearly.

Shelly:  Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s funny.  I, I’ve always, always, I think back in the ‘90s somewhere, I started reading books – oh!  The first, it was like this book, I remember I bought this book, it was called Girls Do It Too, Encyclopedia of Female Serial Killers [Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers].  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Okay.

Shelly:  And I was fascinated, and then the author had also done a, a series called The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, which is literally just two books about, which were filled with all the serial killers, like, from A to Z –

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  – and all their crimes –

Sarah:  ‘Kay.

Shelly:  – and I read them, and I became kind of obsessed, ‘cause I felt like the more I knew, the less chance I had of being killed by a serial killer!  And –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  That was my logic at the time, and then I remember reading a really good, it, it felt like it was a woman’s Ph, you know, like, her thesis –

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  – but it was, it was a very good book called Cannibal Killers, and I was haunted by –

Sarah:  Oh, my God, do, do –

Shelly:  Yeah.  I was haunted by –

Sarah:  – do you sleep?

Shelly:  Huh?

Sarah:  Do you sleep?

Shelly:  Well, this was the thing:  I learned in that, with that book, not to read before I went to bed!

Sarah:  Yeah!  Oh, gosh!

Shelly:  Because I was reading it in bed, and I, my, I was married at the time, so my ex-husband was in his office, and suddenly he heard this little, like, you know, I called his name, and it was a tiny little voice, and he goes, are you calling me?  I said, yeah.  He goes, what?  And I said, I just wanted to make sure you can hear my muffled cries, because I was so terrified as I read this freaking book –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Shelly:  – so horrified, but I became kind of, like, interested in sociopaths and, and extreme malignant narcissists and, you know, I, I, so I find I read a lot of books, like, I just, oh, the, The Narcissist Next Door, great book.  I just read that a couple months ago.  The Sociopath Next Door, excellent book.  That’s an old one, but it’s really good.  Like, I love stuff like that, ‘cause it’s, I love getting into my, as I call it, my arm-, I’m an armchair therapist.  You know, I’m an armchair forensic psychologist.  I sit back and, yes, I watch my Dateline, and I go, yep, that person’s a narcissist!  I can tell!  I know the signs.  You know, and I feel so pompous and, you know, full of myself, ‘cause it’s just me and the dog, who could care less, you know – [laughs] – God damn it.  So, yeah, but that’s what I’m reading right now.  I, I’ve now moved into rampage killers, and, which is fascinating but disturbing and sad at the same time.

Sarah:  Wow!

Shelly:  Yeah.  I do, I read a lot of, you know, very weird –

Sarah:  That’s some funky stuff!

Shelly:  Some funky stuff.  I, you know, and every once in a while I’ll throw something, you know, light in there, you know, like good horror novel or a good, you know, mystery or, you know, sort of romance.  I read less romance now than I used to.  I mean, a lot less.  Like, when I first, I was reading romances, but now it’s, it’s gotten kind of like, you don’t want to feel like you’re, start reading somebody’s stuff, and are you going to take it by accident and, you know, like, you don’t even want to get into that –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Shelly:  – so you end up kind of reading less and less, except for the ones you really love, like, you know, I love Nora Roberts, so I’ll pull out a Nora Roberts when I need a romance, or something like that, ‘cause you just don’t want to feel like you’re – ‘cause our, our styles are so different that I don’t worry that I might take something from it.  [Laughs] ‘Cause we write such different work, you know.

Sarah:  Right.

Shelly:  And so I, so I don’t read any paranormal romance at all.  I read just straight kind of modern-day romance.

Sarah:  I completely understand.  You’re certainly not alone in that.

[music]

Sarah:  And that is all for this week’s episode.  Thank you so much to Shelly Laurenston for joining me on the podcast.  This has been such an incredible treat for me, and I also want to thank Vida Engstrand, her most excellent publicist at Kensington, who was instrumental in making this happen.  I am so very thankful that I got to have this conversation, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.  This was so exciting for me!

And if you are curious about any of the books that we mentioned or any of the things that we talked about, all of those links will be in the show notes at smartbitches.com/podcast or, you know, if you want, smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast or sb-tb.com/podcast.  I got a lot of URLs ‘cause if you’re going to start a blog – please do – but I would recommend against profanity in the URL because if I knew then what I know now, I might have chosen a slightly different way of referring to the site, although I really do like the name.  Anyway.

