Speaker 1: 0:03

What I tell them and I think it is very wise for anyone who wants to write a novel is read those authors you greatly respect, want to grow up to write like, or you strongly emulate, and look at their novels the way a carpenter looks at a house, that is, study the angles, Study how they have themes are developed from chapter to chapter. Study how they get in and out of scenes. Study how in a patch of dialogue, maybe six inches on a page, you can have two people talking. But their vocabulary, the way they say things, how they are dressed, distinguishes them without even having to have attribution he said, she said, or by names.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel I talk about the writing life, review books and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha.

Speaker 2: 1:20

I have with me author Gary Braver, who's an internationally bestselling and award winning author of 10 critically acclaimed mysteries and thrillers, including Gray Matter and Flashback, and his latest novel is called Rumor of Evil. I'm really excited to discuss it with him today. And I'm really excited to discuss it with him today. His novels have been translated into 17 languages and three have been optioned for movies under his own name, Gary Gosh. Garyan. He's also an English professor at Northeastern University and he had taught courses in modern bestsellers, science fiction, horror fiction, fiction writing. He has taught fiction writing workshops throughout the US and Europe, Wow. So, Gary, so nice to meet you. I'm happy to have you here and I'm so excited to learn from your expertise. And, Gary, if we can start by just telling us, you just published your latest novel, so if you can tell us a bit about it, what's the inspiration behind it? So the floor is all yours.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Thank you, natasha, it's wonderful being with you. The latest book, called Rumor of Evil Shameless Self-Promotion.

Speaker 2: 2:36

Of course.

Speaker 1: 2:37

It is the first in a series of detective novels starring two Cambridge homicide detectives, kirk Lucien and Amy Mandy Wing, and it is. It centers on a 16 year old exchange student from Slovakia, a young woman of Romani descent. She comes to affluent Lexington, massachusetts, as an exchange student to learn about American ways and to exchange her own cultural interests to American kids for over three or four months as exchange students duration of exchange students and things go very well. The local kids in Lexington enjoy her. She's very attractive, she has hand-me-down clothes and she has uncool wardrobe. So they have a lot of fun Americanizing her, bringing her to malls and introducing her to hot dogs and baseball and backyard barbecue and Mexican food. And all goes well until a pizza party. And at the pizza party one of the boys asks her when you're not slaughtering pigs in Slovakia, what do you do for fun? And she says I read palms. So of course all the kids think this is kind of cool and they all bring their hands to her. Will I get into Harvard? Will we win the basketball game this weekend, et cetera, et cetera. And one young woman comes up to her and puts her hand out and as Vadima her name is Vadima, they call her Lulu, the Americanizer with the nickname Lulu. As Lulu looks at the hand she freezes I can't go on, she says, and she asks to be taken back to the host home nearby.

Speaker 1: 4:21

And then a few days later, bad things start happening to these kids and these kids' families. And that's when rumors begin to fly and, as in the rumor of evil in the title, all sorts of prejudices and stereotyping come out. Romani people aren't those gypsies, and aren't gypsies people who put curses on people? And don't they pray to Satan? And aren't they witches in disguise?

Speaker 1: 4:48

And terribly, on Halloween night she loves sleeping outdoors in the tree house in the backyard. One Halloween night the tree house and tree catches on fire and she perishes. And that connects. That was 19 years ago, connects to the present day where the two detectives are investigating a woman hanging from a tree in her backyard in nearby Cambridge Massachusetts and they say this looks staged, she's too well dressed, she's not dressed for her own suicide, she's dressed for going out with women friends to a luncheon. And that begins the investigation. That connects that dead woman in the opening scene to the backstory the cold case of Vadima who perished in a treehouse, spreading of rumors of conspiracy theories of stereotyping, which taps into so many things that are in the headlines today in America, as well as 30 miles from here, salem Massachusetts.

Speaker 1: 5:53

In 1692, when witches were burned, were hanged, not burned. Europe hanged, burned a lot of witches in 1692 in these famous Salem witch trials. So it just connects to all that.

Speaker 2: 6:06

So what was the inspiration for this novel for you, especially the fact that she's, I mean Roman, or some people. We don't call them gypsies anymore, right, it's not politically correct, which is it's a wrong name.

