Hank Phillippi Ryan, HER PERFECT LIFE
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
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[0:34]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:37]Hank Silipi Ryan is the author of her perfect life.
[0:40]Hank is the USA Today best-selling author of 13 psychological thrillers,
[0:44]winning the most prestigious awards in the genre,
[0:47]five Agatha's, four Anthony's, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award.
[0:51]She's also an honor investigative reporter for Boston's WHDH TV,
[0:56]with 37 Emmys and dozens more journalism honors.
[0:59]Watch for her latest release her perfect life.
[1:02]Welcome, Hank. Thank you so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read books
[1:06]to discuss her perfect life.
[1:07]Zivi, I am so happy to be here this morning,
[1:11]and I'm seeing you holding that beautiful book.
[1:14]Have you ever seen such a gorgeous cover as on her perfect life?
[1:19]I love this cover, and actually I was thinking when I was reading it,
[1:22]like, who is this girl on the cover? Who is she?
[1:25]Like, did you pick her? Did you find her? Do you know her?
[1:28]A mysterious woman in this photograph who,
[1:31]well, you know, the Art Department of Forge did a fantastic job with this cover,
[1:36]because I wanted something elegant and mysterious,
[1:40]and a woman who was powerful and strong, but who had a secret.
[1:45]So I was hoping for a picture of a woman with a secret.
[1:49]And you know how it is when you get your cover from your editor.
[1:53]There's an email with an attachment,
[1:56]and it'll have the subject on your cover with an exclamation mark,
[2:00]which is supposed to telegraph, you're going to love this.
[2:03]And you hover your finger over the mouse, and you know in one click,
[2:07]up is going to come your future.
[2:09]And I clicked on this and up came my complete vision of this book,
[2:15]a powerful woman with a secret,
[2:18]with that gorgeous girl with a pearl earring lighting.
[2:22]It's just so elegant.
[2:24]So true. I mean, yes, an absolute Vermeer original for sure.
[2:29]Exactly. And I do think, you know, the title is so ironic her perfect life.
[2:34]And you wonder, and you know that this her life cannot be perfect.
[2:38]And you wonder why isn't it perfect and why is it supposed to be perfect?
[2:42]And you see this steely undercurrent of her trying to make a decision
[2:49]about what's going to happen next and how she can keep juggling.
[2:53]and what the stakes are.
[2:55]And I know we're just talking about a picture of a woman on the cover,
[2:57]but that's what it tells me.
[2:59]No, it means a lot. I mean, it pulls you right in for sure.
[3:03]Why don't you tell listeners why her perfect life is about
[3:05]and what inspired you to write this book?
[3:08]Oh, my gosh, this is my 13th book, which is crazy.
[3:12]And when I think about this, I started writing when I was 55.
[3:15]So to have it be my 13th book is kind of amazing.
[3:19]The DNA of a Hank Philippi Ryan book, if I can say so,
[3:23]is sort of a twisty, turny, psychological cat and mouse thriller.
[3:28]But which character is the cat?
[3:30]And which character is the mouse?
[3:33]And that's what her perfect life is all about.
[3:35]It stars Lily Atwood, Lily Atwood is a television reporter
[3:40]who is so beloved that her fans actually made a hashtag for her
[3:45]perfect Lily.
[3:47]And everyone knows who Lily Atwood is.
[3:49]And that may be her biggest problem.
[3:52]She is in the spotlight all the time.
[3:55]So she's worked hard and she's devoted and she's a good journalist.
[3:58]She has fame.
[4:00]She has fortune.
[4:01]She has Emmys.
[4:02]She has a beautiful, beloved seven-year-old daughter.
[4:06]But she also has one dark secret, a deep,
[4:11]dark life-changing secret.
[4:13]And her problem is, how do you keep a secret
[4:17]when you're in the spotlight all the time?
[4:19]So Lily Atwood begins to learn that the spotlight
[4:23]might be the most vulnerable and dangerous place of all.
