Deanna Raybourn – Expect the Unexpected

Deanna Raybourn’s motto in life and writing is “expect the unexpected” – and her best-selling historical mysteries are the perfect expression of that – they are plotted with the intricacy of a symphony. HI there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Deanna talks about writing for a very long time before she got published – and what she learned from that experience – and why we’ve totally misjudged Victorian women. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Why Deanna finds the Victorians “comfortably exotic” Yes: First drafts “suck” – and that’s OK Why finishing the book is the only thing that counts Her long road to being published And why she wouldn’t change a thing Where the sparky dialogue in her books comes from. Where to find Deanna Raybourn: Website: https://www.deannaraybourn.com/  Twitter:@deannaraybourn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deannaraybourn What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here’s Deanna. .  Hello there Deanna and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Deanna: [00:00:07] Hi Jenny. Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be on a podcast from across the world. Reading and writing ‘forever’ Deanna Raybourn – Mystery author Jenny: [00:00:14] I know it’s fun isn’t it? Readers are always curious to know how authors got started writing fiction and I know you had quite a strong background in English literature before you started writing yourself. But was there a Once Upon A Time moment when you felt I must write fiction myself. And if so was there a catalyst for it? Deanna: [00:00:40] No there absolutely wasn’t. Because I honestly do not remember a time when I wasn’t making up stories. I do distinctly remember being about three or four years old, – I’d learned to read pretty early – I was about four when I learned how to read – and I was so excited because I could finally make sense of all the signs that were on the streets and I could finally read my books by myself. [00:01:05] Then I got really excited when I learned how to print because then I could start making up stories of my own. And I’ve been doing that ever since. I don’t have any juvenilea. Like there’s never gonna be a Jane Austen moment where I can publish things that I wrote when I was twelve years old. But I was always making things up. And so when I went to university I decided to double major in English and history because I knew I wanted to write historical fiction and that seemed like the most logical thing to do. It never occurred to me to major in Creative Writing but I went for English and and history and it’s served me pretty well. Jenny: [00:01:46] It’s amazing that so young you actually already knew the genre that you wanted to work in. A ‘hideous’ first novel at 23 The Dark Enquiry # 5 in Lady Julia series Deanna: [00:01:53] Well you know I think it was it was borne out of wanting to write what I love to read. And so because I loved historical fiction it just it made sense to me.  I sat down and wrote my first novel when I was 23. I had just finished my first year of teaching high school and during summer break I sat down and wrote a novel. I think it took me seven weeks and it was 120,000 words. I have never in my life written that fast before or since. And it was hideous. It was a hideous experience, but I got addicted to the whole idea of starting a story and seeing it through to the end and finishing it. Jenny: [00:02:37] Yeah. That is impressive – 120,00 words in seven weeks for sure. Deanna: [00:02:42] Oh it’s insane. It’s insane. Jenny: [00:02:47] And you’ve done your historical mysteries, though with a little bit of a twist, because right from the beginning you included a romantic subplot and the meshing of two separate genres. And I just wondered. I know that there are a few people doing that these days but when you started perhaps more than a decade ago with your Julia Grey series was there any resistance from publishers who wanted you to do either one thing or the other? Deanna: [00:03:16] No it wasn’t resistance as much as it was kind of scratching their heads and puzzlement not knowing where to place you. Because the way traditional publishing works as I’m sure you know it’s all about where they can slot you because the publisher has to know how to pitch you to the buyer for the stores. The stores have to know where to slot you on the shelf. The librarians need to know where to shelve you. Readers want to know where to find you. And so it all starts with what genre are you? Who are you? Where do we put you? A mystery with romance [00:03:48] And with a cross genre book it’s just it’s not that easy to figure out where a writer should be placed. If you ask me I’m a mystery writer. That’s what I’ve always been and I’ve been very  lucky to have a lot of readers who crossover from romance to read my books. I appreciate that hugely, because the convention of romance novels is that you get a happily ever after or a happily for now. [00:04:16] There is a resolution of some sort to the relationship and I don’t give readers that within the scope of one novel. Over the span of an entire series we may be inching our way towards that but it’s never guaranteed, you may never see it and a reader is not gonna get that payoff from one book. [00:04:34]  You can lift the relationship out of my books and you’ll still have a mystery. If you lift