Speaker 1: 6:19

I mean, they were mistaken for coming from Egypt, which they did not come from Egypt. They came from northern India four or five centuries ago and then spread throughout eastern and western Europe. I think, like any novelist who writes crime stories, I have a file of true life crimes that are really disturbing, really bizarre, and one of them jumped out at me back in 2014 and stuck in my head for a long time, and it's the famous Slender man case, in which two girls from Wisconsin lured another girl, 12 years old, into the woods and they stabbed her 19 times. Luckily, the victim survived, but the two assailants are still in psychiatric institutions. So this is bizarre, natasha. I mean, why would 12-year-old kids do a terrible thing to a 12-year-old friend? And it's.

Speaker 2: 7:14

That's a true story.

Speaker 1: 7:15

It's a true story, absolutely true story, and these two young girls are still in psychiatric institutions.

Speaker 1: 7:22

They told the police that they seriously believe that an internet cartoon character known as Slenderman, a faceless male figure with an elongated wearing a black suit and white shirt, would kill their families if they did not sacrifice their friend.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Now that is bizarre, but it reflects dangerous superstitions and a reality that is true only because you believe it's true.

Speaker 1: 7:51

There are no supernatural elements in my book, but that particular true life case made me look into a real scourge of American adolescence, which is bullying, and I looked into bullying, did a lot of research on bullying and found out that the bully victim is always somebody who is different, somebody who is kind of an outsider, someone who maybe is too tall or too short or too heavy or too thin, or speaks with an accent or comes from a different economics or socioeconomics stratum. And so I decided to invent a victim from Slovakia, from a rural pig farm, who is very attractive and very smart and wants to belong, but she is different and she is the one who becomes victimized by all these derogatory. She is the one who becomes victimized by all these derogatory stereotypes and eventually is consumed in a fire in the backyard of her host family. But it was that bullying that connected me to this story or gave me the inspiration for the story that I came up with in Rumor of Evil.

Speaker 2: 9:00

And you mentioned if I'm not mistaken, it's a part of a series Is that true?

Speaker 1: 9:05

Yes, okay, why a series? Yeah, the last novel I did I co-wrote with Tess Gerritsen, who was an internationally famous novelist and we've been friends for 30 years, and it was a police procedural called Choose Me. It did very well here and overseas and I decided that I had had two previous of the 10 or 11 novels out there I'd done two police as protagonists, but I never thought of doing series until this one and I talked to my agent. He said yeah, why don't you consider doing a series? And so I came up with the two detectives and wrote Rumor of Evil. And the second one is done. It's called In the Heat of the Moment and I'm currently working on the third in the series.

Speaker 1: 9:56

And series are fun. You have the same cast of characters, you move from crime to crime to crime and also locales are in place. So it really is convenient not to have to come up with a whole new cast of characters. So that's why I'm doing a series and also I like the two characters. I like the actually four characters I'm moving the two detectives and Kirk's wife and also the police captain. So those people are already in place and so the series is moving without having too many other characters.

Speaker 2: 10:32

So from your bio, you're very busy, you're a professor, you teach fiction, and when do you have the time to write all of these books and what's your writing routine?

Speaker 1: 10:43

Okay, I retired about a little over a year ago from teaching at Northeastern. I've been there for a long time and I quit at the right time, retired at the right time and I retired also to write full-time. It was one every two years. I have a novel every two years because I had a full schedule and I was teaching workshops here and there.

Speaker 1: 11:04

And now my two sons are grown up, they're out of the house and I'm no longer having to drive into town in Northeastern Boston or teach and so I'm writing full time and I'm a morning person and I don't need that much sleep. So I usually get up about five o'clock in the morning and click right in and have a cup of strong French roast to get my heart going and I usually write a good part of the day, maybe eight hours or so, taking a two-hour bike ride break or go to the gym if my wife and I don't have any particular social engagements. But I usually write full-time now and the time passes when you get into the writing zone and things are working out nicely.

Speaker 2: 11:46

Eight hours a day Wow. And how many words a day do you write?

Speaker 1: 11:51

Some days it flows, I maybe have five pages. Other days I look at the screen, the screen's looking at me and neither of us is doing anything, so most days are pretty good. I always crank out maybe a page or two or maybe three, but it's it's always in my head, as you know, natasha. I mean when you're writing you don't even have to be at the keyboard. You're always thinking, you're taking notes or making writing things down on three by five cards, or talking into your phone. So yeah, I'm always kind of in that mode.

