666. HelenKay Dimon and Darby Kane are Really Interesting

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there! Welcome to episode 666 – oooh! – of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is, well, it’s HelenKay, because we were supposed to record an episode about the ads and features, and we started talking about the cover, and then we took a long side trip, and I said, You know what, I’m making this an episode ‘cause I can’t cut any of this either. We talk about what inspired me to start the RT Rewind series, and we start talking about the cover. Then we talk about changes in mystery, romance genres, writing styles, writing techniques, the weird amalgamation of mysteries and coziness and the vestiges of chick lit, and a whole bunch of other stuff. So, extra episode it is! I really love talking with people who are fluent in romance and are aware of its history, and as a writer of multiple genres from multiple publishers and a past president of RWA, HelenKay knows a lot of stuff. So this episode is called “HelenKay Dimon and Darby Kane are really interesting.”

I do want to give you some TRIGGER WARNINGS and CONTENT WARNINGS at the top: throughout this conversation, especially when we’re talking about mysteries and thrillers, we talk about True Crime, women as victims in the media, and also crime victims and their families.

I really enjoyed this episode, and I hope you really enjoy it as well.

I want to say hello and thank you to our Patreon community. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Patreon support helps me procure more issues of Romantic Times, it keeps the show going, and helps make sure that we have a handcrafted transcript by garlicknitter. Hey, garlicknitter! [Hi! – gk] Your support means a lot, so if you’re enjoying these episodes, if you like RT Rewind, if you want to read the whole magazine, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And if Patreon support is not in the cards right now, may I humbly request that you consider leaving a review for the show wherever you listen. Or just tell some people. You know, random strangers; just tell them how much you like the show. And also, if you’re using Pocket Casts to listen, you don’t even have to write anything. You just tap the stars, and you move on with your day. But most of all, if you’re listening, thank you! I’m really happy you’re here.

All right, shall we do this thing? Let’s get to it. On with my conversation with HelenKay Dimon about, well, all the things.

[music]

Sarah: We’re going to go back to February 2015 ads and features, and what I usually do with this episode is I start with the cover, because that’s obviously the biggest feature of them all. So I have to tell you that way back in August 2023 I was like, Oh, RT magazine! I miss RT! I loved getting a free issue; I loved, like, getting an issue and, like, you could read it for a month.

HelenKay Dimon: Yeah.

Sarah: There was, like, not to be crass –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – but this was the kind of magazine that back in the day would live in the bathroom because you’d read it a segment at a time, and then by the time you were done with it you’d get another one.

HelenKay: It’s true! You’re like, fantasy! No, historical!

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, right? Forget reading the shampoo bottle, and forget bringing your phone; you had RT in this period of time. And I love a podcast called Listen to Sassy, which is recapping Sassy magazine, which was a –

HelenKay: Nice.

Sarah: – big teen magazine. It might, you might have been a little older than –

HelenKay: Yeah…

Sarah: – might have been a little too old for it, but basically what happened is Sassy launched, they bought Seventeen magazine’s mailing list and sent a free issue to everybody who got Seventeen, so I got a free issue, and it was like the most Gen X of teen magazines ever. It’s fabulous.

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: It was very, very, like, outspoken. They lost all their advertisers from Tampax and Procter & Gamble because they published an article about what toxic shock syndrome actually is?

HelenKay: Oops!

Sarah: And then that really hurt them, because Procter & Gamble and Tampax were some of the major sponsors of teen magazines ‘cause they want to get you into tampons, and they don’t want to tell anybody how dangerous they can be for some people. So I was a, I was a big fan of Sassy, and they started recapping the magazine on this podcast, and I was like, Oh, that’s such a cool idea! Wait a minute!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: So I ordered –

HelenKay: Do it!

Sarah: I could do that! Who’s – seriously, like, my whole career is like, Well, who’s going to stop me?

HelenKay: Yeah, exactly.

Sarah: Who’s going to stop me?

HelenKay: Exactly. I love that!

Sarah: Like, if it doesn’t make money, then I will stop, but who’s going to stop me? So I go on eBay, and I’m like, All right, what issues of RT are there? And I buy two issues. I buy one with Jill Shalvis on the cover, ‘cause I know her, and I buy this issue because I know you!

HelenKay: Awesome.

Sarah: And I was like, HelenKay was on! I’ve got to buy that one!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: That was an instant, like, Buy now. You, I was like, HelenKay was on the cover of RT; this is so cool! So this magazine and, this issue and the Jill Shalvis one were the ones that inspired me to start this whole series. So I have to say thank you.

HelenKay: That is the coolest thing ever! I love that!

Sarah: ‘Cause I think this is so cool, not only because, I mean, my, my rule of the internet is no matter weird niche thing you’re into, someone else on the internet is into it too?

HelenKay: Absolutely.

Sarah: And that definitely goes for, you know, magazine and romance? So I was so excited that you agreed to look at this episode or this issue with me, because you’re on it!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: And, like, this was the, this was one of the ones that started me going like, I have such an inventory now. I have such an inventory, and people keep reaching out to me going, Do you want some more? Yes. Yes, I want some more.

HelenKay: That’s so cool!

Sarah: So tell me about how this happened. How did you end up on the cover?

HelenKay: God, you know, I was, I was thinking about this the other day as I was, I was, I was looking at this, and it was – so this is the time when we had just come out of, in romance, we were at a point where there was not that much romantic suspense. Like –

Sarah: Mm-mm.

HelenKay: – like, romantic suspense, this is, this is before self-publishing takes off; this is before, like, Montlake hits it really, really huge with, with romantic suspense like Melinda Leigh and – it’s before that. So I had this idea for this kind of undercover group that’s part MI6 and part CIA, and, and my agent was like, I, I don’t know; we’ll give it – like, I like it, but I – they’re not buying anything, HelenKay. So, so this series is the one that went to auction, and it ended up –

Sarah: Wait, I’m sorry – went to auction!

HelenKay: [Laughs] It did.

Sarah: I don’t know if we’re going to sell it. Now everybody wants it. Hell yeah!

HelenKay: I, I think we had, there had been a long enough period, right? Like, there’s romantic suspense, and everybody loves romantic suspense, and a lot of people are writing it. And then it gets darker and darker and darker, and every book has, like, a woman being assaulted, and it’s like, after a while you’re like, Enough! Done! No! And the world was in a weird place, and –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – you know, so people were like, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t want dark. Like, if I’m going to have dark, I’m going to read paranormal, right?