[4:29]Yeah.
[4:30]I mean, reading this book, I was like, hmm,
[4:32]double-edged sword here of fame, right?
[4:35]Like, you know, it felt very, she was very vulnerable.
[4:38]I mean, it's really, I mean, it made me sort of nervous on behalf
[4:42]of every public figure, like how, you know,
[4:45]anybody, there was a line you had about the fact that you're on TV
[4:49]but you don't know who's watching you.
[4:51]Who's out there watching everything you do?
[4:53]You don't know.
[4:54]It just sounds like before it didn't sound quite as,
[4:57]I don't know, dark, but the way you made it seem,
[5:00]I was like, oh my gosh, these four newscasters.
[5:03]Interesting because I've been a television reporter for 43 years
[5:08]and I'm still on the air here in Boston.
[5:10]And I love it and I embrace it.
[5:12]I mean, we want people to watch my whole goal is to have people watch my stories.
[5:16]My goal is to have people watch my stories.
[5:20]My goal is to have people know who I am.
[5:22]My goal is to have people tell me things.
[5:26]And as Lily Atward learns, no one tells a secret without a reason.
[5:30]And that's really a wonderful undercurrent.
[5:33]But on the other side of fame is this idea that you really can't go anywhere
[5:40]without someone knowing who you are.
[5:42]And think about how that feels to know that your every move in every way
[5:47]is being scrutinized by people you don't know.
[5:50]You know, the good side is that people come up to me on the street
[5:53]and say, oh, hey, Philip, you're Ryan, I love you.
[5:55]People I don't know.
[5:57]And that's incredibly gratifying.
[5:59]But think about the dark side of that.
[6:02]It happened to me when I was anchoring the weekend news in Atlanta
[6:06]years ago.
[6:07]And I was, I just finished doing the 11 o'clock news, PM.
[6:11]And I was coming home like midnight or so.
[6:14]And there were police cars surrounding my house.
[6:18]And my house where I lived in Atlanta had been broken into burglarized
[6:23]while I was on the air.
[6:26]And the police caught the guy.
[6:28]And he told them that the reason he had chosen my house,
[6:32]which he knew was my house was that he knew I wasn't home
[6:37]because I was live in the studio on television.
[6:41]So in live TV, you not only know where someone is.
[6:45]You know where they're not.
[6:47]And each of those is equally potentially dangerous.
[6:52]It's usually fine.
[6:53]It's usually wonderful.
[6:55]But if someone wanted to use that knowledge for nefarious evil sinister,
[7:00]revengeful reasons, it just wouldn't be hard to do.
[7:04]And that's what I was trying to show in her perfect life.
[7:07]That of course, you know, she lilies glamorous.
[7:10]She has makeup people.
[7:11]She has hair people.
[7:12]She has an Annie.
[7:14]But she works very hard.
[7:16]And every day she's vulnerable.
[7:19]And she chose this life.
[7:21]But her daughter did not.
[7:23]Her little daughter, Rome, and didn't choose it.
[7:25]And what position is she putting what vulnerability,
[7:29]what dangerousness, is she putting her little daughter in
[7:32]by her choice of career?
[7:34]So it's a balance.
[7:36]Her perfect life is this balance between motherhood
[7:40]and her responsibility to her daughter.
[7:43]She's a single mom.
[7:45]And her responsibility to her job as a journalist
[7:48]and to be brave and intrepid and to go into places
[7:51]that people might not want her to be.
[7:53]She can take risks for herself.
[7:56]But can she take risks for her daughter?
[7:59]And that's all part of this balance that I focus on in the book.
[8:03]I feel like a lot of it is about trust, right?
[8:06]Greer, who works with Lily, who she thinks is her, you know,
[8:09]right-hand woman and trust implicitly in one of the scenes
[8:14]where they are filming the sort of behind-the-scenes, right?
[8:16]Why is Lily so perfect?