the mystery out you don’t have a satisfying romance. And so that’s why I’m always deeply grateful to romance readers who come along for the rid,e because it’s  a little bit out of what they prefer for their reading. So it’s a kindness on their part to read my stuff. “Hard to get”heroes A Curious Beginning – – Veronica Speedwell #1 Jenny: [00:05:01]  Your two male protagonists Nicholas Brisbane and Stoker in the two different series – there’s the Veronica Speedwell series as well which we’ll get on to soon – but they both such fascinating men and you managed to string out the the whys and wherefores of why they can’t instantly get together. [00:05:22] There’s all sorts of complications which prevent them from getting together. So I mean even as someone who enjoys romance I really enjoy that feeling of being strung along a little bit.  I think that’s probably what the pay off is. That you do know that in the end there is going to be some resolution and it’s fun being along for the journey. Deanna: [00:05:42] Yeah it’s just a very slow burn. It’s the slowest of burns. I do try to throw a few breadcrumbs out there in each book for readers who are attentive to that sort of thing that they’ll get a little – you know a tasty morsel in every book or so where they can see that Yeah we are inching towards something. And you know every book will give you just that fraction more depth to the relationship and that  tiny bit more intimacy and you know, maybe a kiss. Jenny: [00:06:20] And is that even harder to do successfully than the very complicated plotting that’s involved with the mystery? Deanna: [00:06:31] No I don’t think so.  That part of it really comes naturally. That’s a gut thing. I just go with what feels right. It’s natural for the characters in the way I’ve set them up. How far and how fast they should progress towards kind of conceiving any sort of feelings for each other and then expressing any sort of feelings for each other – that’s a completely different scenario.  That part of it is just a lot of fun, it’s enjoyable to play with. So when the plot is maybe giving me 40 new grey hairs, the the emotional aspect of it is just joy. Jenny: [00:07:14] We mentioned the complicated plotting. I guess you probably do have to start out with a reasonably detailed outline do you? Only one thing worse than this Deanna: [00:07:26] I do and I kind of hate that. That’s the part where I swear to you every time I have to write a synopsis I end up Googling ‘How do you write a synopsis?’ Because it’s one of those things that I have developed a mental block about. I dislike writing them so intensely. The only thing worse is writing my own biography, when I have to do those. But the synopsis is one of those things that just kind of turns you inside out because you’re figuring out how you’re going to set it up and how you’re gonna end it. And those are things that I know but I don’t always know what’s in the middle. I mean I know ‘A’ and I know ‘Zee”. I may know ‘G’ and ‘Q’. [00:08:06] But it’s all the other points in between that I suddenly have to put down for seven pages in order to turn it into my editor and that’s the part that really makes me squirrly. Luckily for me I have a brilliant editor who is a genius about saying “I know this is not what you’re going to keep. I know you’re going to change a lot of this and that’s fine.” I just I turned in a manuscript last week and had to actually redraft the synopsis so that they could use it in-house because of course that’s how they write the little blurbs you know the summary that goes on the back of the cover. They have to have a copy of it that is relevant. [00:08:47] And I realized how far I had deviated from the synopsis I’d given them, and I had to change it completely…. I think I’ve got to keep two paragraphs out of seven pages and had to completely rewrite the rest of it so that it would be congruent with the book that I actually turned in. So luckily for me my editors are very patient and very understanding. Lady Julia Grey – NY Times best Jenny: [00:09:09] The Lady Julia Grey series – it now five books  and four novellas..   Are there any more coming or is it now finished? Deanna: [00:09:19] That is one of those questions to which there is no black and white answer. And I’ll tell you why. As you say, There were five books in the series and then the story kind of continued through four novellas, which together are the length of one more book. And when we ended it, that wasn’t my decision. That was my previous publisher who decided to end it. And so when I eventually left that publisher I took the characters with me, which means I can technically write more. [00:09:49] It would be a matter of finding a new publisher. And that’s one of those things that other publishers are not terribly keen on. Picking up a series that someone else still holds the rights to the first five books. So it would be honestly it’s gonna come out if if something happens really well with the development of a Julia movie or a Julia TV series that would be when there would be a serious market for that and that would be certainly when  that could be a possibility. [00:10:22] In the meantime I’ve got plenty on my plate for my current publisher. So it’s not something I would strike out and do on my own. Jenny: [00:10:31] So you started with an idea for a five book story arc and then were you asked to produce the extra novellas? The perils of