Sarah: Mm!

HelenKay: Where I can separate myself from this world, right? And the J. R. Ward I think has taken off at this part, at this point, you know. And so it was the right book at the right time, where I think editors were like, God, I kind of miss romantic suspense! I don’t get that much anymore, because of course agents are like, I can’t sell it.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: So when we send it, it, it got a lot of, it got a lot of love, and it’s the very first book that I did with, single-title with Avon with the editor who is my current editor, even in thrillers today, May Chen.

Sarah: That’s more than ten years you’ve been working together.

HelenKay: It’s, it’s, I know! I know! And I didn’t realize that.

Sarah: That’s incredible!

HelenKay: [Laughs] I know!

Sarah: That’s incredible, literally, for both of you. I’m not even being flippant. That is really incredible.

HelenKay: It is, it is! And I wake up and, and you know, I mean, there’s, we all know that editors and people who work in publishing houses, they’ve had a rough time, right?

Sarah: Ohhh!

HelenKay: Like, they don’t get paid a lot, there’re all of these things, and you know, they have these bloodbaths where they lay off like half the people and everybody’s surprised. So every day I wake up and I’m like, Thank you, May Chen, for being excellent at your job and staying at HarperCollins. [Laughs] And so –

Sarah: Yay, May!

HelenKay: Yay!

Sarah: There you are! Oh my goodness! Okay. Nobody touch anything.

HelenKay: It might have been on my – we have geniuses working outside on the street, and I don’t –

Sarah: Uh-oh!

HelenKay: Every once in a while – but I’m, I’m all green on this end, so hopefully –

Sarah: Okay.

HelenKay: – that was just them –

Sarah: That was just a blip. So when we left off, you were saying What happened was – both, with the cover.

HelenKay: Yes. So after all this, I think what happened was they were, they were dipping their toes back into romantic suspense, and, and they ended up, they, they were like, Well, let’s, since it’s a kind of a, a new thing and a new series, we’ll go ahead and push it. And, and this is how they pushed it, and I think it was supposed to be inside, but I don’t know if something happened to whomever was supposed to be on the – like, like, I just, I do not think HarperCollins paid for, for a cover. Like, I, I would be a little – it’s just, that’s, no offense to them, that’s just not something they normally do?

Sarah: No, I’ve, I’ve seen the rate card in later years; the cover was a lot of money –

HelenKay: Yeah, it was a lot.

Sarah: – and I knew that for some people, sometimes, like, the author just paid for that themselves. That was their investment.

HelenKay: And it could be, I’m trying to remember if something happened to the cover and I got moved, or they asked – like, I think I may, maybe I paid the difference between whatever the full-page versus the front –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – and it wasn’t that bad. You know, since they were already paying the bulk, it wasn’t that bad. But there was a reason; it wasn’t initially supposed to, it was supposed to be one of those full-page ads inside, which is still, like, extraordinary, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: But yeah, it ended up, yeah, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I ended up paying the difference, ‘cause I just – ‘cause of course HarperCollins is like, Yeah, it’s no. We’re not – [laughs] – so I’m like –

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: – I can, I can do it!

Sarah: Now you can get, you get to be on the cover!

HelenKay: I get to be on the cover!…

Sarah: I mean, did you ever think when you started writing you would be a cover author?

HelenKay: No. You know, I didn’t even, no part of my career did I think it would happen. Like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: And it, and it’s not like, Oh, from the time you started writing, everything was perfect. It wasn’t! I mean, I’ve had –

Sarah: No.

HelenKay: – I’ve had series, and I had my very first editor, Kate Duffy, died, and, like –

Sarah: Oh yes!

HelenKay: Right? And, and it was, first of all, it was just terrible, because I loved her, but also, when your editor, when your – I now know – when your editor is gone at a publisher, it’s like a feeding frenzy. You know, everybody else, all these other editors rush – of course! – to put their people in, to get control of the line, and you’re just kind of orphaned. You know, it’s this really bizarre thing. So I’ve had all of that happen. So –

Sarah: That happened to me, too. My editor –

HelenKay: Did it? It’s –

Sarah: – who acquired me with the Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels, the editor who acquired me left to go to law school, and I was like, No, no, NO! Don’t!

HelenKay: Not law school! She should have called me! [Laughs]

Sarah: She could have called me! She could have called, like, like, seriously! I, I think my spouse’s half-time job is telling people, Listen, unless you are going into very specific fields, do not go to law school.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Do not go to law school!

Sarah: I mean, if you want to study tax bankruptcy, tax cyber security, go, go, go. Divorce –

HelenKay: ‘Kay.

Sarah: – always good. But, like –

HelenKay: Always good.

Sarah: – seriously, do not. But yeah, they left, and I ended up with two editors, so I had two people making comments on my manuscript –

HelenKay: Oy.

Sarah: – which turned out wonderful, because I’m, I edit myself, and I suck at it –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – so when I get edited by somebody else I’m like, Oh, look at all these flaws in my writing that I didn’t even recognize until now! So, like, it made my writing a lot better, and I really liked their input, but I also know that if it had been two people who did not get my vibe and weren’t interested in the project it could have been a really crappy experience, and it happens to so many people!

HelenKay: So many people. So many – I mean, I’ve been incredibly lucky. I only had one editor that I had difficulty with, but for the, for the most part, in different houses, I’ve been really, really lucky. And I, I love being edited, actually, because when I’m writing a book I’m so into it that there are things I think are on the page and clear, and my edit-, May is like, Yep, I know it’s in your head. I know it is, but this piece is not down there anywhere, and I need you to figure out where to put it, and it’s like, Oh, good!

Sarah: Yep! I, I kind of love being edited, especially for the part where I write very out of order?

HelenKay: Oh, do you really?

Sarah: Oh yeah. When I was in college, I would print out my papers on a word processor, and I would end up just having to cut them up, and then I would manually rearrange the paragraphs, because my brain is like, it starts in the middle, it goes to the front, goes to the end, let’s write this part. Whatever my brain is spitting out, it’s never in order. Very rarely do I write linearly.

HelenKay: Internally, I’m gasping? I mean, I love hearing how people get words on the page, because it is so – like, that, like, I can’t even – I’m very linear. Right, like I –

Sarah: You’re, you’re a very linear thinker, yeah, for sure.

