Kristen Ness, AT LOGGERHEADS
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Kristin Ness is the author of At Loggerheads, a novel.
[1:06]Kristin grew up in South Carolina and serves as a volunteer for the island turtle team
[1:10]on Isle of Palms, a graduate of Duke University and the University of South Carolina
[1:15]School of Law.
[1:16]She's an immigration attorney obsessed with marine biology.
[1:19]She lives near the coast in Charleston, South Carolina with her family.
[1:22]And I actually met Kristin when I did an event for the Charleston Society Library and went
[1:28]to a pre-party the night before and met her and she is wonderful at Loggerheads.
[1:32]It's her first novel.
[1:33]Welcome, Kristin.
[1:34]Thank you so much for coming on Momstone.
[1:35]Have time to read books to discuss At Loggerheads, a novel.
[1:39]Thank you, Zippy.
[1:40]Thank you for having me.
[1:41]I'm thrilled to be here and to talk to you.
[1:43]It's so fun.
[1:44]It was so great that we met in Charleston and you were like, I've got this book.
[1:48]What do you think?
[1:49]And we sort of kept in touch.
[1:50]And now here it is.
[1:52]So I feel like the sense of, I don't know, not ownership but pride in you.
[1:56]And they're like, all that's happened in the last couple of months.
[1:59]It's amazing how fast things have gone.
[2:01]Yes, it has a blown by and it was such a pleasure to meet you then and that just felt
[2:06]the immediate connection.
[2:07]Like I know so many people do when they meet me.
[2:10]And I'm so glad we kept in touch and really appreciate you having me on your podcast.
[2:15]So we can talk more.
[2:16]I just feel like there's so much to catch up on and talk about.
[2:19]I'm so excited.
[2:20]Well, okay.
[2:21]Let's start with At Loggerheads.
[2:23]Thank you for the detailed explanation of the beginning for the term at Loggerheads in
[2:28]Well, you didn't know and now it also dovetails with the turtle.
[2:32]Tell listeners how you came up with the idea for this book and what the book is about.
[2:37]Okay.
[2:38]Well, first of all, the book is about a murder that takes place on a fictional barrier
[2:42]island in South Carolina called Anders Isle.
[2:46]And that brings together our main characters, Dr. Brooke Eden, who's a sea turtle biologist
[2:51]and the local detective drew young to unravel a mystery that might impact the race for
[2:58]the White House.
[2:59]So you have some sea turtles and some murder, politics and romance.
[3:04]So definitely a love story carries through it as well.
[3:07]I first got the idea for it.
[3:09]First of all, I'm just from a very young age, I've always been obsessed with marine biology
[3:14]and sea creatures and growing up in South Carolina, we would come down to the coast to
[3:20]the barrier islands here.
[3:21]Isle of Palms, mostly.
[3:23]I was that kid out on the beach with my cast net, dragging stuff out of the tide pools
[3:28]to see what I could find.
[3:30]And just always have been fascinated by all of that type of sea life.
[3:34]So that was always a secret passion of mine.
[3:38]And when it came time to do something about my other passion, which is writing, and I finally
[3:43]needed to come up with an idea, thinking that I might attempt a novel length book.
[3:49]I had to have something to do with sea creatures.
[3:52]So I was searching for my idea and kind of had a lot of free writing going on and just
[3:58]writing in my journal, the things that I would always do, but I hadn't really hit on that
[4:02]idea yet.
[4:03]And my mom and I were out at Isle of Palms, walking on the beach, and this was a while
[4:07]ago, probably 15 years ago or so, when I first got the idea and I saw a sea turtle track
[4:12]for the first time where the female loggerhead, you've read my book.
[4:16]So you see this in the book, comes on shore to nest.
[4:20]And she leaves this track on the sand that looks kind of like a bulldozer drove onto
[4:24]the beach.
[4:25]So it's very hard to miss, especially at low tide, but I had never seen one in real life.