Speaker 2: 12:19

So the mystery genre is very popular these days, especially crime and real crime, and why do you think that is? And I feel like it keeps getting increasing in popularity. I was looking at the I think it was the Spotify or the Apple podcast ranking of the top podcast and number one was Crime Junkie in, you know, on all of the US, which is, you know, true crime. Why do people like crime and true crime? What's with this obsession? I love true crime.

Speaker 2: 12:53

You know, like Dateline, all of that stuff. I write crime. So what's our psyche? Why do we like this stuff?

Speaker 1: 13:02

I think there's always been a fascination why people do terrible things, always a fascination in crime, ever since Edgar Allan Poe wrote the first detective story back in 1830 or something or other. So I think that that has always fascinated us If in fact evil is nature versus the product of nature or nurture, and why people do things. I've often had a workshop Love your Villain. And I think that villains in literature are different than villains in real life only because villains in real life their motives are sometimes foggy, because villains in real life their motives are sometimes foggy, we don't get them or they're kind of grubby and dumb like someone shooting on impulse. But the difference between life and literature is literature has to make sense and I think that villains, most villains in literature, are a lot more interesting than real life villains, because we as writers have to make them a lot more interesting than kind of cardboard punch outs that you might get in comic books or in the early James Bond movies. You just see a bad guy, you know he's a bad guy and James Bond and company got to go after him. But I think that a real villain does not get up in the morning and look in the morning mirror and say there is the face of evil. I think they have in their own minds sweet smelling reasons why they do bad stuff I was abused by, I had terrible parents and I was abused by them.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Or I was at odds with our neighbors, or we were born poor, so I was at odds with the socioeconomic level of society. Or I was at odds with the law, with police. I was at odds with my classmates. I was at odds with society in general. I may have been at odds with nature. I was born with a disability of some sort.

Speaker 1: 14:55

So I think they're always getting back. I think that real victims get back. They rob banks because they don't have any money and they never did, or they have a drug issue or whatever. So I think that in books people look to see what the writer's creative imagination will come up with in terms of motives, because even in the court of law, with all these legal minds, motives aren't often established. It's much more you did this crime, you're going to get punished for it, and motives might be just summarized in five or 10 words or less. So I think that that is part of why people turn to mysteries they want to know what, through the writer's mind motivated these criminals in these stories to do bad things, and also hoping for justice at the end, because the real world doesn't always end with justice, as we know.

Speaker 2: 15:52

True. So what would you tell someone who wants to write mystery? What are your top tips? I guess your secret tips.

Speaker 1: 16:04

Sure, sure. That's another good question, natasha. I taught creative writing for 40 plus years and most of the students in those writing courses here and in Hawaii, where I taught for several seasons in Europe are writing mysteries or thrillers. There is a difference and that's not important to get into, but what I tell them and I think it is very wise for anyone who wants to write a novel is read those authors you greatly respect, want to grow up to write like or you strongly emulate and look at their novels the way a carpenter looks at a house, that is, study the angles, study how they have themes are developed from chapter to chapter.

Speaker 1: 16:52

Study how they get in and out of scenes. Study how in a patch of dialogue, maybe six inches on a page, you can have two people talking. But their vocabulary, the way they say things, how they are dressed, distinguishes them without even having to have attribution he said, she said, or by names. Notice how most chapters end in kind of cliffhanger endings that it makes you, at one o'clock in the morning, not put the book down. Oh heck, I've got to read the next chapter because I'm really hooked. I want to see where this is going, how there's often action scenes followed by reflection scenes. Action scenes followed by reflection scenes fast, slow, dramatic and more thoughtful. And so you get the sense of the architecture of how books are written. It means not reading for plot.

Speaker 1: 17:43

I tell my students Study how they do it. Look at the individual sentences and how. In fast scenes, there's a narrative thrust because the sentences are shorter, they don't begin with long participial phrases, there's no use of the passive voice A voice was heard in the cellar versus Mary heard a voice in the cellar. And that you dramatize instead of tell, you show instead of tell. Instead of saying that Mary was angry, show Mary picking up her coffee cup and smashing it on the floor. Those are the tips I constantly pass on to students. But read slowly and carefully. Study how others do it.

Speaker 2: 18:28

Who do you read? Who do you study?