HelenKay: I am very linear.

Sarah: And for me, the things that happen when I’m, when I’m writing? First of all, I call it word labor? My, I will chuck something in the Crockpot at the back of my brain – I am mixing my metaphors with no concern for reality –

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and then at some point –

HelenKay: Works for –

Sarah: – it’s ready! And much like going into labor – which I have never actually done; I’ve been induced – my brain’s like, Okay! Now it’s time for the words. Get a pen, ‘cause it’s now or never; here come the words. And I’m like – [sputters] – I’m busy! I have chicken hands! Like, no, here is a list of the things that you – like, Oh fuck, and I’ve got to write it all down. And it’s never in order. Never, never, never in order. Sometimes I’ll think of something, and then I, that, that ends up being the end, and I think it’s the beginning.

HelenKay: Wow.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: I get about halfway through, and the book really starts falling into my head.

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: And at that point – and I have no short-term memory, so at that point –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: – I have to – none. I either have to – zero – I either have to – let me, I’m going to double back and tell you about a character’s name in a second, but – so I have to have a notebook, or on the computer I will skip ahead, and you’ll see, like, I’ll be like, Chapter: This has to happen. Next Chapter: This has to – so I will, by the time I’m like halfway through, know how it’s going to be, but it’s not like I’ve written those sections. I mean, I remember hearing Jenner, Jennifer Crusie speak –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – you know, back, back during the Bet Me time, and she was like, I write all the interesting stuff first, like, all the interesting scenes that come to me, and I write them down, and then I go back and I write all the connective tissue, and I’m like, Wh-, what?! [Laughs] I can’t…Ah!

Sarah: I would have no plot if I did that.

HelenKay: No! [Laughs] No. But again, however you’ve got to get it –

Sarah: However it –

HelenKay: – on the page –

Sarah: – however it works, right? Whatever works.

HelenKay: – you make it, you make it work.

Sarah: I’ve also been fascinated by – I mean, people are always sort of separated into the dichotomy, are you a plotter or a pantser?

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: All right, so I am two thousand percent a pantser until I get started, and then I need to give myself a little road map. And that’s how I manage my productivity, too. Like, I have a main recurring to-do list that reminds me, It’s Tuesday: You do this! On Wednesday: You do that. But then I have, like, my focus project on a separate, smaller list. Like, that’s how my brain works generally.

HelenKay: Wow.

Sarah: Yeah. But you mentioned earlier, when you were talking about romantic suspense, that at the time this sold, people were not into romantic suspense as much, ‘cause if they wanted dark and angsty, they would read paranormal!

HelenKay: Paranormal!

Sarah: Paranormal –

HelenKay: Yep.

Sarah: – and urban fantasy, which was also very dark and, you know, leathery and weapon-y and that kind of thing. And it, it, it strikes to me that there’s actually maybe two or three kinds of romantic suspense? There is dark, scary romantic suspense; and then there’s, like, caper romantic suspense –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and then there’s international, like, mystery.

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: Like, where you go from place to place in the world, and you’re try- – it’s like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? plus boning.

HelenKay: Yes! [Laughs]

Sarah: No, no offense to Carmen Sandiego, but, like, we’re going to travel the world, and we’re going to solve a crime. And it’s interesting, because that, to me, the whole, like, travel the world and solve a crime? That kind of reminds me of Harlequin Presents, because one of the major features –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – of a Harlequin Presents is all of these exotic locations that you’re going to go to with the characters, who are super rich and have yachts –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and, you know, go to Monte Carlo or Monaco or wherever the hell they go. That international element is drawn into romantic suspense, and then you have the sort of lighter elements of, well, it’s not about, like, child trafficking or drug trafficking or, like –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – organ harvesting. It’s just, you know, somebody did a bad, and we’ve got to go get the bad, ‘cause it’s big bad, but it’s not like –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s not like active harm and peril? It’s, we’ve got to go catch this person.

HelenKay: Yeah. I’m, I mean, I think they’re – and, and if you look now, like, look, look at the rise of cozy mysteries, right? Like –

Sarah: Exactly!

HelenKay: We –

Sarah: We have cozy, and then –

HelenKay: We were told they were dead, you know?

Sarah: Right? We even have cozy fantasy now! I wonder if it’s just a much quicker change? I mean, like, for example, when Smart Bitches started in 2005, paranormal was It, It, It.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Historical and paranormal –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – but paranormal was the thing. And it took a really long time for it to die.

HelenKay: Really long.

Sarah: My theory is that it’s because of social media that we change through genres quicker and quicker and quicker?

HelenKay: Mm!

Sarah: Because we’re being so much more directly influenced on what other people are reading and what we’re into reading and what’s the new thing? But I think that the cycle of popularity for genres moves faster than it has like, you know, twenty years ago. The dark, angsty thrillers –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – are being offset by cozy mysteries! And then you have –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – you have dark, angsty romantasy that’s being offset by cozy romantasy. Like, every time we have a, like a dark and angsty, we immediately go for the light and fluffy at the same time.

HelenKay: Isn’t it funny? And it, and it’s, and cozy is different from how it used to be. Like, cozy used to be like the chocolate shop mysteries, the yarn myst- – right? Like, one, like a Jessica Fletcher feel, right? Like a –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – a person that things happened around them. And now it’s more like almost, like, you know, Elle Cosimano and, you know, Dial A for Aunties and, you know, it has more, a different feel to it. It doesn’t have to do with baking and chocolate shops and knitting, etc. It has more like caper-y feel –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – which I love. I happen to love that, and it has this voice that – and, you know, this is, like, blasphemous; we’re not allowed to say this, but – it has almost a chick lit, the former chick lit voice, right?

Sarah: Oh, you’re totally right! Yes!

HelenKay: You know, that, that sassy and sometimes sarcastic and smart, and they say the things that you kind of wish you say some- – you know? [Laughs]

Sarah: And it’s often first person.

HelenKay: Often.

Sarah: Or it’s very, very close third.

HelenKay: Yes. Yes.

Sarah: But, like, it’s –

HelenKay: Absolutely.

Sarah: – deep, deep third; like, you are deep in that person’s brain. You’re just not getting the first person.