[4:30]So my mom and I came across this and I thought, and this is a turtle track, I've seen pictures
[4:34]of it, but the seat of an idea came to me that what might happen if there was this track
[4:40]onto the beach, but there was no turtle, no nest, and no track going back to the ocean,
[4:46]which is normally what you would see, either a nest, or at least a track back to the ocean
[4:50]if she did what we call is a false crawl and didn't make a nest.
[4:54]But this seat of an idea just popped into my head as I guess sometimes with writers
[4:58]that happens when you're thinking of ideas.
[5:01]And my book obviously isn't science fiction, so the turtles aren't flying away.
[5:05]They're not, you know, mutant into turtles there.
[5:07]So I needed to come up with some story around this that we'd build into a fiction.
[5:12]And then I've always enjoyed the genres of murder mystery and suspense and thriller.
[5:16]So I chose murder mystery as my vehicle to deliver the story and sort of built the outline
[5:22]out over time.
[5:24]And then sat down and just started writing it from page one.
[5:29]And it took me about 10 years, oh my gosh, the right, the first draft, there was a lot
[5:34]going on in life, you know, a lot of things needed.
[5:37]My attention, so my book was something I would just come back to for a creative outlet
[5:43]and just to visit those characters and escape into that world.
[5:47]And about 10 years ago, we moved down to Charleston.
[5:50]I was living in Charlotte when I started the book.
[5:53]And I immediately joined the sea turtle team so that I could see firsthand what that was
[5:57]like and get out there and help the sea turtles.
[6:00]So that was the inception of the book and sort of where it all went from there and now
[6:05]here it is.
[6:06]Wow, you know, one thing that I thought you did in a really interesting way versus other
[6:13]murder mysteries, if you will, which this doesn't like fit neatly into that category,
[6:17]which I liked.
[6:18]I liked that it had so many different things to it and that it wasn't predictable and
[6:22]where it was going.
[6:24]Instead of starting off with the murder of a person, it takes us a little bit to get to
[6:28]the murder of the person.
[6:30]Instead, we start with the murder of a turtle and you humanize the turtle right away by
[6:35]showing us the turtles tears and what it does to Brooke in terms of her emotions and
[6:42]how she's even willing to like, you know, rope in her, her ex who becomes this huge character
[6:46]in the book because of it.
[6:48]And as a reader now, we are completely like drawn in and caring about the turtle, caring
[6:54]about the culture, wanting to know more, why does she care so much, blah, blah, blah.
[6:59]So how did you decide like in your 10 years or in your structuring of the story?
[7:04]Did you contemplate starting out with the murder of Brooke's dear confidant friend, everything,
[7:12]which comes later.
[7:13]I almost don't want to spoil who gets murdered because that in itself feels like a big unveiling.
[7:19]But did you think about putting that further up?
[7:21]Did you always want to start with the turtle on the beach, which sounds like yes, with
[7:25]the track marks that, you know, the road tracks and tell me about that.
[7:29]Okay.
[7:30]So the structuring of it.
[7:31]I wanted people to care about the turtle straight out.
[7:35]So that was intentional that I had that scene where you see the turtle happen very close
[7:41]to the beginning.
[7:43]Originally that chapter was actually the first chapter and I didn't have a prologue.
[7:47]But I wanted the reader, those readers who might be coming to it strictly for a murder
[7:52]mystery and might not have immediately an interest in sea turtles.
[7:57]I didn't want to turn those readers off by starting the sea turtle.
[8:01]I hoped that they would care once they started reading.
[8:05]But I wanted that hook to be a little more vague at the beginning.
[8:08]So I ended up moving the scene where the children are out on their John boat to the prologue
[8:14]and leaving it more vague.
[8:16]I just said that they were teenagers.
[8:17]I didn't give them names.
[8:19]The readers didn't get too attached to those characters and then left it very vague about
[8:24]what they find so that you don't know right away if they found a human body or if they found
[8:31]something else very scary and then went into the first thing that you see, the first
[8:37]murder in terms of an animal that you see is with the sea turtle.