Speaker 1: 18:29

I don't read anyone when I'm writing, but I'll tell you the ones I had used in my course in detective fiction and science fiction horror fiction bestsellers. Michael Connolly is one of my favorites. The Irish writer, Tana French, my co-author in the last book Choose Me a, Tess Gerritsen. I love the writings of Louise Erdrich, even though she's not categorized as a mystery or thriller writer. One of my favorite books by her is the Round House by Louise Erdrich, which has a murder mystery in it. I like Stephen King I've taught Stephen King in the past and Dean Kuntz, who's quite literary and who is a much better writer than the genre asks him to be. So I have several and my former and late best friend and office mate, Robert Parker, who wrote 60 novels and most of them detective stories. So I have had a favorite authors, even though it might be said I have favorite books, because I have not read all the books by all the authors I mentioned. But I do have favorite books and the authors I mentioned are terrific.

Speaker 2: 19:43

What books should writers of mystery read, or aspiring writers, what books should they read?

Speaker 1: 19:50

Well, the ones I mentioned, read Gary Braver.

Speaker 2: 19:54

Of course Goes without saying.

Speaker 1: 19:58

I would read Tess Gerritsen. She has a novel that just came out by a former co-author. Stephen King has a very good book on writing it came out 15 years ago which I recommend to check out, just giving some ideas and some tips other than what I passed on. But you know I look for literary quality of writers and the ones I mentioned Michael Connolly in particular the Harry Botch novels are well done. The trouble I had had as an English teacher is the swarm of new novels that were self-published.

Speaker 1: 20:48

There's nothing wrong with self-publishing because today the major houses on the waterfront in New York City are overwhelmed with manuscript submissions and don't have a time to read it all, and they often hire an English major graduate from NYU or Columbia to read all the stuff that comes in, and anything hits them as a potential they'll pass it on up to superiors. The problem with the tsunami of self-published books is they're not vetted by agents. Agents get 15% of whatever they try to sell and they're usually not vetted by really professional, experienced editors. So what often is published by self-published people are books that really are not as well-written as they were 30 years ago. We'll say, when you had an agent with a literary background have a sense of what the marketplace would demand. And then editors in the publishing houses that are trying to make money but also maintain a standard of writing. So that's my main complaint as a former English professor writing.

Speaker 2: 22:02

So that's my main complaint as a former English professor. But yeah, but don't you think sometimes the author wants more control of what they write? And now, with the advent of social media, some authors can actually sell more books without an agent and without a publishing house. It's like cutting the middleman agent and without a publishing house it's like cutting the middleman um, and I've heard from authors who were traditionally published but then they went to self-publishing because they wanted more sure yeah so that's another way of it.

Speaker 2: 22:33

you know, especially that, as you said, uh, and some of the authors that I talked to say that you know, I'm not sure I'm going to be alive or live long to get my manuscript accepted by an agent, and time is short, you know, and the traditional publishing journey is extremely slow, extremely slow. So I mean, that's another point of view, I guess. But I don't know.

Speaker 1: 23:05

It's tricky these days, but there's also very talented people out there who are not getting published or even getting read by the traditional publishing. So I understand the impetus to self-publish. I spent three years on this manuscript and it's terrific and all my friends love it. And I gave it to my former English professor and he or she read it and said it's great and all my friends love it. And I gave it to my former English professor and he or she read it and said it's great and it's frustrating to try to put it in the hands of someone who's going to put it into print. And that's I understand that impulse. And you're absolutely right, that's the other side, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:32

So you've been in the industry for a long time, so how did you find your first agent?

Speaker 1: 23:39

Well, that was easy because this was back in the early 80s and I mentioned my office mate was Robert Parker and he had already begun his climb upward before he left Northeastern. And I finished a book and I said is there anyone in your Jack Hawkins agency that could look at this? And he said sure. So we sent it off and I got an agent almost instantly. But things were a lot easier back then and I always feel a little fraudulent when I'm teaching 20-something-year-olds in a fiction workshop.

Speaker 1: 24:13

But I do remind them they have one thing that I don't have they have their youth on their side and, as you said, they'll live long enough to see something published if they got something decent. But it is right now. I would hate to be breaking in as a middle-aged writer trying to break into the market, because unless you have a knockout book, and even if you do have a knockout book, getting someone to read it and to recognize it as a knockout book is hard, because it is almost as difficult to find an agent who could connect it to a major publishing house, which would give it the financial boost in marketing that it deserves. It's difficult.

Speaker 2: 24:57

Yeah, how do you market your books?