HelenKay: And, and you look, I mean, Janet Evanovich has always been there. But it’s almost like Janet Evanovich was Janet Evanovich, right? And now it’s like more people, for a very long time, the answer for editors were, Well, you’re not Janet Evanovich; you can’t write that. But now I think that’s what they welcome, and it works with the cover, and it works in trade, and it works for audiences younger and older, and –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – and, and I think it, I think it’s fantastic, and I think part of what happened with – dark thrillers have always been there.

Sarah: Always.

HelenKay: But I think what happened was, in the past it was like a weird race to see how vicious we could be to women on the page?

Sarah: Yes. Holy cow.

HelenKay: And –

Sarah: You’re so right about that.

HelenKay: And, and now if you look, so many thriller writers are women, and they, they are, they’re writing about antiheroes, and they’re writing about vigilante women, and they’re writing about women who have had enough, which is what I write. And it doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen, there are still very dark parts, but the shift is from women as, like, where we have to viciously do awful things to them on the page, and they can only be the victims, to women who can be the villain, women who can be whatever, and you don’t have to destroy them on the page to give a chilling thriller. You don’t have to do that. And I love that change –

Sarah: Oh yes.

HelenKay: – and, and I’m hoping – you know, there’s still, romantic suspense, I think, is mostly a couple people at Montlake and, and self-publishing is doing most of it, like the, the darker, and I’m hoping that there is a trickle-down where the women are a little bit different, you know, and, and that is not a shot at all at the authors. It is what the publishers said they wanted, and that’s what they thought readers wanted, and I think for a long times readers did want that? And then the world falls apart and, you know, there’s a war in Iraq, and all of these things happen, and people are like, And no. If people are going to shoot guns, they’ve got to do it when they’re a vampire so that I can have that inch of space between me and the horrible, and –

Sarah: And the reality that is –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – I’m also worried about my kids going to school, because of school shootings. I am actually –

HelenKay: Exactly.

Sarah: – worried about gun violence on a day-to-day basis.

HelenKay: Exactly.

Sarah: I also think, in terms of influences in the way that mystery and romance and romantic suspense have changed, I think True Crime had an influence in the shift as well –

HelenKay: Huge.

Sarah: – because True Crime is all about, most of the time, victims who are women, often marginalized women, often minorities, often – and, and it is a whole other venue where the people who are being reported on (a) can easily become characters and become flattened into not-human stories, which I don’t like, but also they’re treated as disposable, and that’s –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – really hard to listen to, and it’s certainly not something I can read.

HelenKay: Yeah. It’s – you know, and, and True Crime absolutely has a, I think, a huge impact on those of us who write romantic suspense and thrillers and mysteries and suspense, ‘cause a lot of times you’ll hear – and I, I’ve watched, like, probably every Dateline episode; I’ve watched a lot of the documentaries; I – but for me it’s kind of a, in a world that is not controllable –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – it is something that I can watch and feel like, okay, even if it’s a terrible answer, there’s an an- – that’s why I hate, like, Unsolved Mysteries. Like, I need, I need –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – an answer.

Sarah: You’re very much a romance author: you need to know there’s an ending. It doesn’t have to be happy, but I need to trust you know where you’re going.

HelenKay: Exactly.

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: And, and, and I know there’s a lot of, oh, you know, women are fascinated by True Crime. Oh – what I think women are is, in their daily lives, they’re tired of being afraid.

Sarah: Yes!

HelenKay: And if one person hears Gabby Petito’s story and doesn’t get into the camper van with the jackass she’s dating –

Sarah: Win.

HelenKay: Yay. Win for True Crime everywhere. Right? Because that is what mat- – we think we can control whatever we can control, and it is a good reminder on campuses, when you get in the camper van, the guy that’s a little controlling who’s, you know, maybe in a dark romance he’s attractive, but in real life he is not somebody you should be near. You know, maybe we, maybe we say no to doing X. Maybe we tell our friends, I’m begging you not to go. May- – whatever it is, if that’s what True Crime gives us, the reality that terrible things happen to good people in beautiful places, so please always be on your guard, and that’s the reality of the world? I wish the reality of the world is men act better, but that’s not the reality of the world.

Sarah: Unfortunately, no.

HelenKay: So let’s be smarter. And I, I, so – I watch it for that piece, like the –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – I need to know, and I, I just kind of need to see it? But I also watch it because they always have family members or friends, and I try to focus on them because I don’t ever want to lose the fact that there are human beings behind this who are absolutely destroyed –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – by whatever has happened, and there isn’t a way to just easily put your life back together. And I think you’re right: the, we can’t, you know, it’s the balance of not losing the fact that these are human beings; it’s not a fictional show? It’s why there’s, there’s a kind of a big thing right now in thrillers where people are writing thrillers that have some basis in a, a true crime that really happened, and they –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: – fictionalize it?

Sarah: It’s like ripped-from-the-headlines NYPD Blue or Law & Order. Yeah.

HelenKay: Yeah, and, and I mean, these books do, there’s one that, you know, that was like the Ted Bundy? It’s a, it’s a murder in a, in a sorority house, and it’s just not my thing?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Because I can’t – all I do when you write the Ted Bundy story and it’s fictionalized, all I can see is the real women in the sorority house, right, so it doesn’t really work for me, because there are people who are alive who loved them, who are still alive?

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: But it is an interesting kind of crossover that has happened in there. And that has nothing to do with my cover, so I’m not sure how I got there, but there you go. [Laughs]

Sarah: See, this is why the last episode was two hours long, ‘cause I’m like, Yes, that’s true; keep talking.

But also, I want to say, you said earlier, you know, a lot of the world and a lot of the fiction about crime and, you know, thrillers and mysteries is about women being afraid and women being –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – victimized or terrorized. There’s a lot of stalkers in romance as well –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – which is a real thing that people have to deal with that is not taken seriously? And I think what’s happening, or what has happened very recently, especially with the ones that are more comedic, is that you have women moving from being afraid as, as characters to being pissed.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: That, enough –

HelenKay: And I love that.

Sarah: – I am done; that is enough. I mean, Jane Doe was like that.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: There were a lot of books, even the one, what is it? Like, Every Time I Go on Vacation, Somebody Kicks It?

HelenKay: Oh –

Sarah: Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies? Is that it?

HelenKay: – thoroughly – yes – and I thoroughly enjoyed that book, if anybody hasn’t read, read it?

