May 1, 2025 • 20 mins
Wendy Francis is a local author who is known for her fun summer reads, and her new novel is releasing today! Lisa and Wendy sat down at the Kiss108 studio to have a quick chat about Wendy's new novel, Betting On Good! Lisa also asked her all about creating original characters, the Kentucky Derby and reaching out to authors!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, Welcome to Lisa's book Club, a podcast where I
interview best selling authors from the New England area, pulling
back the curtain on what it's really like being a
best selling author. They're guilty pleasures, latest projects, and so
much more. Well, welcome into Lisa's book Club podcast. And
we usually post podcasts a book club event. So this
(00:25):
is a really special day because we have our first
in studio podcast author, Wendy Francis. She is local. She's
from Quincy, Massachusetts. Welcome Wendy, thank.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, you're our first, and I love because you're a
local author, you have seven books. You are not from
this area. Where are you from?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm from Wisconsin, originally around around Madison, and I moved
out here for high school first and in college and
stuck around ever since.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So well, Wendy went to college at Harvard, so it's
we were.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Talking about when it was easier, much easier to get into.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And then you went to law school. Did you end
up leaving?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well, yes I did. I'm a law school drop out proudly.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I was at law school for a semester and I
just I knew right away. I had gotten in thinking
I wanted to do kind of social work law and
women work with women and children. And I realized that
to pay want to pay off my loans, I would
have to work in corporate law for at least ten
years probably, But also I just wasn't you know, they
(01:41):
say if anyone had if you had to like law
school to become a lawyer, no one would be a lawyer.
So it's not supposed to be a fun experience. But
I really didn't enjoy reading cases, and you know, if
you like fiction and a good narrative, it's it's kind
of hard to those from from some of the case luck.
(02:03):
And that was really my mom who encouraged me to
pursue writing or get involved in publishing. I'd always loved
to write, but didn't ever think.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Of it really, so this career.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Career I could have, and in fact I took the
My mom encouraged me to apply to the Radcliffe Publishing Course,
which is now the Columbia Publishing Course, and uh, it
was this wonderful intensive I think it was six weeks
at the time, where you came and you were exposed
(02:38):
to all the different elements of publishing, so you got
to learn marketing and publicity and not just editorial in
sales and sort of all these different hats that people
wear within a company and to you know, explore all
these areas. Most everyone wanted to be an editor, but
still it was interesting to see and to understand, you know,
all these people, all the people it takes to make
(02:58):
a book actually successful. And it was you know, it
was Cherry Hour. Lindy House was the who ran it
at the time. Knew all these folks. She had worked
in publishing in New York, so she would bring them
in for Cherry Hour. It was very I love it
was fun.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And then Cherry Hour turned into you doing book editing
for Houghton Mufflin for fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Right, yep, Yeah, well yeah, I guess more like I
think it was a dozen there and then I was
there for a long time and I rose through the ranks.
As you do in publishing. It's very old fashioned in
the sense that it's an apprentice ship still virtually, you know,
you start working for one editor as an assistant and
then you climb your way up slowly eventually to being
(03:40):
a full time editor. Yeah, and I loved it. It
was a great a great place to start.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, you're here because you have a book coming out
tomorrow called Betting on Good And the reason why we
are here is because it's a book set at the
Kentucky Derby, and the Kentucky Derby is this weekend Churchill Downs.
And before we get into that and the book, how
did you realize when you were editing books for other authors,
(04:08):
how did you realize that this was something that you
thought you could do, write a book.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I don't know that I ever thought I could do it.
I think at the time I left Houghton, I worked
for another publisher for a couple of years that was
in Cambridge, and when I was starting to sort of
think about other possibilities, maybe whether that was going into
(04:36):
magazines or books or freelance writing. And when I had
my son and I was at home with him, I
kind of, you know, I worked for a year. I
stayed at my job and publishing for a year after
he was born, and then I kind of was feeling
as though I really loved to have a job where
I could work at home, and so I talked it
(04:56):
over with my husband and said, what if you just,
you know, I take six months or see if I
can put something together that feels like a novel.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Your first book was Three Good Things, and how did
you come up with that storyline?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So they say that your first book is the book
that kind of lies within you, your heart, the one
you've always been meaning to tell. And that book is
very different from my other books, but it's set in
Wisconsin and it was really my Valentine to my home state,
and all the things I love about it. And it
(05:30):
focuses on two sisters and one runs a Kringle shop,
which I think people know about more on the East
coasts now because it's that Trader Joe's. But it's this
great Danish confection.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That it's like a cookie.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's like it's a pastry. It's almost it's not. It's
not a Danish, but it comes in an oval and
it just has layers and layers of butter and then
there's filling like crust, and you can get almond or
raspberry or blueberry. It's delicious. And so my dream was
to one day I'll have a bookstore Kringle store, But
(06:09):
short of that, I wrote about someone who had a
Kringle shop in Wisconsin. So that was kind of the
genesis behind that and the relationship between the sisters. And
one of the sisters also has just had her little baby,
so it's also my Valentine to my son when he
was little and precious and sweet.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So all of your books you've written, seven of them
are character based. How do you come up with your
ideas your storylines? A lot of them are about dysfunctional couples,
like you know, great relationships, relationships that are tainted. Do
you draw from people around your house, like your community stories?