Speaker 1: 25:13

Do you outsource the marketing or what do you do? Social media, Facebook and I contact local libraries and bookstores to go in and do signings and do everything I can to get the word out. Rumor of Evil came out in October, which is a very hot month to have a book because everyone is aiming for the holiday sales. So it's it's. There's a flood of new books that had come out about the same time, but this one got fabulous reviews of pre-publication reviews and it was an editorial pick on amazon for the month of october when it came out. So it's gotten nice, um, nice promotion just from that. But you still have to keep on reminding readers that I'm here and this is a good book and I hope you buy it, because that's what it's all about.

Speaker 2: 26:11

What is the platform or the manner where you're selling more books? Is it online or is it through book reading?

Speaker 1: 26:20

It's probably more online because you can reach more people. If you go to a library I was in a library two nights ago and maybe 30 people showed up and a good number bought books, but it's much more. You have greater distribution, dispersion, online buying, ads on BookBub and Shelf Awareness and those kinds of things. It gets very costly, but it's the only way to be recognized given all the flood of all this other information that's coming out. So online, I would say, is the easiest way to reach more people.

Speaker 2: 27:00

So I was listening to a podcast the other day with a top literary agent and what was she saying? That what sell books now are not reviews in the New York Times or lists in, you know, New York Times. It's if the book becomes viral on places like TikTok. And you know, one example is Colleen Hoover. So you know she's a romance author. She, I think she, sold more books than Stephen King now and it's all because of TikTok. Yeah, it's all because of TikTok. So how do you feel about the fact that it's the younger generation who just want instant gratification on just scrolling through videos and that's how they decide what books to buy, instead of reading a lengthy, well-thought-of book review? How is that going to change the book marketing or the book industry?

Speaker 1: 28:04

Well, I think it's a kind of marketing that is just by word of mouth, I mean TikTok. It sells through the influencers all sorts of products. I'm not sure how an influencer manages to influence so many different things. If they read a book and it hits them somehow as being something that is worth distributing and worth promoting, I would like to know that secret, and I'm not sure how many books those sell. And that, but the, the one you just mentioned, someone who sold more than Stephen King, but that might be, is that called yeah, yeah, she, yeah, and I like to know the magic of that because I would like to exploit that if possible.

Speaker 1: 28:58

I read one of her books. It's okay, it's adequate and it's a page turner in some respects, but it seems to be to me somewhat formulaic. But that is, I was not the audience it was written for, and one of the things I've learned in the last several years and something I've known, actually since a long time ago is that 80% of all the books in America are purchased by females and that there is a. The last book I did with Tess Gerritsen, choose me. We had sensitivity editors read the book and make sure there was nothing that was offensive to females. There wasn't nothing that was offensive to minorities.

Speaker 1: 29:43

At one point I had described a student I did a male point of view chapters and she did the female point of view chapters, and I had a professor in class and described a young male as being chubby, and they scratched the word chubby and so we have to come up with a synonym for chubby so that not offend any readers out there who might be overweight and didn't want to border on body shaming. So we just changed the description of this kid. So there is, there is a sensitivity out there and it's also based on knowing your audience and, um, yeah, and I think this tiktok moment, I think colleen hoover whoever influenced here was very aware of the audience and managed to sell tons of books yeah, another example is the author of fourth wing, um.

Speaker 2: 30:36

It's a fantasy novel and I was reading the other day that people were queuing outside Barzal Noble in Manhattan at midnight to get the second book. It's like the new Harry Potter, and I found out about her from TikTok, honestly, and of course, I bought the book. I haven't read it yet, but I bought it because I had to and people are just going crazy for it and it all started on TikTok and I think she's a bestseller.

Speaker 1: 31:08

Did you read the book?

Speaker 2: 31:09

yet Not yet. I read a lot of books, so I'm always behind on my reading goals, on my reading goals. But yeah, so this really changed the equation from having a stellar review in the New York Times to, you know, dancing on TikTok with a book?

Speaker 2: 31:31

Yeah, exactly this is what happened and it's funny, like I have maybe 100 followers on TikTok, I usually post just book reviews or clips from our interviews. I put it on TikTok and the book reviews do way better than the interviews, and some of the people who comment they say thank you very much, I just bought it and I'm not like a huge influencer on TikTok, and so it seems that they're willing to trust me and they buy the book when I talk about it. And I noticed that in other channels, like on Twitter, I have maybe over 10,000 followers and I talk about books, but nobody says I bought that book because of you. They say that on tiktok, so it is, so it's and I'm you know I'm not getting like anything, a kickback or anything from you know, recommending these, these, these books. I'm just do it for fun that's great so it's.