writing an ‘open’ series Silent in the Grave – Lady Julia Grey # 1 Deanna: [00:10:39] No no no it started off open ended. The series started off completely open ended and we were doing it two books at a time and then we just kind of got to a point where my previous publisher always liked for me to take a break between series. So every third book day they would want me to do something different. [00:11:08] And then another three books and do something different. And so we were trying that and I wanted to do another Julia at that point to come in with Book Six and they were pretty firm on on wanting to do something else. And then by the time we got sorted out what that something would be, they kind of felt like it had lost momentum and it was time to move on. [00:11:33] And that was not a call I was particularly thrilled with because we left the series with the book that hit the New York Times Bestseller list. So to me that felt like not a great time to leave. So I would have liked to have stayed with it at least for one or two more books to really completely wrap up the series. [00:11:54] If I knew that Book Five was gonna be the last full novel I would have changed a few things in it. But that’s the difficulty of writing an open ended series. You always have to be prepared for the book that you’re turning in to be the very last one in the series. And that’s a difficult thing to do. It’s the same as your favorite TV show coming to the end of its season, and  not knowing if they’re going to be renewed. Are you doing a program finale or are you doing a series finale? So that’s  kind of the same boat that  you’re in when you’re writing a series. It’s tricky. Yeah. Jenny: [00:12:34] Lady Julia we should say was enjoyed a huge amount of success.  The first book in the series was a RITA award winner for the Best Novel with Strong Romance elements. And it also made the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice for the best first novel and it has been optioned as you’ve mentioned for either TV or movies. Are we likely to see it on screens anytime soon? Deanna: [00:13:02] Now that one I can tell you. No, unfortunately. The option actually just lapsed last month. So the the option for that and for the Veronica Speedwell series – those are currently available. So we will see. We will see what happens there. The “comfortably exotic” Victorians A Treacherous Curse – Veronica Speedwell #3 Jenny: [00:13:25]  Veronica is also set in the 1880s . Is there something about that particular period that attracts you? Deanna: [00:13:39] People always want to know about that and I wish I could give a really great answer and say that there was something specific. The most that I can put my finger on. is that it was a time of tremendous change.  It was a time where you know over the course of Queen Victoria’s reign society went from – and of course  when I say anything at all about history, I’m speaking specifically from a western- centric Euro-centric perspective on this. [00:14:14] Society went from candle power and horsepower to – by the end of her reign – electricity and cars and in between that there was gas light and steam power. And when you think about a 70 to 80 year span of time, going through that kind of upheaval and everything that technology brought with it, and all the changes. People were really I think towards the end of her reign – by the time you get into the 1880’s and 1890’s I think people were almost suffering from a sort of whiplash. They were trying to figure out what their place was. There had been a huge amount of political upheaval as well, not just technology. [00:14:59] You know the middle of the century saw so many different revolutions and wars. Things were shaking out a little bit by the 1880’s but the really funny thing is when you start to dive into it you can already see the roots of World War 1 in the 1880’s, and you know what’s coming. So you you see these people who are at this crossroads of trying to do the best that they can to fit technology into a new world that they don’t have a grasp on yet,  they haven’t come to terms with yet. And then you realize just you know 30 years down the road it’s all going to blow up and everything is going to change again. And it’s really fascinating to see because there’s also so many little seeds in there of things that we tend to think of as being 20th century as opposed to 19th century. Free love, escalators, birth control [00:15:55] Department stores, free love, vegetarianism, birth control. All of those things were were topics that Victorians talked about. They were things that Victorians knew about or invented or recreated but they were in the Zeitgeist. And we don’t tend to think of Victorians in department stores with escalators.  Or talking about the fact that they’re only eating turnips and cabbages because they’re vegetarian. We don’t think of that. [00:16:25] And yet there were Victorians doing those things. And so that to me makes them really interesting. There’s kind of a comfortable exoticism to Victorians. They’re just enough like us that you can understand them, but they’re different enough to make them interesting. Jenny: [00:16:41] Yes, it’s very interesting because I’ve noticed with historical fiction generally there’s such a strong sense that women writers of the 21st century are rediscovering how independent women of the 19th and early 20th century actually were. And that they weren’t that different from us. The laws are very different but their aspirations would not be very different at all would they? Crossing Africa in a corset Intrepid Victorians: crossing Africa in a corset. Deanna: [00:17:05] Oh no no no not at all.  