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: It is a book where she actually has footnotes, and the footnotes are hysterical. Just saying.

Sarah: It even worked in audio! I could not have told you how it worked in audio –

HelenKay: How? [Laughs]

Sarah: – it worked. I listened to this book, and the way that the narrator would, like, say, Footnote: Ba-da-da-da. Or By the way: Ba-da-da. But it was a complete tone of voice; it was almost like she moved closer to the microphone and was like, By the way –

HelenKay: That’s fantastic.

Sarah: – let me tell you some tea. Like, it was so smart? That the, that the movement from pissed off brings in sarcasm. Can you –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – fucking believe this bullshit? And, you know –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – if, if you’re a capable person and shit is going bad and you’re mad about it? Sarcasm’s a great weapon.

HelenKay: It’s a great weapon, and –

Sarah: Like, it is good. [Laughs] It feels great sometimes!

HelenKay: It’s so good. It is so good. I highly – I don’t know if that was, like, the right book at the right – I came out of a, like a deadline. I had just turned the book in, and that’s the first book I read? And I thought it was delightful, completely enjoyable, done in a way I had not seen. I mean, footnotes? Come on!

Sarah: I know!

HelenKay: Where the footnotes say stuff like, You do not have to read the footnotes. [Laughs] But, but let me tell you. And the interesting thing is that author also writes dark, darker thrillers under a different name. So Catherine Mack and I can’t remember, but – and the most important thing to know is that the second book – Every Time I Go to a Wedding, Someone Dies, I think that’s what it’s called [No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding] – it’s a, comes out in about two weeks.

Sarah: [Gasps] I’m going to put a hold on!

HelenKay: So.

Sarah: Typically I listen –

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: Typically I listen to audiobooks while I’m quilting or I’m embroidering or something. I have to occupy the Jack Russell part of, Terrier part of my brain while also doing something with my hands, and that’s, like, what I call my fast recharge. Like, you know, you plug in your phone into a fast charger –

HelenKay: Yep.

Sarah: – like, Your phone will be full in two minutes. Like, Oh great!

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s for my brain. Occupying my hands, doing something repetitive and pattern-oriented, and then –

HelenKay: Smart.

Sarah: – listening to an audiobook. I remember standing at my sewing table with, like, scissors in my hands, listening to this book and being like, What is happening right now? It’s so good!

HelenKay: I know. [Laughs] It’s good!

Sarah: And the Finlay Donovan books are the same way.

HelenKay: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: I am pissed; I’ve been taken advantage of; I have had –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – enough; people are being deeply, deeply predatory towards me. I’m done with this.

HelenKay: Yeah. And I –

Sarah: And they’re all flawed, too. Like, they admit, Yep, and then I fucked up by X.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Exactly! I make terrible decisions sometimes –

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: – and I, and I love everything about – and, you know, my entire thriller career is based on I’ve had enough.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: As a woman, I’ve had enough. And every, they’re all female-focused. I never have a woman who’s sexually abused. Just because – I know it happens? I don’t need to write it on a page. Like, I just don’t. And it, and there’s some form of vigilante justice deal in there, and I, it’s incredibly cathartic. Nobody’s kissing, but it’s cathartic. [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, I know that inside mystery – this is not a genre that I am as fluent in as romance – I know there’s lots of different types. Like, there’s locked room –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and, I don’t know, garden or whatever, and then there’s the whole, like, knitting/bookstore/chocolate shop/coffee shop –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – always with a dog or a cat on the cover cozies –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – and then there’s domestic suspense –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – which is a, it’s sort of like, I think of it as contemporary Gothic? Where –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – the home is both your refuge and a place of danger, and you have to figure out –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – how to reconcile that? But I don’t think your, your books are domestic suspense, even though your, your last one, The Usual Family Mayhem, is, it’s in a house, it’s with a family –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – it has some suspense, but it’s not domestic suspense. Do you have a name for what you write and what these books are? Like, is it I’ve Had Enough or Fuck This Shit? Like, what – I, I tend to call these books Earl Had to Die?

HelenKay: [Laughs] Which I love!

Sarah: But that, even that is not a quite, is not a one-to-one match for what you do.

HelenKay: I do love that. Yeah, the two recent ones under HelenKay, so it’s Moorewood Family Rules, which is about a group of con, a family of con artists, and –

Sarah: Which was optioned, correct?

HelenKay: Correct! And the –

Sarah: Well done!

HelenKay: Thank you! And The Usual Family Mayhem, which is basically a woman goes home and realizes grandma might be making poison pies – as you do. I think of them both – I’ve, I’ve struggled, and so has my publisher, like, there’s a romance in both, so do you put it in romance, ‘cause it’s not really romance, but it’s kind of like a heist/caper, but there’s really no caper, so I call them kind of family mayhem books, right? Like, where –

Sarah: That’s a good name!

HelenKay: – where it’s, it’s something about this family unit that is, is at the heart of whatever’s happening, but it’s not necessarily – even with the con artists, you know, it’s done in a way that’s, I think, lighter?

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: Lighter in tone. Different from my Darby Kane thrillers, totally, in, in kind of –

Sarah: Oh –

HelenKay: – how the –

Sarah: – yeah.

HelenKay: – how the tone is.

Sarah: Just a little bit. Having read the first one.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Scared the shit out of me. Thanks a lot.

HelenKay: I’m here for you. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, okay. I can see, I, when I read Pretty Little Wife, I, I could see all the Dateline.

HelenKay: [Laughs] I know. Well, and I know it’s not your thing, so clearly I should have said to you, Just wait for Moorewood. I think you’ll like Moorewood. It’s con artists –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: It’s, it’s basically, you know, in the where do books come from kind of thing, I, I saw Ocean’s 8, you know, with the women, and, so Sandra Bullock at the, at the beginning gets out of prison, she’s from a con artist family, she goes and she sets up a new con, and I’m like, Okay, but what if a character like that went home to her con artist family and was like, It is now time to clean up all your acts, ‘cause I just went to prison for all of you, and what she figures out is it was all for naught, because they’re conning more than ever, and, etc. So that’s the book, so it’s not, like, serial killers and stuff, but there is this sense of kind of family angst and messiness?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Which I love, whether you do it cozy or dark. I just love it.