[8:18]And, you know, here you are with your daughter at home
[8:20]and everything.
[8:21]Lily's like, do not put her face in.
[8:23]That's enough.
[8:24]Like, I don't want her.
[8:25]You know, this is not about her.
[8:27]And Greer is like, no, no, it's fine.
[8:29]I won't put her face in.
[8:30]But then you show us what Greer is thinking.
[8:32]And she's like, well, maybe I'll just slip it in.
[8:35]And it's like, even her most trusted people,
[8:37]and of course, a lot happens with this relationship
[8:39]along the way.
[8:40]But you just, it just sets it up that you just don't know.
[8:43]And you don't know who to trust.
[8:44]Even, you know, and how do you protect your daughter
[8:48]when your whole life is public domain like that?
[8:51]Just like you were saying.
[8:53]Exactly.
[8:54]Exactly.
[8:54]I love hearing you talk about her perfect life,
[8:56]Sydney.
[8:57]It's so great.
[8:58]It's funny because, you know, I sit here for a year writing
[9:01]this book by myself.
[9:03]And then there's the moment when someone actually reads it.
[9:06]And I really think that the book is not fulfilled
[9:08]until someone reads it.
[9:10]So the idea of having you tell me about the book is just
[9:15]so great.
[9:15]And I know exactly what scene you're talking about.
[9:17]Greer is Lily's producer.
[9:21]And the producer reporter team in television
[9:24]is this incredible marriage of necessity,
[9:28]of talent, of ambition, of skill.
[9:31]Television is a very nomadic local television.
[9:34]It's a very nomadic kind of job.
[9:36]And you're always wanting to go to a bigger market
[9:38]to get a better job to be more, you know,
[9:41]higher on the ladder.
[9:42]So Greer, Lily's producer, her teammate,
[9:45]is not only working with Lily to make sure
[9:48]that Lily's career blossoms,
[9:50]but also that Greer's career blossoms.
[9:53]And so Greer is trying to balance her loyalty
[9:56]to Lily, her teammate, with her kind of loyalty.
[10:00]and ambition for herself.
[10:03]So if she can put darling little Rowan on TV
[10:07]and have people watch it and have the ratings go up,
[10:10]might that not be better?
[10:11]You know, what if she convinces herself
[10:13]that Lily is really wrong and that everyone wants
[10:16]to see her daughter and this will enhance Lily's reputation?
[10:19]And there's, you know, there's this manipulation
[10:22]that we do of each other.
[10:24]It's interesting because my books are not graphically violent.
[10:27]I don't like inappropriate language.
[10:29]I don't like graphic violence.
[10:31]I don't like graphic sex and books.
[10:32]You know, I don't do that.
[10:34]But what I do in her perfect life and all my books
[10:38]is sort of mind games.
[10:40]It's sort of manipulation and gaslighting
[10:43]and what we do to each other.
[10:46]You know, how destructive a weapon our emotions can be.
[10:49]Just as destructive as a gun or a knife,
[10:53]what we do to each other and how we try to convince
[10:56]each other of things and how we, as individuals,
[10:59]rationalize that what we're doing is a good thing.
[11:03]It's true.
[11:03]And I feel like also Greer feels this sense of entitlement
[11:07]because Lily had to turn down this big job offer
[11:10]in New York City for Rowan's school.
[11:13]And Greer sort of, she feels like I'm so sorry,
[11:16]but Greer had attached herself to Lily at this point
[11:19]and she's like, that's okay.
[11:19]Well, stay here.
[11:20]She's single.
[11:21]She's not even a pet, right?
[11:23]Because she's never home.
[11:24]But because of that trade off, I think Greer feels,
[11:28]well, if we need to bolster herself here, you know,
[11:31]I did this for her.
[11:32]Now, she has to do, you know, it's sort of like a,
[11:34]I pet your bed.
[11:35]What's the intention?
[11:36]I pet your bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed.
[11:39]And whatever it is.