It’s amazing when you look at what women were writing to each other and what they were doing. You know  so much of the official history is  written by and about men, specifically  about white men. And by and about white straight men. When you try to look at what women were doing, or people of color. or people who had a different sexuality. And if they were any sort of combination of those in particular, the stories are there but you have to dig harder. You have to look further for them. And that’s what we’re starting to do and I find that so fascinating. I mean I’m a huge Twitter fiend. I absolutely adore Twitter. [00:17:50] And part of the reason is because there are so many historians and writers and journalists who were doing those deep dives and then they get excited and they tweet about it and so they are sharing these things and we can talk about them and I end up learning so much because I graduated from college in 1990 and I mean it was dead white European straight guys. That was what my degree was then. When straight white men ruled [00:18:15] We didn’t talk about what women were doing. We didn’t talk about anything else. You know we didn’t. I never heard in college  what was going on in New Zealand.That wasn’t on the syllabus. They were teaching about what happened in Europe, what happened in the US, and that was it. And so I love the fact that more and  more of these stories are being recovered and reclaimed and told and I think that’s a hugely exciting thing. Jenny: [00:18:46] Yes. And a lot of your heroines are doing very interesting things. One of them is that a famous aviatrix and another one is a butterfly catcher. So you have a chance to do quite a deep dive into quite a few different areas yourself don’t you, when you’re researching them. Deanna: [00:19:04] Oh I do. And you know part of that kind of reclaiming of women’s history is how Veronica’s Speedwell came to be in the first place. Because when I started really getting interested in the Victorians, right after I graduated from college, I was curious as to what the women were doing.  I figured not all of them were sitting in the parlor pouring tea for the vicar. You know, they had to be doing something more interesting. And so I started reading, and I got very  intrigued by the Victorian lady explorers. You know this kind of subset of women who packed up the petticoats and the parasols and set out to see the world, and a lot of times they were travelling to places where European women had never been before. The intrepid butterfly collector Margaret Fountaine: Victorian lepidopterist and inspiration for Veronica Speedwell. [00:19:48] And sometimes they were travelling places to where Europeans had never been before. And so of course, they thought they were discovering things which they absolutely were not but they were encountering things that were unfamiliar to them and pushing themselves into places where they were not comfortable and sometimes not welcome, in order to learn more about what was going on. [00:20:09] You know when the men travelled sometimes, it was in the nature of scientific inquiry. But it was very often in the nature of we’re going to proselytize or we’re going to colonize. A lot of the time when women travelled it was they wanted to learn or they wanted to escape. And so the more I read about them the more fascinated I became by them. Respectably doing as she pleased [00:20:32] And one in particular was a lepidopterist,  A butterfly hunter by the name of Margaret Fountaine and the cool thing about butterfly hunting for Victorian women is it was considered a genteel occupation.  You could do it and almost be a lady even though, you were making money at it. And so Margaret was able to make a living hunting butterflies and she hunted all around the world. She went to six continents hunting butterflies and she was able to amass a gorgeous collection of them. And she kept journals of all of her travels. And after she did this for about 50 years she dropped dead on the island of Santo Domingo with her butterfly net in her hand aged 78. She willed her diaries and her butterflies to a university in England, with instructions they were not to be opened until 1978. After 70 years they cracked her journals open and found out that Margaret had not just been hunting butterflies. Margaret had lovers all over the world. [00:21:34] And she wrote about it. She had boyfriends everywhere. She had relationships that were interracial stuff, that you just don’t think of Victorian women is doing. [00:21:49] Margaret was doing it. Margaret was writing about it. And I was so intrigued by this that I knew if I was ever going to do a second Victorian series that I was absolutely going to kind of pay homage to Margaret and make my Victorian heroine a lepidopterist. So that that’s how Veronica Speedwell came to be a butterfly hunter. It is as a love note to Margaret Fountaine and as a thank you for all the the hours of enjoyment I got from reading about her adventures. ‘Perfect womanhood’ palls Dark Road to Darjeeling #4 Lady Julia Grey series Jenny: [00:22:22] Perhaps that explains a little bit more clearly why Veronica in the series seems