(06:53):
You've heard you changed the names a little bit slightly.
Tell us about that. And have you ever gotten into trouble?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Oh no, I haven't knockna would you know? It's an
interesting question everyone wants to know, and I think you know.
The easiest way to answer is, I've always loved exploring relationships,
sort of what makes them work, what where the cracks
are in them? You know how to maintain them, how
(07:21):
to repair them if they need repairing. It's just so
many interesting dynamics I think and fuel for a narrative.
And I think that you know, I kind of know
who my characters are going to be. And yes, there
are little parts of people or stories that I've heard,
(07:41):
but it's more just of an amalgamation of you know,
different different folks, different ideas that come together. So at
the end there's never really any one person who can
be identified, although except for some real character like publicity
or characters in the real world superstars in the Derby book,
there are few who you know make appearances.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So well, I'm glad you brought up the Derby book.
It's called Betting on Good and this book focuses on
two couples who go to the Derby for sort of
a getaway. Have you been to the Derby?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I have, yeah, So can you paint.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
The picture for us? Because I've never been. I've always
wanted to go. It seems like so much fun, and
everyone gets dressed up and wears these beautiful hats, and
so paint the picture for us.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It is. It is everything you imagine and even more
over the top. It's been on our bucket list. My
husband and I have bought to go for years, and
we finally went into twenty twenty three and it was
just it was so much fun and it is everything
you think. There are huge wild hats, some are designer hats,
(08:50):
others are hats that people have been so creative, you know,
making I remember what was fun. Yeah, one woman had
made this gorgeous hat, which was basically a field of
butterflies fluttering above her head. And I said, tell you
the gorgeous Where did you get your hat? And said, oh,
I made it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
What's the history behind the hats? Why does everyone wear
a hat because it's so hot and it's so sunny,
And yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Think it's part of the Southern tradition. And I think
that it's sort of just, you know, taken off as
a manner in a mare of speaking, that this has
become fashion, has become as much a part of the
Derby now as horse racing and bedding.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
What was your favorite part of your trip with your husband?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Gosh, there are so many great things. I learned so much,
but I just had so much fun people watching.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Were you doing research for the book?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I ended up, I mean, when we were there, this
would be such a dynamic setting for some kind of story,
and I didn't know who my characters were going to be.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
At or what it was.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But I thought, you know, here's there's so much. It's
such a spectacle. There's so there's so much juelps and
booze and beg behavior, colors and stories and tension with
the bedding, and it's just all these different elements, right lighting,
And yeah, I thought that it would be a perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Setting, so for people that love the Derby and love
your writing, and kind of give us a little behind
the scenes on what the book's about.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Okay, you know they always say you should have your
elevator pitch down, So it's a little, yeah, just a
little tees. So it is, as you said, about two
couples who've been longtime friends. They both live outside of Boston,
and one of them, Drew, has just turned forty and
(10:41):
she's not so happy about the fact that she's forty now,
and her husband decides to surprise her with two tickets
to the Kentucky Derby. It's always been on Drew's bucket list,
so she's over the moon to go, and their best friends,
Leslie and Graham decide to join them, and you know,
every and goes expecting it's a long weekend away from
(11:03):
the kids, and it'll be you know, we'll take in
the whole scene. We'll get fancy hats and fancy dresses
and you'll drink me in Julips and it's gonna be
wild and fun and maybe we'll win some money too.
But as a story unfolds, we begin to see that
each of them have actually come with very different expectations
(11:25):
of what they want to get out of this weekend
or what their idea of their debut weekend should be.
And it's kind of the way that those expectations either
dovetail or bump heads that that, you know, deliver the
story or.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Punch move the narrative along. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So there's a lot of betrayal, loyal you know, questions
of loyalty, old grudges, the tension of bedding, and you know,
just it's ripe for lots.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Of conflict all on one weekend. In one weekend, Yeah,
a lot of mayhem. How do you pick the names
of your characters? Where do you draw from?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That's interesting?