[8:42]I'm very glad that you related to it and cared about the turtle as a result and wanted
[8:48]to see what had happened with the turtle because that was intentional on my part to get
[8:53]the readers to care about the sea turtle by seeing it in this position and seeing what had
[8:58]happened to the sea turtle.
[9:00]Of course, people who already love sea turtles are immediately going to be upset about it,
[9:04]but even people who don't know anything about sea turtles, they're going to find hopefully
[9:09]some empathy for that sea turtle and for the whole situation and for our main character
[9:13]who is obviously really upset about it because she knows this turtle and as part of being
[9:19]on the turtle team, you do get to know some of the regular sea turtles that nest on the
[9:24]beach because those females come back to nest every two to three years on the same stretch
[9:30]stretch of beach.
[9:31]So over time, some of them get to be well identified by their size or by their track mark,
[9:37]whatever it might be.
[9:38]So, yes, originally I had thought about putting the turtle right up front and then switched
[9:42]it around so that you had a little bit of a glimpse of something else going on to kind
[9:46]of keep you reading past the turtle and get a little deeper into it.
[9:51]Interesting.
[9:52]Well, one of the things you mentioned the White House and there is one sort of subplot
[9:57]or not even a subplot, but one element of the book.
[10:00]which involves a father-son dynamic,
[10:03]I don't wanna give things away in that either,
[10:05]but not so dissimilar to the Biden's
[10:08]in the office at the moment.
[10:09]And what do you do and what do you do
[10:12]or who do you pin the blame on?
[10:14]Who does what?
[10:16]What do we really know?
[10:18]I don't wanna say anything,
[10:19]but there is that element of cover-up
[10:23]and I mean, not necessarily in the government.
[10:26]I don't know.
[10:27]I don't wanna say anything negative about anybody
[10:29]and none of us really know the facts,
[10:31]but there is something somewhat similar.
[10:34]So speak a little bit about that.
[10:36]And it's also, you know,
[10:38]the bands that parents will take,
[10:41]or children will take for their parents,
[10:42]what will parents do for their children?
[10:44]And it all kind of links back to your overall theme,
[10:47]I feel like, which is the sense of home
[10:49]and what does that mean?
[10:50]And how do we all define home?
[10:52]And who do you wanna be at home with and all of that?
[10:55]That's so true.
[10:56]And I'm so glad that you mentioned that theme of home
[10:59]also, because it has several layers in the book,
[11:03]home being the setting, of course, of Andrew's Isle,
[11:06]which, you know, that sense of place certainly plays a part
[11:09]and is almost a character in and of itself.
[11:11]And then Brooks sort of searched for meeting of home
[11:15]through the book right up front in the first chapter.
[11:18]I kind of hint at this whole idea of her search for home.
[11:22]And then you have the sea turtles,
[11:23]who, you know, people say they leave once they leave the beach,
[11:27]they somehow find their way back to their home beach,
[11:30]their natal beach where they were born,
[11:31]and that's where the females nest,
[11:33]or at least in the region of their nesting.
[11:35]And then you're right, just the idea of,
[11:37]who do you wanna be at home with?
[11:38]How are these family dynamics working?
[11:41]And when it comes to politics,
[11:43]I didn't wanna pin anyone type of politics down, right?
[11:47]I wanted to leave that to the reader to bring
[11:49]to the story what they wanted,
[11:51]but I did want that interplay and sort of inter,
[11:55]they're interchangeable almost.
[11:57]The father, son, dynamic in the characters of Caldwell
[12:01]and his father, who's the senator running for president.
[12:04]I wanted them to be close enough in their,
[12:09]well, I guess in a way that the son often mirrors the father
[12:12]or wants to make the father proud, right?
[12:14]He wants to live up to his father's expectations.
[12:18]That plays a large role in the things that he decides to do
[12:21]in the way he goes about his life.
[12:24]And then I don't wanna give too much away,
[12:26]but I kind of flip it at the end.
[12:28]I just wanna make sure that people think about it
[12:31]from different perspectives.