Sarah: Yes. Because one of, like, for example, one of the differences between, say, Pretty Little Wife and The Usual Family Mayhem and, in a different, in addition to, like, you know, tone –

HelenKay: Pies.

Sarah: – peril and –

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: – poison pies, the family in the first book, it’s fine – no spoilers – if they are all destroyed. These people are –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – terrible, and I actually want bad things to happen to them.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Meanwhile, this is family where they’re kind of driving you nuts, but you don’t need to, like, get rid of them. Like –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – the family unit is not something that needs to be harmed or destroyed; it needs to be negotiated and reconciled with. Whereas in, in the thrillers you’re like, No, this whole family can go right to hell; fuck ‘em all.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly!

Sarah: Just put them in the bin!

HelenKay: I’m not going to be sad if they’re picked off one by one.

Sarah: Into the dumpster with you!

HelenKay: Well, and The Usual Family Mayhem was so fun to write, because there are two older ladies in that book. There’s the grandmother and the grandmother’s, um, you know, “friend.” It’s a good Southern family, so everything –

Sarah: And they were roommates!

HelenKay: And they were roommates for years!

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

HelenKay: It was so fun to write because I did some of the stuff from my own family. Like, there’s a, there’s a scene when the grandmother, you know, mentions some person, and, and my mom does this to me all the time, like, Thelma said – I’m like, Who the hell is Thelma? What are you talking about? Right, like, like, it’s hopefully kind of the relatable nonsense that happens in a family?

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: Which are like –

Sarah: Where it’s not meaningful, but your blood pressure is still high.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Exactly!

Sarah: Like, no one understands why this is so fricking irritating, but the reason it’s irritating is because that person can press your buttons really good ‘cause they installed your buttons.

HelenKay: Exactly! [Laughs]

Sarah: They know exactly where they are.

HelenKay: Exactly. Exactly. It runs both ways.

Sarah: Exactly, of course! And one of the things that’s so interesting, I think, especially about your career and how it moves, and we talked about this with the, with the reviews, is, like I said, back in the ‘90s all the historical authors just up and started writing –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – thrillers and mysteries –

HelenKay: Yes.

Sarah: – and that’s happening again!

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: Historical writers are not having their contracts renewed; they’re moving into other genres. Historical romance is moving into mystery, like Sherry Thomas, but also –

HelenKay: She has one coming that I’m very excited about.

Sarah: The Librarians, yeah.

HelenKay: The Lib-, yeah, I’m very excited about The Librarians, yeah.

Sarah: It’s pretty fricking great, but, I mean –

HelenKay: Oh, you’ve read it? Oh God…

Sarah: It’s, it’s, it’s Sherry Thomas, so, like –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – the bar is high, and she clears it. But there’s also a contemporary romance to mystery –

HelenKay: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – track happening right now. I mean, and it’s not to say that contemporary romances don’t have a mystery in them, but, like, Uzma Jalaluddin is writing –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – a mystery now, and it’s an older protagonist mystery. So I think there’s this intersection that’s happening of – and this goes for your books as well – older characters who aren’t starting out their lives. They have lives, things are happening for them, and then they have to go deal with some bullshit.

HelenKay: Yeah. Well, and think about for how long in romance we heard that once, basically, a heroine turns thirty, she may as well be dead, because we don’t want to hear about her in a romance? Right –

Sarah: So many times!

HelenKay: Right? So –

Sarah: So often I heard that.

HelenKay: So this women’s fiction, or this hybrid women’s fiction/romance or hybrid women’s fiction/mystery –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – thrillers, all of this, nobody has ever said to me in the thriller book, Hey, could you make your heroine younger? Never. Like, no-, nobody. They don’t care if she’s forty, and if I’m writing about somebody, like, even in The Usual Family Mayhem –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – her life is not together. Like, you know, she’s, she failed out of law school; you know, she has this, as she leaves law school she has this, kind of this job history that’s not stellar, you know? And, but she’s not twenty-two!

Sarah: No.

HelenKay: She’s twenty-eight.

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: Right, like, so, you know, kind of my way of saying, It’s okay to still not know what you want to be when you’re twenty-eight. I didn’t, I didn’t become a published author until I was thirty-two?

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: Thirty-, thirty-one, something? So it – maybe even later than that; I can’t do math – but, so, I mean, this idea that we can only write of people of a certain age, I love that these authors are branching out and saying, You know what, if there’s somewhere that the rules can be a little bit different –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – I’m going to take advantage of that. And that’s coming from someone who, I absolutely love the romance genre, but, you know, I wonder sometimes if the kind of, the contraction on how romance has changed significantly, how the mass markets have gone, how self-publishing has taken over a huge part of the romance genre, is the fact that we kept trying to make the box smaller –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – instead of letting it get a little – just by nature! – bigger, ‘cause as you’re writing, what you write, what you want to write, the style of how you write, can change! I mean –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: – like, Sarah MacLean has written how many New York Times bestselling historical romances?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Right? She, she has now something about the Storm family coming out, which is clearly contemporary –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – which feels more like, like a very different style, you know, and good for her! She clearly, one day, either because the bottom falls out of the market or because she’s like, I just want to write something different, which is how I was with thrillers –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – now she can!

Sarah: I also find that even with my reading tastes, I outgrow a genre.

HelenKay: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: Like, there are – this is a, this is my personal pet peeve, speaking specifically for contemporary romance – there are so many books that begin – and, and women’s fiction too, now that I think about it – that begin with the proposition that this woman has lost everything. A screw-up at work has cost her her job, she has lost her apartment for whatever reason, and she has to go back home, humiliated, because all of the success that she built disappeared. I don’t like starting books from that perspective.

HelenKay: No.

Sarah: It bums me out, and it’s also like, where are your friends? Where is your network? Why are you alone at this big age and you have just your – and I’m like, this is, this is the confines of romance isolating the heroine so that the most important relationship in the book is the hero, which I’ve never really loved. I like when they have friends! You know?

HelenKay: Yeah, me too.

Sarah: Like, you’ve got to give Rosie O’Donnell somebody to play in the movie! She’s got to be the great –

HelenKay: Yes! [Laughs]

Sarah: – the great best friend! That’s how this works! Like, friends are good! There’s a lot where it’s just, the single focus is the, the hero and the heroine, and the heroine starts off from this place of complete professional and personal decimation, and I’m like, I, I hate it! I don’t – everything has gone wrong.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m like, Nope! Not for me! I don’t want to read that, because I’m in the middle of that! Have you seen the country? [Laughs]

HelenKay: I know. Well, and I, I think, I think there sometimes is a disconnect between, I have to write a heroine where life is happening to her?