to be adamantly opposed to the idea of marriage. Deanna: [00:22:30] Yeah I mean she is a very much her own woman and you know by the 1880s laws were starting to be enacted where women could hold onto property in a way that they could not in earlier decades of the 19th century. And so it’s a little bit easier to be an independent woman at that time. You’re just seeing the start of women really taking taking off on their own, opening businesses and  things in a way. Because in the times before that  there was this overly domesticated ideal. That was the  ideal of what the perfect woman should be. [00:23:19] And people started to break out of that towards the end of the 19th century. The whole Victoria and Albert example of this perfect domesticity and the idea that this is how everybody should live. I think that the  shine started to come off of that a little bit and it got a little bit dull and you start to see people chafing against these restrictions and these examples that had been held up to them.  I think kind of impossible ideals in some cases because how –  if you have servants in your house who are doing all the work  – and you’ve got nannies who are raising your kids and you’re not really supposed to apply yourself to passionately to learning because it can cause brain fever. [00:24:09] I mean what are you really supposed to do with your time if you’re an intelligent woman without going completely stark raving mad? So it’s interesting to see when women started to push beyond those boundaries and that’s absolutely what I needed for Veronica, is for her to be the kind of woman who would say “yeah I’m really not going to sit around and knit all day.” Jenny: [00:24:32]  It’s tantalising to look at the work you’re doing with these women who aren’t looking for a ‘happily ever after.’ You yourself contributed to a book with twenty five romance writers talking about ‘How I found the one and only’; and its tagline was “Happily ever after isn’t just the stuff of romance. It’s every woman’s birthright.” And I know from your bio online that you married your college sweetheart on graduation day. A romantic sort of statement. Tell us about the book. The Happily Ever After story Is a Happy Ever After “every woman’s birthright?” Deanna: [00:25:15] Well the anthology is called Scribbling Women and it was done as an anthology put together for the proceeds to go to a women’s organization in New York City that I was very happy to contribute to. I always say that my husband was inevitable. That is the feeling I had from him from the very beginning. I never wanted to marry young. I was not looking for him to come in my life, or for anyone to come into my life at that point.. [00:25:55] My plan was that I was going to go to Paris after graduation. And I was going to write and I would probably be there till I was 30 and then maybe I would start looking for someone to date. Instead I got married at the age of 22. As you said on graduation day. I met him and he just felt like the most inevitable thing that was ever going to happen to me. [00:26:22] I just I knew that there was no point in resisting this and trying to keep to my Paris plan.  I wanted him. He was the right person for me and that it was gonna be a much better life if I chose him than to wait and I wait. It was 100 percent gut instinct. And so I went with it. And you know we’ve been together well –  our 30th wedding anniversary is next year. So it’s worked. It’s a fantastic thing. Yes. A wonderful story. [00:27:04] He just quit his job about six months ago to go freelance. So we spend every day together and he’s still my best pal. No one in the world can make me laugh as much as he can. If there’s a lot of sparky dialogue in my books between the main characters it’s because that’s how we still are with each other –  which is gross. People hate being around us and I’m sorry but he’s pretty awesome. ‘Sparky’ dialogue with her best pal Jenny: [00:27:41] They’re just jealous! That brings us very nicely into the slightly wider frame of your career. Is there one thing you’ve done perhaps more than any other that’s been the secret to your success? Deanna: [00:28:02] Yeah. I’m a closer. I know how to finish. I will sit my tail in the chair and I will finish the book. I get a fair number of people contacting me wanting advice on how to become a writer and how to get published. And so the first thing I used to send back this really long very detailed message and then I realized nobody ever followed through on it. Like literally not once did anybody ever follow through on it. And so I finally started telling people you know what? Finish the book first and then come back and I will tell you everything I know. But you can’t do anything till you have a finished book. Because you absolutely can’t. [00:28:47] If you’re not published, an agent is not going to look at you. You know no publisher is going to want to buy your stuff. They want to know you can finish. Finishing is the secret A Perilous Undertaking; Veronica Speedwell #2 [00:28:56] That’s because so many people have so many fantastic ideas and so many great setups. You know the ideas – we can rock through a field of ideas. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is having the discipline to sit down and do the work when you don’t feel like doing the work. When you don’t want to do the work, or when the work feels like torture. That’s when you have to sit down and do it. [00:29:25] And that’s what separates people who like the idea of writing from people who actually are writers. You know this, starting is the bright, the new, the shiny. Oh God. That’s the fun part. When you get to fall in love with the new idea and you’re infatuated with these new characters and you get to create a new world. [00:29:46] So you get to play God for a little while. That is intoxicating. But you can’t stay there, because if you do you never get through to the end. You just keep starting new projects and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with doing that as a hobby but that will never be a profession unless you learn how to be a closer. [00:30:09] I accidentally learned that with my first book because when I was 23 and I sat down and wrote that massive horrible epic long book. What I wanted to do was see how it ended. I wanted to see how to get to the end. And so from the very first time I tried to write a novel, I finished. Now I have abandoned a few since then when I wasn’t quite sure of what I was doing, but I always knew I could finish a book because I had done it. Forget perfect. Just do it. [00:30:39] And there’s a huge amount of confidence that comes with that. And I think people get so hung up on the idea of ‘oh it’s got to be good.’ That they don’t focus on the fact that it has to be done. It needs to be done and crap before it can be done and good. And that’s the whole point. Let it be crap. Just finish it and then at that point you can rewrite it until the cows come home and you can make it so much better because all that pressure is off. You’ve built that skeleton. Now you’re just putting on the flesh. Now you’re dressing it. Now you’re putting on a party hat because you’ve done the hardest part. [00:31:25] You’ve gotten through to the end. It took me a long time to get really comfortable with rewriting and to enjoy revisions. And now I do. Now I really love it. It’s actually one of my favorite things to go in and tear apart a book and say Aha I see where you’re not working and rip it all apart and stitch it back together and make a freaking book out of it. Writers Deanna admires Mary Stewart: a “binge read” classic for Deanna Raybourn [00:31:47] That is so much fun but it takes a long time I think, in the writing process, to get to that stage where you can enjoy it. Because it kind of feels like you failed. When you look at a book and you’re like well it’s not working. Or I don’t like this part or that scene doesn’t read right. [00:32:04] You feel like this monumental failure and you have to be okay with feeling bad about what the book is doing or feeling bad about your skill or feeling bad about that choice that you made. You have to be OK with that and you have to get comfortable with that and you have to be OK with sucking, until you can push through and make it better and not suck. You have to embrace the suck. And it’s hard, it’s not easy. [00:32:34] It’s really not easy to get to that point. So I sympathize with people who feel a lot of pressure to make that first draft perfect.  You know my first editor told me ‘that way madness lies’ and she’s not wrong. You really have to just take that pressure off yourself and enjoy that first draft and blaze on through to the end. Jenny: [00:32:56] Turning to Deanna as reader, because this is the Joys of Binge Reading podcast. You’ve mentioned of course that you started reading it as a tiny tot. You’ve been reading all your life. So tell me, who are some of your favorite binge reads and who would you recommend at the moment? Two ‘certifiably fresh’ favorites Deanna: [00:33:15] Well my favorite kind of classic binge reads would be Mary Stewart or Elizabeth Peters. I just have so much love for them, because they were doing cross genre before I was even out of diapers. So I have mad respect for them. Who I would recommend right now? I’ve actually just read the greatest non-fiction book. The Five by Hallie Rubenhold: the untold story of the women killed by Jack the Ripper [00:33:42] It’s called The Five by Hallie Rubinhold and it is an assessment of the five women killed by Jack the Ripper. And Hallie has done a magnificent job of going in and researching these women. I knew almost nothing about their lives. I didn’t think the records existed. [00:34:04] And she went and found them and she has constructed what their lives were. Where they were born, who they were as people, what their lives were like in Whitechapel. And it is absolutely one of the most fascinating things that I have ever read. As far as fiction there is a book that’s getting ready to come out in July. I want to say called Milady by Laura L Sullivan. I read it as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) It was absolutely fantastic. It is the telling of the Three Musketeers from the perspective of Lady de Winter. And if you want to talk about ‘bad ass’ female characters in fiction Milady kind of tops the list. It’s a great deal of fun. Very swashbuckling and a really great summertime read for us – or a winter time read for you. It works for both. You can read it on a beach or by a roaring fire. The binge reader also binge watches Milady by Laura L. Sullivan – new novel that reclaims the woman in The Three Musketeers Jenny: [00:35:07] I noticed from your bio online that you’re a bit of a binge watcher as well and I wondered if there was any TV shows you’ve been viewing that you could recommend. [00:35:16] Oh yes I am absolutely so besotted with Killing Eve. I’m not sure if it’s airing in your part of the world.  