[12:33]You say, father being protective of his son
[12:35]or a son wanting to emulate his father.
[12:39]And sometimes it works out that way in the dynamic.
[12:42]And then other times there are questions
[12:44]about what that relationship really is.
[12:46]Like you see playing out in current politics.
[12:49]And I also didn't want it to be too tied
[12:51]to any one time in politics,
[12:54]since I've been writing it over time.
[12:56]Obviously it wasn't directly related to any one campaign
[13:02]or one time in politics.
[13:04]But yes, that sense of home definitely carries through
[13:07]and that idea of what does home mean?
[13:09]Is it the people that you live with?
[13:11]Is it the structure of the house?
[13:13]Is it some activity that you find comfort in
[13:16]or some other group of people?
[13:18]Or is it a place, just a place somewhere on that
[13:21]that you have to go to to make yourself feel
[13:23]comforted and like you're at home?
[13:26]Or sometimes it's another person.
[13:28]Yeah.
[13:29]Sometimes it's not a person.
[13:30]Yeah.
[13:31]For Brooke, I think it very much started as just this place
[13:36]on Andrew's Isle in the book.
[13:37]And then I think over the course of the story
[13:41]she starts to see much deeper meaning
[13:44]in what her sense of home is and what feels like home.
[13:47]Yeah.
[13:49]Well, you packed a lot in here.
[13:50]A lot of love, intrigue, crime, science.
[13:56]I know you were very influenced by Mary Alice Monroe
[13:59]down in Charleston and all of her environmental work
[14:03]and all of that.
[14:04]Can you talk about her and other writing role models
[14:08]that you've had and that really kept you going on your path
[14:12]to the 10 year book and why you didn't give up?
[14:15]Yes, absolutely.
[14:16]First of all, don't give up.
[14:18]I've taken a really long time to just keep writing.
[14:21]Mary Alice Monroe has been a great mentor of mine.
[14:23]And I actually met her when I first joined the turtle team
[14:27]10 years ago, but I didn't tell her that I was writing my book
[14:31]at the time because I was kind of in the middle of it.
[14:35]And I wasn't sure how it was going to come out,
[14:37]but I definitely drew a lot of inspiration from her books
[14:41]and from her whole idea around her books
[14:44]of bringing environment into the story
[14:46]or highlighting a species.
[14:48]And she writes a lot of family saga, type books.
[14:51]And she has a series called The Beach House that I had read
[14:54]and really carries those themes of nature
[14:58]and the environment and conservation
[15:00]through her books by telling about this one particular family
[15:04]in The Beach House and then in other books,
[15:06]she highlights other species that way.
[15:08]I really loved the way she did that
[15:10]and was hoping to do something similar,
[15:12]but in a different genre.
[15:14]So bringing it into the murder mystery, suspense,
[15:17]thriller genre, but very much hoping that people would
[15:21]read the story and learn to care about whichever sea creature
[15:26]was in it because like Mary Alice always says,
[15:28]if you care, then you'll act, then you'll do something.
[15:31]So protect or to try to conserve.
[15:34]So really spreading that word through writing.
[15:37]One of my other earliest influences in my writing
[15:40]and also just my love of reading was Pat Conroy.
[15:43]He's very well known as being one of the best writers
[15:48]about the South and the low country
[15:50]and the descriptions in his book,
[15:53]the way that he could evoke the scenery
[15:56]and the emotions and the characters.
[15:58]And he had very drama-filled stories
[16:01]and he's such a great storyteller.
[16:03]He was an early inspiration of mine
[16:05]and I had the opportunity to meet him one time
[16:08]in person before he died, but that was such a thrill.
[16:11]And I was with my mom when I got to do that.
[16:13]So he was an early inspiration more recently.
[16:16]And I think that these are just contemporaries of mine.
[16:19]People who've had books come out more recently,
[16:22]but I'm very excited to see a lot of attention
[16:25]on the ocean and its creatures in recent fiction.