Sarah: Yes.

HelenKay: Until she finds this man, and then, like, this light switches on. And –

Sarah: And she happens to life.

HelenKay: And she happens to life. Whereas you can have a hapless heroine who is still finding her way, but life isn’t happening to her. She just keeps trying new things, or –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – she keeps whatever, trying to get, to figure it out so that life isn’t happening to her; she is an active participant in her life. Even those, I’d like, who make terrible mistakes, I make terrible mistakes! Like, we all do it. Like, life isn’t happening to me! Like, I can take control. I can’t always take control of every piece of my life.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: You know, that’s where that messed-up family comes in sometimes, but I can’t take control of all of it, but, but I’m not just sitting here! I’m not, I’m not, like, worthless until I find X.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: Like, I, I don’t really understand.

Sarah: No. I do have a question, though, with The Usual Family Mayhem: was she meant to be read as having ADHD? ‘Cause she read to me as very much an adult ADHD character, where she’s being told, You should do this; this is good; this is adult. The other thing that happens, I think, in romance and in real life, is that women are taught over and over and over again, that we are not adult, we are not worth being taken seriously, we are not self-actualized adults with authority until we are both married and have children.

HelenKay: Yeah. I think that’s…

Sarah: And there’s often this, you know, So, as a mother, I think – yeah, fuck off. Like, this is bullshit status acquisition. But we are taught we are not individual adults until things happen to us: we have a marriage; we have children.

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: And with The Usual Family Mayhem, I got the feeling that the heroine was like, Oh, I have to be, to be successful, I should be in this field; to be an adult, I should be in this field. I should be doing these things so that I will be seen as a competent adult, because I feel incompetent, and I don’t feel like an adult. Where really it was like, you keep trying things that you are not suited for –

HelenKay: Yeah, exactly.

Sarah: – but you don’t know what you’re suited for. That is a much more understandable situation than Everything in my life has just gone.

HelenKay: Exactly.

Sarah: And I’m, Okay, well, was it, was it like torrential flooding in a hurricane, or was it like one little social media mistake? Because if it was just one little social media mistake, I don’t believe that that’s what happened.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Yikes!

Sarah: ‘Cause I have seen some social media mistakes, and they are still here. [Laughs]

HelenKay: Exactly. [Laughs] And they keep coming back.

Sarah: I have made them, and I am still here! I have fucked up royally on the internet! Ask me how many times, and I’m still here! Like, okay!

HelenKay: Me too. Me too.

Sarah: Right?

HelenKay: I think, I think of Kasey as, she’s someone who, by the time she is like six, her, her mom, like, her, her mom has been killed, her dad is in prison, and so she’s raised by grandma, and I think of her as someone who, she’s not a perpetual victim; she’s not, like, sitting in mourning; she’s not – it, it’s almost like she was raised by grandma in this sheltered environment –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – because grandma was so afraid that, that her granddaughter would, frankly, end up with the life grandma had, which wasn’t great, with the life her, her daughter had –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – who’s, who’s Kasey’s mom. So when she grows up, she actually doesn’t really know who she is, right? Like, what she is, is somebody who had these things happen that she’s kind of disconnected from, because she was so young that she can’t really match up with them, and then she’s had this really loving grandma who’s a very strong personality – in a positive way, but a very strong personality – so she goes out into the world and she just does what she thinks she’s supposed to do, which I think a lot of us do, and the answer is, okay, but that’s actually not right for me. And grandma never says, Oh – like, like, grandma actually knows she’s not doing the right thing, but she knows she’s got to, like, let her be an adult and figure it out, and she figures it out, but not because she’s in love with someone. That is a piece that she didn’t even expect to kind of come up as she figures out what she’s good at.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: Yeah. It was fun to write, ‘cause she’s, she’s not perfect, and –

Sarah: But she is capable; she just doesn’t believe –

HelenKay: Yeah.

Sarah: – that she’s capable, and I think that’s something that happens to a lot of people.

HelenKay: Yeah…

Sarah: Oh, wait, I am competent and capable of doing things? Oh! Holy shit!

HelenKay: Well, and, I mean, okay, so I, I grew up in a very small town. Like, people ask me all the time, did you want to be an author when you grew up? And here is – and I know this sounds sad, but it’s really not – I had, I had parents who were very good at Read whatever you want; of course you’re going to college; you want to go to Europe when you’re thirteen? Fine, we’ll figure out a way for you to go to Europe when you’re thirteen. It wasn’t them, but I was raised in a small town setting. I didn’t dream about being an author because I never would have dreamed about being an author. It was way too big. It was way too far outside of my reality –

Sarah: Well, who did you know –

HelenKay: – that –

Sarah: – that was an author?

HelenKay: Absolutely zero, right? And so many, when I, you know, where I grew up, a lot of women were married at nineteen!

Sarah: Oh yeah!

HelenKay: Right? You know, me going away to college, like four hours away to upstate New York to college, was like Ohhh!

Sarah: Shocking!

HelenKay: Hell, I mean, I used to have fellow – so I go to law school, and then I work in Washington, DC, on Capitol Hill for a couple years, and then I go, I mean I went to undergrad and then law school, and people I went to, women I went to high school with would say, It is so amazing that you did that. Like, it’s – like, I’m like, But outside of where we live, it’s nor-, it’s not! It’s not that, like –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: I, I mean, but I didn’t know, because my world was only so big, and I was already breaking out of a world where I come from a family of coal miners.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: Right? Like, not my parents, but the generation right before that…

Sarah: I’m, I’m descended from steel workers; I hear ya.

HelenKay: Right? So, so your world is what your world is, and you think you’re already breaking into something a lot bigger, and you are, but I didn’t let myself dream about stuff like that, you know?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: I went to Capitol Hill, I worked in politics, then I went, I became a lawyer. I mean, can you think of, like, more practical things in the world than becoming a lawyer in Washington, DC? Good lord! Right?

Sarah: There are a few.

HelenKay: Just seven, eight billion of them, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: Like, that’s –

Sarah: There’s actually only six, and the rest is done with mirrors.