[11:40]Yeah. And this is how scratched my back.
[11:41]I don't know.
[11:42]Whatever.
[11:43]I think it works for Pat.
[11:44]You're back too, actually, because I think
[11:46]that's kind of brilliant and zippy
[11:47]because if I'm nice to you and you're nice to me
[11:50]and everybody's nice to each other,
[11:52]then probably that's a good idea
[11:55]when it really is a trade off.
[11:59]It really is this, it really is this currency that we have
[12:03]that I'll do something for you and you do something for me.
[12:05]And usually it works except when it takes a darker cast.
[12:11]When we use you owe me, you know, I did this for you.
[12:15]So now you owe me and you start hearing the difference
[12:19]in the tone.
[12:21]And that's what suspense is.
[12:22]That's what a suspense novel is.
[12:24]That's what psychological suspense like her perfect life.
[12:27]That's what that is.
[12:29]Oh, you know, realizing, and we all have friends.
[12:32]We all have acquaintances who do this,
[12:35]who sort of pretend that they're doing it for you,
[12:38]but they're not, you know, they're doing it for themselves.
[12:42]And that's a wonderful thing to plum to write about
[12:46]in novels of suspense.
[12:48]And that's what I think makes books like this.
[12:50]Psychological suspense, domestic suspense.
[12:53]Be so relatable and engaging because I want my readers
[12:56]to think, ooh, I know somebody like that.
[13:00]Or even ooh, I feel like that.
[13:02]I didn't really recognize it.
[13:04]So it's in this illumination of a sometimes
[13:07]that we all have a little bit of a darker side
[13:10]and how we have to understand what that is.
[13:13]Plus it's about the power of guilt, right?
[13:16]When you do something and then you think,
[13:18]oh, this isn't not quite, this is not quite right,
[13:21]but nobody will notice.
[13:22]Nobody will notice.
[13:24]And that's exactly what they notice.
[13:27]So Hank, why, first of all,
[13:30]how did you learn how to write?
[13:32]I mean, the way you speak about psychological thrillers
[13:36]and dramas and all of this and what it takes,
[13:37]like it's obviously like so on point
[13:40]as you've mastered with your, you know, collection of books.
[13:43]But you're, what made you,
[13:45]like you were already a successful, you know,
[13:48]journalists, why go into writing these types of novels?
[13:52]And how did you sort of pick up that skill along the way?
[13:56]I love this question because it makes,
[13:59]it makes it sound like there's a plan in that.
[14:01]It makes it sound like, ooh, I had this process
[14:04]that I was my five year plan.
[14:05]There was nothing like that.
[14:06]I can tell you very quickly, you know, my husband and I
[14:09]don't celebrate the anniversary of the day we met.
[14:12]We celebrate the anniversary of the day before we met.
[14:16]And we call it, you never know day
[14:19]because you never know what wonderful thing
[14:21]is around the next corner.
[14:22]So you never know, and we never know in our lives
[14:25]what decisions we make that will bloom into something else.
[14:29]So I grew up in really rural Indiana.
[14:32]So rural that you couldn't see another house from our house.
[14:36]And my sister and I used to ride our ponies
[14:38]to the library to get books and we'd read up
[14:41]in the haloft of the barn behind our house.
[14:43]And that's where I would read Agatha Christie
[14:46]and Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew.
[14:48]And you know, all the wonderful Golden Age mystery authors
[14:51]Naomi Marsha and Josephine Tay and Dorothy Sayers.
[14:54]And I knew that I wanted to either be,
[14:56]I was maybe 12 that I wanted to either be a mystery writer
[15:00]or a detective.
[15:01]I thought it might be cooler to be Sherlock Holmes
[15:05]than it would be to write about Sherlock Holmes.
[15:07]So that's sort of what a television reporter is.
[15:10]That's sort of what a journalist is, is a detective.
[15:13]We're tracking down clues and uncovering secrets
[15:16]and telling the world about things.