Speaker 2: 32:35

it's interesting to see that people are more willing to buy books if they see them recommended on TikTok rather than other channels. So that's my kind of own discovery. So something to think about. Okay, so I published a mystery novel, finished another one, I'm working on a third one, and the third one is from the perspective parts of it from a perspective of a serial killer. Or we still don't know if he's a serial killer or not. We're suspecting he's a serial killer, so I'm not going to ruin it for you. And what you said about making that serial killer relatable kind of resonated with me. And now I'm thinking of, like at first, you know, that character was kind of nasty and mean he's. He's an old man. Now in the novel starts from him suffering from alzheimer and he got away with it, and he's like remembering and bringing back old memories and talking to you. Now I think maybe I should make him more of a charming old man rather than a cranky old man. So I don't know, what do you think?

Speaker 1: 33:50

Repeat the question again. Natasha, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 33:53

Do you think I should make the villain as an old man a charming old man or a cranky old man? Because he got away with his crime right and now we're hearing his perspective as an old man, we're inside his head and he's interacting with other people and you mentioned something about it's good to love the villain. So are you saying that I should switch from a cranky old man to a charming, sweet old man, although he is a serial killer?

Speaker 1: 34:26

for sure, so did he do something wrong when he was younger? And now is recalling that Correct, correct. When he was younger, was he a nice person or not a nice person, or is it not clear?

Speaker 2: 34:42

um, I think he was just a regular family man and nobody knew his secret like other serial killers uh, and so you're wondering if he should be a cranky old man.

Speaker 1: 34:54

Are we gonna? It's your choice might depend on how seriously we take him. If his brain is foggy with dementia, it almost makes no difference what he is today. But I would probably make him not cranky, I would make him more forgiving. Is there justice meted out? No, no, okay. So he got away with something and now he's a demented old guy. Is there justice meted out? No, no, okay. So he got away with something and now he's a demented old guy.

Speaker 2: 35:29

I'm thinking of ending it on kind of open ending, like you're not sure if he did it or not, if this is part of his dementia or it actually happened and you might want a third party to make it resolved, that is, I mean leaving it open-ended okay it may not be satisfying for the reader.

Speaker 1: 35:51

They they may want it to be resolved. And because he no longer, if he is, if it's if he's a point of view character, he may not be reliable. So you may want someone from the outside to administer an explanation of what had happened, and I would. He goes out kind of pathetically anyways, I would probably not make him so grumbly, but I think you don't want to leave it open-ended. I think that's if there's a murder mystery involved in this, you want it resolved, even though some people say go either way. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:30

Yeah, because I've read books that are unresolved and they do really well in the market, but I am pissed off when I finish them.

Speaker 2: 36:40

It's like what happened, but yeah yeah, but they actually do really well and they get really high reviews and, um, so I don't know, but yeah, so that that was kind of like a live uh critique, which was fun. Um, so, before we conclude, is there anything you'd like to add, to say and how can people find you? How can they reach you through your website? How can they find your book? All of that.

Speaker 1: 37:09

Yeah, my website is GaryBravercom G-A-R-Y-B-R-A-V-E-Rcom, and if and if there are people here in the Boston area have book clubs and want to adopt it, I will visit your book clubs and talk about the book. Within a 50-mile or 75-mile radius of Boston, the books can be purchased at any bookstore. If they don't have them on the shelves, just ask for Rumor of Evil, or you can purchase them on Kobo or Amazon or Google and the rather different platforms will pop up. But Amazon is where most people turn to. But I like supporting independent bookstores and so go to an independent bookstore that is not a chain. In fact, I strongly recommend buying most of your books from independent bookshop because we don't want to lose our bookstores and have everything sold by Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Speaker 2: 38:10

Well, thank you. Thank you very much for your time, gary, this has been wonderful, and thank you for the life critique of my manuscript.

Speaker 1: 38:17

Thank you, natasha, my pleasure.

Speaker 2: 38:18

Yeah, good luck with your own writing Of course, yeah, thank you, appreciate it and best of luck. And, for anyone who's listening or watching, thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and, until we meet again, thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, natasha Tynes. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time, happy reading, happy writing.