HelenKay: [Laughs] So, you know, for me it was a dream that was bigger than what my imagination could, could hold?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: And again, I know that sounds sad, but it’s, it’s really not, because I would, I’d managed to figure it out, but I, I’m not the person I was at twenty-one! I never would have been able to do it at twenty-one. I never, I didn’t have the life experience; I didn’t have the confidence –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

HelenKay: – I didn’t have all of those things, and I love when, if it’s romance or mystery or whatever, when I see a character that has that and it’s not victimized, it’s not looked down on, it’s not whatever; it’s just the reality of you are not the person you were when you were twenty-one –

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: – and that’s a good thing –

Sarah: That’s a very –

HelenKay: – not a bad thing.

Sarah: Yep.

HelenKay: It’s a good thing.

Sarah: It’s also interesting how strong those bubbles are.

HelenKay: Yeaahh.

Sarah: Like, you see that now in communities where there’s societal pressure, family pressure, religious pressure, cultural pressure: stay in this bubble; stay with these people; don’t go out; don’t change. Everything out there is bad. We are, we are the good, and that is the bad, and you shouldn’t go out there. Bubbles are very strong! They’re really hard to break out of!

HelenKay: Yes. Very, very. And it’s – and I don’t, I don’t even know how to, like, I, like, I was a partner in a law firm in the Washington, DC area. I look back now and I think, I can’t believe I walked away from that to write books! I mean, come on, now! Anybody who writes books knows, like, are you kidding? There’s nothing safe; there’s nothing secure; there’s nothing guaranteed.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

HelenKay: But, you know, it’s, it’s who I was at that point, and I was ready to make a change. Thank goodness!

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: Thank goodness! Yeah.

Sarah: So this has turned into its own episode, so I’m going to release this next week.

HelenKay: …yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m going to release this next week, and the title of this episode is “HelenKay Dimon and Darby Kane Are Really Interesting.”

HelenKay: [Laughs]

Sarah: This is going to be its own episode, I’ve decided.

HelenKay: And let me, let me just tell you this quick short-term memory thing. I think I said something about it, a, a character’s name. So I am doing an event with Alisha Rai, and we are at Mysterious Galaxy, and it’s an independent book- –

Sarah: I love her, by the way. It makes me so happy that you did an event together?

HelenKay: We’ve done a couple. I, I, I love it. We haven’t seen as much of each other since, you know, she had a kid and she, her life is a tad more full. But we did, we used to do a couple events together, and we’re sitting at Mysterious Galaxy, this wonderful independent bookstore in San Diego, and we’re, we both have a book out, and we’re talking about it, and I’m talking about like, like how you pick characters’ names –

Sarah: Yeah.

HelenKay: – and somebody says, in the audience, I haven’t read the book yet; what is the character’s name? Honest to God, I was like –

Sarah: You got me! [Laughs]

HelenKay: – I have no idea! Right? And the book is in front of me, right. You know how you sit the book up –

Sarah: Yeah!

HelenKay: – so, so the audience can see –

Sarah: Everybody can see it! Yeah.

HelenKay: I have terrible eyesight, and for some reason, like, like, I, I have glasses for distance and glasses for, that I use for close up, and I have the distance glasses on, so I can’t even read the back of the book –

Sarah: [Laughs]

HelenKay: – to be able to see what the –

Sarah: Steve.

HelenKay: – character’s name is.

Sarah: Joe. [Laughs]

HelenKay: So I am, like, fumbling and being like, Yeah, well, and I’m trying to pick up the book and, like, not show that I’m – and of course you’re, when you’re reading it, you’re like, Where is his name?!

Sarah: Yep!

HelenKay: So yeah, that’s, that’s how I am a PR genius is what I am. [Laughs] Nailed that, yep! Good job, HelenKay, yep.

Sarah: Okay, so I didn’t prep you for this question, but are there any books coming out that you want to make sure that you mention?

HelenKay: [Laughs] Of mine or other people’s?

Sarah: Anybody.

HelenKay: But I have a thriller coming out…

Sarah:  Tell me all about this thriller that’s coming out.

HelenKay: Well, first of all, if you’ve missed Pretty Little Wife, it is coming out in mass market at the end of August, so it’s –

Sarah: Yes!

HelenKay: – it’s the least expensive version; grab it then. And then my next thriller after that is called Such a Clever Girl, which I love as a title, I’m going to be honest…

Sarah: That’s a great title.

HelenKay: It’s a great title. It’s a great title, and it comes out January 20th, and I’m very excited about it. It’s like an entire family goes missing, and fifteen years later just the daughter reappears.

Sarah: Oh damn!

HelenKay: Damn! I know.

Sarah: Oh damn!

HelenKay: And, and when I, I, I always, when I look for, like, a setting on where to set a book, I spend a lot of time, you know, thinking about it? This book is set in Sleepy Hollow, New York, because of course it is.

Sarah: Of course it is!

HelenKay: Hello. Of course it is. It’s not paranormal, but yes.

Sarah: Nope. For the next one, have you ever been to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey?

HelenKay: No!

Sarah: That shit’s creepy as fuck.

HelenKay: Really?

Sarah: Yeah, like, mafia people used to drop bodies in there; that’s where the Jersey Devil allegedly lives. The Pine Barrens is some creepy fucking shit.

HelenKay: You know I’m going to spend all afternoon being like –

Sarah: Pine Barrens!

HelenKay: – googling and searching – absolutely!

Sarah: And it’s even got the name Pine Barrens.

HelenKay: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly!

Sarah: It, it fits the name, too.

HelenKay: I love it.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to HelenKay for connecting with me. I think we might have recorded close to five and a half, maybe six hours together over the past few weeks. HelenKay will be my guest next week for the ads and features, and yes! It is a long episode, and yes, it is really interesting and very fun.

Thank you so much for all of the feedback about these episodes. I am so pleased you’re enjoying them too. I will try to have authors who are in the magazine join me on future episodes, because it seems like y’all really like that!

As always, I end with a terrible joke, and this joke’s really bad. Are you ready?

How do you get a farm girl to marry you?

Give up? How do you get a farm girl to marry you?

Well, first, a tractor.

[Laughs] It’s so, so silly! I love that! Attract her! I did tell that one to the family, and the response was, Ohhh. Such bad jokes! Such great joy!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week. And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking.

[end of music]