[15:19]But one day, when I was at Channel 7,
[15:21]I just had a good idea for a novel.
[15:24]I knew it was a good idea, you know how,
[15:27]and you've had a million good ideas,
[15:29]if you know this, that moment when you have a good idea
[15:33]and you think, wow, this is gonna work.
[15:37]This is totally going to work.
[15:39]And I came home and I said to my husband,
[15:41]I've got a great idea for a mystery.
[15:43]I'm going to write a novel.
[15:45]And my husband says, great honey, he says,
[15:50]do you know how to write a book?
[15:52]And I'm like, how hard can it be?
[15:54]You know, I've read a million of these.
[15:56]And I've read thrillers and mysteries my whole life.
[15:58]How hard can it be?
[15:59]So I soon learned how hard it could be.
[16:02]But I persevered and I was so passionate.
[16:05]I was so obsessed.
[16:06]I was driven to do this nights and weekends.
[16:09]Well, I was on the air.
[16:10]I worked all day at my TV job and I came home
[16:13]and I just wrote and that became prime time,
[16:16]my first novel, which won the Agatha for Best First Novel.
[16:20]And that was the crazy beginning,
[16:23]the random, unpredictable, unplanned totally beginning
[16:28]of my second career as a fiction writer.
[16:32]But, you know, is it the Malcolm Gladwell,
[16:34]you have to write a million words or something
[16:36]like that in order to be a writer?
[16:38]Think about it.
[16:39]When I started writing fiction,
[16:42]I've been writing nonfiction for 30 years at that point
[16:47]with the character you care about,
[16:49]with the problem that needs to be solved,
[16:51]with an important problem that needs to be solved,
[16:54]where the good guys win and the bad guys get
[16:57]what's coming to them.
[16:58]And in the end, you want some justice
[17:01]and you want to change the world a little bit.
[17:03]And as an investigative reporter,
[17:05]that's what I did every day.
[17:07]And that's exactly what I did as a crime fiction writer.
[17:11]The difference is, of course,
[17:13]that I had to make stuff up.
[17:15]And I wondered, Zibi, whether I could.
[17:18]That was the big hurdle for me.
[17:20]You know, would my brain after all these years
[17:23]of telling stories with a beginning, middle and end, you know,
[17:26]but I only could use the facts
[17:28]and I could only use the setting that I had.
[17:30]And I could only use the real dialogue that someone said,
[17:32]would I be able to make something up?
[17:36]And as I sat here right at this desk,
[17:38]looking out at the sugar maple tree in my backyard,
[17:42]I realized that I could do that,
[17:45]that I could create a world that never existed before,
[17:50]a world that I could introduce readers to
[17:53]that could take them to a new place,
[17:55]a place they'd never been in.
[17:57]It was so exciting.
[17:58]I mean, I even get goosebumps talking to you about it
[18:01]because that moment of realization that I had conquered
[18:06]something that I had wanted to do
[18:09]since I was a little girl.
[18:10]Is this, you know, it's really, you know,
[18:14]I always say to people,
[18:15]if you want to do something, why not now?
[18:18]Why not be brave?
[18:21]You know, we are brave when we're teenagers,
[18:23]but we lose that bravery.
[18:25]We lose that self-sufficiency.
[18:27]We lose that idea that we can accomplish
[18:29]pretty much whatever we want.
[18:31]But we have to go for it.
[18:33]And that's sort of my mantra about this,
[18:35]but not just try it now.
[18:37]But what is there to lose?
[18:38]Because there's nothing to lose.
[18:40]And I'm in a completely different place
[18:42]as a result of just exactly that.
[18:45]You never know what wonderful thing is around the next corner.
[18:48]That's kind of how I feel about this whole podcast.
[18:51]But I didn't have to start it.
[18:55]I just like started it.
[18:56]And now look, I get to sit here and talk to people like you,
[18:59]I'm like, you know, I hang on your every word,
[19:01]the way you talk, the way you write.