I hope so because it is a phenomenal series that’s being done for BBC and we’re getting it in the states.  It is about a female assassin and the female detective who’s trying to sleuth her out and run her to ground and it is this massive cat and mouse game. It is stylish. It is just whip smart and an incredible cast. Season Two has just finished. So I have loved Killing Eve and on the recommendation of loads of my readers I’ve just started Fleabag which is actually done by the same writer which is a UK show and I’m getting ready to start Gentlemen Jack. All of these are strong women in these casts and just some fantastic entertainment. British-made TV favorites Killing Eve: Returning for a third series. Jenny: [00:36:23] I’ll have to look those up I’m not quite sure if they are available here. But we’ll have a look. Deanna: [00:36:40] Oh So Gentlemen Jack is an HBO production so you should be able to get it through that and then Killing Eve is BBC and Fleabag is on Amazon Prime.  So hopefully those will be available free all because they’re so worth watching. Jenny: [00:37:10] Sadly we’re running out of time. It would be lovely to talk all day, but circling round and looking at your working life overall. the thriving career. At this stage if you were doing it all again, would you change anything, and if so, what? Deanna: [00:37:28] No. not a particle of it because I love everything I’ve done. Every decision I’ve made, every setback. I wrote for 14 years before I was published. From the time I wrote that first novel when I was 23, till the time I got my first publishing deal was 14 years and I wrote throughout those years. I wrote eight novels that were trash they were just awful. But I learned so much. And every every little roadblock, every obstacle, every quagmire, has brought me exactly to where I am right now and I’m incredibly happy right now. [00:38:06] I am so unspeakably fortunate to get to do what I do and I love it so much.I know the tortuous path just teaches you good lessons and keeps you humble. So I don’t know if I would appreciate what I have as much if it had come easily. So I’m glad it didn’t. I’m glad I had to work for it. Jenny: [00:38:31] Wow you really did have to work for it. Deanna: [00:38:35] I did. I did. I absolutely did. Expect the unexpected – a life motto Jenny: [00:38:38] So what’s next for Deanna the writer? What does your next 12 months look like in terms of projects? Deanna: [00:38:44] Well I just turned in the fifth Veronica Speedwell book to my editor, Literally a week ago. So I will be working on finishing up my proposal for the sixth Veronica Speedwell to see if we can get that going. And then I have the paperback release of A Dangerous Collaboration next February and the hardcover release of the fifth. Veronica Speedwell in March. And then I have another little thing on the back burner that I’ll be tinkering with to see if I can get going. And that’s my secret project. If that’s not too cryptic. [00:39:27]  I imagine you are always thinking in terms of possibly a new series. Well in the back of your mind it’s probably there. [00:39:37] You know there I never say never about anything. That’s one of the lessons that I’ve learned along the way about this business. You know my mother jokes about the fact that I need to get “Expect the Unexpected” tattooed somewhere on my person. Because, you know, you think you’re gonna Zig and no no we’re Zagging. [00:39:59] So it’s great. It keeps me on my toes. I like the change. My business cards feature a Victorian aerialist in this gorgeous red petticoat up on a high wire balancing herself, because I love the metaphor of tightrope. You know for what we do. You always have to do the balance check. You always have to be mindful of where you are, but you always have to keep looking forward and moving straight ahead Jenny: [00:40:29] I get the feeling that you very much welcome your readers interaction. Where can readers find you online. And do you like to engage with readers? Join the Virtual Cocktail Party [00:40:39] Very much so on Twitter.  Absolutely. I no longer have a Facebook account at all. But I do periodically post to my blog and I do a monthly newsletter and Instagram.  But I Tweet every day. I adore Twitter. So that is the easiest place to find me. And readers can also drop me an email if they like, through my website. [00:41:11] Twitter – what worked for me was thinking of it as an online cocktail party. It’s a virtual Cocktail Party. You drop in, you chat with people and you slip back out. I am working on getting better at Instagram. My problem is I forget to take pictures and you have to have a picture to make a post. So it’s you know Twitter’s easier for me because I can do it anywhere. I can just kind of fling a tweet out into the ether and it works. [00:41:41] Instagram I have to make a little more effort. But I love the pretty of Instagram. You know it’s just so visually arresting to go through Instagram. I love it. But no Twitter. Twitter is just my jam. I like it. [00:41:57] Wonderful Deanna. Look it’s been fantastic talking. I really think that you’re an inspiration to anyone who wants to get into this game. So thank you so much for sharing your time today. [00:42:09] Thank you so much. Jenny this has been such a pleasure.