[16:30]So my books about sea turtles
[16:32]or has an element of sea turtles in it.
[16:34]You'll learn about the sea turtles
[16:35]and the science behind them, their biology and habitat.
[16:39]One of the authors who gave me a blurb for my book
[16:42]is Shelby Van Pelt and she remarkably bright creatures,
[16:46]which also has an element of mystery in it.
[16:49]So these cross genre books similar to mine
[16:52]where they can fall into several categories
[16:54]but have that teaching aspect about a sea creature.
[16:57]So hers is the giant Pacific octopus, Marcellus.
[17:01]She teaches us about the octopus through his character.
[17:05]And then I'm reading right now, Fauilfall by Daniel Kraus,
[17:09]which is a little bit of a suspense,
[17:11]but also ties in a father-son relationship.
[17:13]And it involves the sperm whale, a scuba diver
[17:16]who is accidentally swallowed by the whale
[17:19]and has to deal with how to get out
[17:22]and if he's going to survive, have it finished.
[17:25]So I don't know what to do.
[17:27]And then the other one on my list
[17:28]to read a shark heart by Emily Haybeck.
[17:30]And she has, everyone is talking about a lot of good things.
[17:34]And that's a love story.
[17:35]And a kind of sci-fi love story
[17:38]about her lover or her, I'm not sure,
[17:41]what his relationship is to wear
[17:43]because I haven't read it yet,
[17:44]but he has this rare disease
[17:46]where he's going to turn into a great white shark.
[17:49]But everything I've heard about it says it's very
[17:51]a beautiful story about love and loss
[17:54]and dealing with somebody having to go through
[17:57]this type of change.
[17:58]So I'm interested to read that one next.
[17:59]So I have two.
[18:01]They're all current inspirations.
[18:03]Remember standing at the bookstore
[18:05]and I think it was our manager was like,
[18:07]this is totally going to be a big book.
[18:09]And I was like, oh, what's it about?
[18:11]She's like, you have to read it.
[18:12]It's about, in the point of view of a shark
[18:14]and stuff.
[18:14]I was like, no, no, that's not going to be.
[18:15]That was my initial reaction.
[18:17]No, no, I thought it wasn't for me either.
[18:19]But and now I've had like eight million people tell me
[18:22]that so it's totally on my list to read.
[18:24]But yeah, it's in my stack.
[18:25]And I had the same reaction initially.
[18:27]I don't read science fiction.
[18:29]That's not my usual genre.
[18:31]So yeah, I was thinking immediately,
[18:34]like, I don't know.
[18:35]I don't know if I can get into it,
[18:37]but I'm going to read it.
[18:39]And I think I'm going to like it from based on what I've heard.
[18:42]Trades notes after we read.
[18:44]Yes.
[18:45]Circle back and talk about it.
[18:47]Tell me a little more about learning the craft of writing
[18:50]and how you honed your craft so far.
[18:54]Well, I grew up writing in my journal all the time
[18:58]and learning by doing, I guess,
[19:00]just getting all my thoughts out on paper
[19:02]very much like you did, I think.
[19:05]So very, very much I was drawn to the page.
[19:10]I love to read.
[19:11]And I would scribble down, you know, little ideas
[19:14]and observations, things that were happening in my life.
[19:17]I mean, my, I'm sure my journals from my teenage years
[19:20]are so embarrassing.
[19:21]I mean, I haven't dug them out of whatever box they're in,
[19:24]but I really don't want them to see it all like a day.
[19:26]I'm sure there are all kinds of things in there
[19:29]about what was going on.
[19:30]And it all is overly melodramatic, you know,
[19:33]so there was my start, I guess,
[19:36]just writing in period and reading.
[19:41]And then in high school, college,
[19:43]even all the way into law school,
[19:45]I would find ways to write creative papers
[19:48]instead of my final term paper
[19:50]that where I was supposed to analyze such and such,
[19:52]you know, in a nonfiction way,
[19:53]I'd go to the professor and say,
[19:55]can I take this book and tell it from the perspective?