[19:02]Like it's so interesting.
[19:04]It's a deeply interesting and inspiring to me.
[19:06]And I get to do this with you,
[19:08]but like, you know, this is what I do now.
[19:09]It's like amazing.
[19:11]But I didn't have to do this.
[19:12]Why not?
[19:13]That was sort of how I started to.
[19:15]Why not try it?
[19:15]I think I can do it and why not?
[19:17]So anyway, I totally understand.
[19:19]But I was wondering whether you felt this way,
[19:23]if I said to you Zippy, you know,
[19:24]why did you get to do this podcast?
[19:26]And if you like, I just thought it was a good idea.
[19:29]And I saw your face when I was talking about
[19:32]knowing that you had a good idea.
[19:34]And when that happens, I don't know whether it's bravery
[19:38]or naivete that, you know,
[19:41]the obstacles just seem to disappear.
[19:44]You just go for it and you learn along the way
[19:47]and everything isn't always perfect.
[19:49]Everything isn't always her perfect life.
[19:51]But when you face an obstacle, it's like,
[19:53]if someone said, if someone promised you,
[19:56]I mean, it's that adage that says,
[19:58]what would you attempt to?
[20:00]do if you knew you could not fail.
[20:03]What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
[20:06]If someone said to you, I promise this will work.
[20:09]It may be tough along the way,
[20:10]but I promise you you will be successful at this.
[20:14]You would say, okay, I'll do it.
[20:16]I'll try it because I know that I will succeed.
[20:19]And so everything always works some way.
[20:24]It may not work the way you thought it would
[20:26]or hoped it would, but it works some way.
[20:29]And often the way it works is surprising and wonderful
[20:34]if you are open to embrace that.
[20:37]I love it.
[20:38]I love it for you.
[20:39]I love it for Lily.
[20:40]I love, you know, it's like the such an inspiring message
[20:43]because I think people so often feel stuck and afraid.
[20:50]And this whole message is like, well, just try it.
[20:53]Why not?
[20:54]You know, why not?
[20:55]And just know also knowing like, I'll handle it.
[20:57]Like, yeah, things will go wrong.
[20:58]And, you know, Lily handles it and I don't know.
[21:02]And also just being aware of the trade-offs.
[21:03]I mean, one thing with Lily too is like,
[21:06]all the Emmys that she wins.
[21:07]And I'm looking at your Emmys behind you,
[21:08]which is like so cool because I don't think
[21:10]I've ever seen one in real life.
[21:11]And this is as close to real life.
[21:12]It's like, oh my God, they go all the way up the wall.
[21:15]That's so cool.
[21:16]For people listening, I'll post this little clip
[21:19]on Instagram, I guess, so we can see all the awards.
[21:21]But it's so exciting.
[21:22]But when Lily is up there accepting her award,
[21:25]she's also in the back of her head,
[21:27]thinking about the fact that her success sometimes comes
[21:31]and causes like the downfall of other people.
[21:33]For example, her investigative report of cafeteria
[21:36]work, not cafeteria, but the health system inspector
[21:39]who basically forges reports.
[21:41]And anyway, it's one of the things that wins her.
[21:45]This award is uncovering this ring essentially.
[21:50]Anyway, so it's like success comes at a cost
[21:53]and who is the cost for?
[21:55]And I was just wondering about that in terms of you
[21:58]and your awards.
[21:59]And do you feel like there's a cost associated with it?
[22:03]Do you feel guilt or something at some of any
[22:06]of the stories you've covered?
[22:07]Or where did that little piece come from?
[22:10]That is so wise of you, should be so wise.
[22:13]Because you were talking about the Emmys.
[22:16]Every one of those Emmys on my shelf
[22:19]represents a secret that someone didn't want me to tell
[22:23]represents a story that someone else would rather have kept
[22:27]hidden.
[22:28]And so part of my responsibility as a journalist,
[22:31]exactly as you say, is to way, first do no harm.