This podcast is brought to you by Clean Break, a new novel from Abby Vegas that blends chick-lit and romantic suspense into one irresistible New York story.  Bridget Jones meets Beauty and the Beast.  The Wall to Wall Books blog reviewed it as amazing, saying, “Once in a while you run across a book and you just really connect to it…  Like the author knew exactly the kind of book you loved and hit it spot-on.  This was one of those books…”  And Feeding My Addiction Book Reviews says, “If there was an award for breakthrough author, I would nominate Abby Vegas.”  Clean Break is on sale everywhere, and you can read the first ten chapters for free at abbyvegasauthor.com.

The podcast transcript this month is sponsored by Kensington, publishers of Chasing the Heiress by Rachael Miles in the new Zebra Shout imprint, featuring rising starts of romance at an affordable price of $4.99.  Rachael Miles’s witty and sexy Regency romance series centers on the intelligent, outspoken, and talented ladies of the Muses’ Salon and the gentlemen who strive for the love of a lady who knows her mind.  In the second installment, an heiress on the run from an arranged marriage uses her medical training to disguise herself as a sickroom maid where an injured spy finds himself in her very capable care.  Chasing the Heiress is on sale now wherever books are sold.

Zeb:  Woof, woof-woof, woof, woof!

Sarah:  My dog would like you to know that Chasing the Heiress is on sale and that he is very much in favor of the decision that you can find it at any eBook store.  Doing on-the-fly translation here.

Zeb:  Woof, woof!

Sarah:  See, normally I would take this out, but apparently when my pets are in the podcast you guys are, like, super into it, so, hey!  I’ll just leave my super-annoying dog who has been quiet all morning except right now in the show.

Zeb:  Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof.

Sarah:  Could you be done?  Just, just be done now.  [Clicking noises] I am sure a large squirrel is about to take over the neighborhood.  I think that’s what happening here.  I hope you enjoyed this super unprofessional outro.  I have been told by many of you, you really like it when my pets show up, and gosh are they determined to be here today.  All right!  Back to the outro – which is, as you know, a word.

If you are a regular listener or reader of the transcripts or you’re, like, a huge fan of my pets, which I am not right now, and you would like to support the show, you can have a look at our Patreon campaign at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  For monthly pledges starting with as little as $1, you will be helping me make some seriously important goals like transcripts for all of the episodes that don’t have one, and some minor and major equipment upgrades.  You can see the rewards and the options at Patreon.com/SmartBitches, and for everyone who has already backed the show, thank you so much!  I have compliments coming up in just a bit!

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is the Peatbog Faeries.  This track is called “The Real North,” and you can find it at Amazon or iTunes or wherever you like to buy your music.  And I’m sure you like to buy music, because, well, I mean, Peatbog, right?  Right?  Right.  Okay.

And now it is time for some compliments, which this is so much fun.  

This one is for Janet:  There is a song in every musical genre that talks about how great you are.

To Elizabeth:  You are better than rock and paper and scissors and chocolate.

Also Elizabeth, but a more different Elizabeth:  You’re the cat’s pajamas, the bee’s knees, and the dog’s favorite person.

And Kate:  You’re better than cake, even the cake with buttercream roses the size of Volkswagens, which I love, ‘cause buttercream is my favorite food.

To everyone who’s taken a look at the Patreon or has sponsored it or made a pledge or even just read it and passed the link along, thank you so much for that.  I really appreciate it.

Future podcasts will include me talking about romance novels, possibly with other people, and if you’re a Patreon sponsor or supporter, you know that I have another big upcoming interview coming very soon, and I’m super excited about it!  Plus I have the two hundredth episode.  I can say two hundreth.  Seriously.  I’m not even just going to do outtakes.  I’ll just leave these in, ‘cause y’all enjoy them so much.  [Laughs] I have the two hundredth episode of the podcast coming up, and I am amazed that I have reached two hundred.  Can I please say thank you for listening?  It is a huge compliment to me that I will run into someone at a conference, or I’ll get an email from someone, and they’ll say, you are part of my every Friday, and I love your show.  That’s just the best!  Thank you so much!

So on behalf of Shelly Laurenston – oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I got to talk to her! – ahem, squish the, mm, super ridiculous thirteen-year-old back inside my body.  On behalf of Shelly Laurenston and Kensington Publishing who helped me put this interview together and me and everyone here, including my dog, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[deeply groovy music]