[20:00]of the secondary character that we don't see
[20:02]and just make up a whole, you know,
[20:04]a whole different world.
[20:06]And with that word, could that be okay?
[20:07]I'll still, you know, learn about it and analyze it,
[20:10]but I just want to fictionalize it.
[20:11]So I was lucky that I had some professors
[20:15]who let me do that and continue my pursuit
[20:18]of the writing.
[20:19]And then in college, I majored in English,
[20:21]then in law school, I just, you know,
[20:24]I don't know, I lost track of a lot
[20:25]of the creative writing side,
[20:27]but you do kind of hone your skills
[20:29]to being, somebody mentioned it
[20:32]as you learn linguistic precision.
[20:35]And when you're in law school,
[20:36]which I thought was an interesting thing.
[20:37]It makes you feel better about not,
[20:40]you know, being in your creative writing program,
[20:41]being in law school instead,
[20:42]something creative I got out of it sort of.
[20:45]So you're very, you learn very carefully
[20:47]to choose your words and to make sure you
[20:50]that every sentence means what it's supposed to mean.
[20:53]And that linguistic precision, I guess, was a skill
[20:57]that I could claim came from law school.
[20:59]And then I was just always writing in search of my idea,
[21:02]doing a lot of just keeping up with the journal,
[21:05]writing little short stories, writing poems.
[21:08]I love poetry.
[21:09]None of these are published stuff that will never
[21:13]see the light of day in a drawer somewhere.
[21:16]But just working on my craft.
[21:18]And then when I started getting serious
[21:21]about finding my novel idea,
[21:23]I took some courses at Queens College.
[21:25]I was in Charlotte at the time.
[21:27]I took a creative writing course
[21:29]in evenings just to get some of the basics
[21:31]about how you structure a novel,
[21:34]how you character develop.
[21:36]I read a lot more as a writer.
[21:39]So I came to books more as a writer looking for,
[21:43]you know, what are the best kinds of dialogue tags?
[21:46]And how does this writer pace the plot
[21:49]and the dialogue with the description and the narrative?
[21:52]So came to more of my reading with a writer's point of view
[21:56]and that helped a lot,
[21:57]especially as I was starting to write my book.
[22:00]And would get stuck or be unsure
[22:02]or be doing what I always do,
[22:03]which is really bad and going back and editing as I write,
[22:06]which is again, why I took New Year's.
[22:09]There is no bad or no good to go then, you know.
[22:14]So yeah, so just working a little bit chipping away at it.
[22:17]And then just going to the sources, you know,
[22:19]the authors who were published
[22:21]and using those types of writing tools
[22:23]that I could find in literature.
[22:26]And the resources that are out there
[22:27]from just getting inspiration from the authors that I love.
[22:31]Sorry you were in a new book.
[22:33]I am.
[22:34]I'm working on a more of a suspense thriller.
[22:36]It will have a murder in it,
[22:38]but I think the genre will fall more into suspense thriller.
[22:42]This one is also going to involve a sea creature
[22:45]as I'm hoping all of my books will not necessarily
[22:48]as up front and center as my sea turtles at loggerheads
[22:52]because my main character isn't a biologist,
[22:54]but she has a slight background in that.
[22:57]And then she is an immigration attorney,
[22:59]which is what I ended up doing for a while after law school
[23:03]and still do a little bit.
[23:04]I'm hoping to use that side of my background
[23:07]to bring her character alive,
[23:09]but in one of her major cases with a client,
[23:13]she's doing a lot of work visas for scientists
[23:17]who are coming to work at this lab.
[23:19]The lab focuses on using puffer fish toxin.
[23:24]So puffer fish might be cute, but they're very deadly.
[23:28]So their toxin is like 1300 times more deadly than cyanide.
[23:35]So one puffer fish has enough toxin in it
[23:38]to kill 30 adult humans.
[23:41]I didn't know this.
[23:43]So this puffer fish toxin is being studied
[23:46]at this fictional lab and she's in charge
[23:48]of getting the visas for the scientists.