[22:36]But if someone else is doing harm, how many people
[22:39]can I help by revealing that someone is stealing money
[22:43]or cheating or harming you in some way?
[22:48]We've done stories about the 911 system
[22:51]that was sending emergency responders.
[22:53]Police and firefighters to the wrong address
[22:55]thousands of times a year in Massachusetts.
[22:58]And you call 911 and the people go to the wrong place.
[23:01]So the person who was in charge of that
[23:02]as a result of our story was fired.
[23:05]And I had a moment of thinking, oh, I'm so sorry.
[23:07]You know, I didn't mean you to lose your job
[23:09]but on the other hand, you were putting people at risk,
[23:12]thousands of people at risk.
[23:14]And so there is that balance.
[23:16]I mean, I've wired myself with him cameras
[23:19]and gone undercover and confronted corrupt politicians
[23:22]and chased down criminals and gone in disguise.
[23:25]And all of those things were to get to the secrets
[23:30]that people were hiding that were harming the public.
[23:34]So was it risky?
[23:35]Sometimes risky.
[23:36]Was it scary?
[23:37]Sometimes scary.
[23:39]I've been stopped and yelled at and threatened and followed
[23:42]and had people come to my home.
[23:44]Are people, have people call and scream at me and say,
[23:48]how could you do that to me?
[23:50]And I say, you know, I say, I didn't do it.
[23:54]You did, you did it.
[23:56]And so you have to get a little bit of a thick skin
[24:01]to be an investigator, reporter.
[24:03]Because I told you earlier that people
[24:05]come up to me on the street and say, oh, Hank, I love you.
[24:08]Well, there are other people who feel exactly the opposite
[24:11]about that.
[24:12]And there are people who do not want to see me in their doorway.
[24:15]I had a new director once who said to me that he said,
[24:19]every good investigator, reporter, comes to town
[24:23]and works until everybody hates them.
[24:25]And so that's that luckily Boston is big.
[24:30]So there's a lot that I still have a lot of people to go.
[24:33]But yes, it is an answer to your question.
[24:36]Lily has the same situation.
[24:38]Lily is a devoted, honorable, journalist
[24:42]who has given her life to enlightening and education
[24:48]and illustrating problems and putting
[24:51]the sunlight on a problem, that's what she does.
[24:55]But that absolutely comes at a cost.
[24:57]And it comes at a cost of her own personal scrutiny
[25:00]and her own personal privacy and her own personal vulnerability.
[25:04]And one of the things that starts her perfect life
[25:08]is when one of her anonymous sources
[25:10]who's given her story after story that really worked out,
[25:14]so clearly this person knows something,
[25:16]starts telling her secrets about herself.
[25:20]So the tables are turned.
[25:22]She's the one who's telling other people's secrets
[25:26]now someone knows hers.
[25:28]And I loved the idea of how does a reporter feel
[25:32]when they're not the one telling the secrets,
[25:34]but when someone is telling the secrets about them,
[25:37]and how do you protect your perfect life
[25:40]when that is what's happening?
[25:42]Well, it is very clear why Rowan Lily's daughter
[25:46]feels like she is actually a spy and not a reporter,
[25:49]because talking to you, it feels that way too,
[25:51]that you are the detective.
[25:52]You really are like one of those, anyway.
[25:54]So I'm wondering what else you have,
[25:56]like what book is coming next?
[25:58]I'm assuming there's another book, but maybe not.
[26:00]Tell me what's coming next.
[26:01]And then also what advice you have for aspiring authors.
[26:04]Oh my goodness, with the book that's coming next,
[26:07]and a couple of ways to talk to me about that,
[26:09]it's in the middle of my new book,
[26:11]which is I can tell you Zibi, I think nobody knows this yet,
[26:14]but it's called her new best friend, her new best friend.
[26:19]And it's about the power of friendship,
[26:22]and how women deal with each other as friends,
[26:27]and when that can be the best thing
[26:29]that could possibly ever happen,
[26:31]but how someone could possibly weaponize friendship
[26:37]in order to get someone to do what they want them to do.
[26:40]I mean, the key of good suspense
[26:43]is what does someone want,
[26:45]and how far will they go to get it?
[26:48]So I'm exploring in my new book,
[26:51]which comes out this time next year,
[26:52]crossing fingers, and all kinds of things
[26:54]that you have to say to make good luck happen.
[26:56]We'll be out going through.
[26:58]Thank you, thank you for knocking on what.
[27:00]Every little bit helps.
[27:01]We'll be called her new best friend.
[27:04]So we'll see what happens that you're talking to me,
[27:07]when I'm about halfway through.
[27:08]So why does call this the muddle in the middle?
[27:12]But we think, oh my golly, I have no idea,
[27:15]but I always come out the other end, and we shall see.
[27:18]You asked about advice to writers.
[27:21]It's interesting, people talk about,
[27:23]oh, I'm an aspiring writer.
[27:26]And I say, are you writing?
[27:28]Because if you're writing, you're not aspiring,
[27:30]you're doing it.
[27:32]And I think that writing comes from love,
[27:36]and writing comes from passion,
[27:38]and writing comes from the desire to tell a story
[27:42]and share a story.
[27:44]Sometimes I have bad writing days.
[27:47]Sometimes I'm sitting at my desk going, oh my golly.
[27:50]You just wrote the worst sentence
[27:52]that's ever been written in the history of human time.
[27:54]Oh my gosh, that's terrible.
[27:56]And then I think, yup, that was pretty bad.
[27:58]Let's write another bad sentence,
[27:59]Hank, let's just keep going and keep going.
[28:03]And I think that's my advice, Libby.
[28:06]My advice, Libby, is just to keep going.
[28:10]Because if you have a story to tell,
[28:13]you need to tell it, and no one cares about your book
[28:17]as much as you do.
[28:19]So if you don't write it, there's no one
[28:22]that's gonna be calling you and saying,
[28:23]how's your book going, Hank, how's it going?
[28:26]You have to have the responsibility.
[28:29]You have to have the passion.
[28:30]You need to have the drive.
[28:32]You need to have the joy every day.
[28:35]Like I do, I'm sitting down at my computer
[28:37]and I think, okay, I wonder what's going to happen next.
[28:41]And that's what keeps me going.
[28:43]That joy of my own suspense of creating my own mystery
[28:47]and discovering my own answers.
[28:50]I highly recommend it.
[28:52]It's work, it's difficult.
[28:55]But if it's not difficult, you're not working hard enough
[28:58]and there is nothing like the joy of telling a good story.
[29:02]I love it.
[29:03]And a wrap, I'm kidding.
[29:06]Thank you.
[29:07]It's so professional.
[29:07]I love it.
[29:08]Thank you so much.
[29:09]Thank you for coming on.
[29:10]Thank you for even the backstory of this awesome cover
[29:14]for her perfect life.
[29:15]I'm excited for your next book.
[29:17]And yeah, like keep at it.
[29:19]This is so inspiring.
[29:20]So thank you for sharing your story.
[29:21]Thank you, Zibi.
[29:22]I've had a wonderful time this morning.
[29:25]I'm a huge fan as everyone is and as you will know.
[29:28]And I love the idea that you are bringing us all together
[29:33]to talk about things that we share and care about
[29:36]even in this crazy time.
[29:38]What you do is just more important than ever.
[29:40]So I'm pleased to be part of it.
[29:41]Thank you.
[29:42]It's so nice.
[29:43]Thank you.
[29:44]All right, well, take care and thank you for everything.
[29:49]Thanks for listening to this episode
[29:50]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[29:52]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[29:55]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[29:57]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens'
[30:00]and sign up for my virtual book club
[30:02]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[30:04]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[30:07]for the Sound Editing.
[30:08]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[30:10]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.