[23:50]And then of course, as she gets farther along
[23:52]and you start getting into the book,
[23:54]she starts to realize there are a lot of things happening
[23:57]that she's not aware of behind the scenes
[24:01]that she might be getting involved in
[24:03]without realizing it and it could end up leading to
[24:06]some big problems down the road,
[24:08]but I don't wanna give away too much.
[24:10]So that's my current book I'm working on.
[24:13]I'm still about a hundred pages in,
[24:15]so I'm sort of getting into the muddy middle.
[24:19]And it will also deal with the father daughter relationship,
[24:22]which is something that I really wanted to write about,
[24:25]but just wasn't ready to until now.
[24:28]Well, I know you already gave some advice,
[24:30]but what other advice do you have for aspiring authors
[24:33]aside from don't give up and all that?
[24:35]Oh, aspiring writers.
[24:38]Well, what a thrill to be able to say something with that.
[24:42]A little bit of experience.
[24:44]I would say in addition to don't give up and keep writing,
[24:48]find the books you love and read them for inspiration.
[24:53]Go to the page every day, even if you just stare at it
[24:56]and try to spend a little bit of time working on your story
[25:01]because sometimes that five minutes turns into an hour
[25:05]if you really get into a scene
[25:07]or even if you write just write a bunch of stuff
[25:11]that doesn't end up being in the final draft.
[25:14]That's something that I can definitely say
[25:16]having gone through this.
[25:18]Your book is going to change a lot.
[25:20]You're going to edit it many, many times.
[25:23]So don't worry too much about what you put down
[25:25]in the first draft.
[25:27]Just keep going.
[25:28]Love it.
[25:29]Amazing.
[25:30]Kristen, thank you.
[25:31]Thank you for coming on Mom's Don't Time Tree books.
[25:33]Thank you for that loggerheads.
[25:35]What a fabulous experience.
[25:37]Just sort of go through all the emotions of the book
[25:38]and all the twists and turns.
[25:40]It's always hard to discuss when you don't want to give things away.
[25:43]But I also sort of fond of the character of Doug.
[25:46]I feel like I want to know who he would be cast as in a movie.
[25:49]Do you have someone in mind for him or Drew?
[25:52]I'm sorry.
[25:52]What did I say?
[25:53]Drew, his name is Drew.
[25:54]I'm so sorry.
[25:55]Who would you cast?
[25:56]Oh, well, I really, I kind of had in mind
[26:00]a Josh Lucas type.
[26:03]I really like the sort of shaggy, sandy blonde hair
[26:06]and blue eyes.
[26:08]Also Ryan Gosling was in mind when I was writing that.
[26:11]So a character similar to some of the characters.
[26:14]They've played, or just that look, that sort of straight
[26:17]off the beach, a little bit sandy and salty
[26:21]and that blonde hair blue eye boy.
[26:26]Excellent.
[26:26]OK, thank you so much for coming on.
[26:28]Thanks, Debbie.
[26:29]Thank you again for the love of acknowledgement and all of it.
[26:32]And you're so welcome to you.
[26:34]It's been a pleasure.
[26:35]Thank you for everything you do.
[26:36]I mean, for readers and bringing all these books
[26:40]to people and for writers, too.
[26:42]I just really appreciate your time and your interest
[26:47]in my book and the fact that you read it
[26:49]and brought me on your podcast.
[26:50]I mean, it just means so much to me.
[26:52]Thank you.
[26:53]You're welcome.
[26:54]All right.
[26:55]Thank you, Kristen.
[26:56]Thank you, Debbie.
[26:57]OK, all right.
[26:59]Bye.
[26:59]Thank you soon.
[27:00]Bye-bye.
[27:02]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't
[27:04]Have Time to Read Books.
[27:05]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at the Be Owens,
[27:09]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:11]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbowens.com
[27:13]and sign up for my virtual book club
[27:15]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[27:17]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[27:19]In fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[27:21]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:23]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.