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I know.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Ellen Hildebrand has a very interesting way of.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Doing I loved her story about how she's so many characters,
so many Yeah, she says she keeps lists like graduation lists,
like at her kids graduation, like they'll print out the
names of and she'll keep it and circle names and
use them.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah. Yeah, and even just meeting people at signings. You know,
she'll write them down if post us, if she thinks, oh,
that's a particularly good name. So I you know, it's funny.
I always just kind of think it feel like, well,
it's more of an intuitive feeling, like this person feels
like like a Drew right or yeah, and Nate just
(12:47):
kind of this hunky guy both football player and college
I don't know, it just you know, it's more I
have a list of names as well, but I'm not
as meticulous about Okay, I've used uh, a b name
in here, and I you know, you don't like to
have names that repeat because I think it's hard to
follow with first letter names where they're all the same.
But it is fun to kind of, uh, you know,
(13:12):
go back and think about, you know, why I chose
this name for this character. I found actually did go
back a few years ago just to look and see,
and I found that, you know, I'd used Matt as
a as a teenager girl's boyfriend and two different stories.
I was like, oh, Matt must be a car for
a name, and now I can't do that. And then,
(13:33):
you know, I like, I seem to like names that
begin with ms, and else I'm trying to break out
of that mold.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You should usually say at some point I would love to.
So we mentioned Ellen, and we mentioned the fact that
you worked in publishing, And I want to ask this
question the blurbs. I think Ellen wrote a blurb for
you on for one of your books, and a blurb
is basically an author saying, hey, this is a great book.
I read it. You should read it too, right, So
(14:02):
how effective is that in selling a book?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
You know? I think if you get a blurb from
someone who is known in the genre of the kind
of book that you're writing, it can be very effective
and helpful. You know, there are the big names out
there that everyone knows in summer beach Reads, and it's
Allen Hildebrand, it's you know, Nancy Thayer, some Christy Woodson, Harvey,
(14:30):
Patty Callahan, Henry all those folks. And Jennifer Winer too
for women's fiction. So I think those kinds of blurbs
can make a difference, especially when you're starting out, when
you're a debut author and nobody knows who you are.
I do think though, there are two sides of it,
and a lot of people now feel as though, well,
(14:51):
you know her, agent was represents this author and that's
why she got the blurb or she you know, these
people don't really read each other's books as friends and
through connections, and so they provide the blurbs. So I
think that, you know, it's kind of both. I think
there's valid it's hard to get someone to take the
time to actually read and provide a quote, and so
(15:13):
in that you know, that way, I'm very appreciative of
every blurb I get, and and of course I want
to believe everything they say about, you know, how wonderful
your book is. But I think that there's also a
little bit of pushback just from readers that it's gotten
so insane in some ways that you have all these
blurbs on your book.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
But as an author, did you ever reach out to
other author from and say, hey.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, I guess yeah. There are more acquaintances or people
who I've met on tours or at other publishing events
where I could feel comfortable saying, you know, would you
consider doing this? And it's it is a funny thing
because it's you know, publishers will say, well, the author
(16:00):
usually respond best when you reach out to them personally,
which is probably true, but it also means that you
have to do the awkward. I feel very awkward asking
people to do that. Read and give a blurb, because
you know, authors are busy and they and people like
Ellen get hundreds and hundreds of galleys to read, so
(16:23):
it's a big.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Ask, what are you reading right now?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So much there's I feel there's so much good stuff
out there.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Right, It's like your favorite book right now, let's.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
See, I will a couple right now. I just finished
Broken Country, which I think is I love books with
a what's her name, Claire Leslie Hall. It's set in England,
but it's basically about an old love that went wrong
and can it be rekindled? And it's just beautifully written.
(16:57):
I love so. I love books with a strong sense
of setting and that are very character driven. That's kind
of what I'm I like those two. Yeah, and another
one the Wedding People.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Oh yes, that's Allison right. Yes, I'm trying to get
her to come to a book club in August with
j Courtney Sullivan.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Oh so fun.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I think that would be fun.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah yeah nearby?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah yeah, she lives in Milton. Where can people find you?
Are you doing a big Derby party? Book signing.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Next Chapter Bookstore, a new independent bookstore in Quincy, is
hosting the launch party this Friday at six point thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
And the public go.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
You can't it's free, but you have to register. I
think they just add some tickets. Okay, great, so that
you can go online and I just register for it.
And that's sort of going to be the big kickoff
for it. People are invited to wear their hats or
they're fascinators if they would like. It's off and yeah,
so that should be a fun and it's really at
that we're celebrating the Oaks on Friday because the Oaks
(18:08):
Race is actually sort of the precursor, the lead up
to the Derby, and the Oaks Race is for the Phillies,
so only the girl horses race and the signature color
is pink. And for two reasons. One is that the
winner of the Oaks Race gets a garland of star
Stargazer lilies and it's a pink, pinkish hue flower. And
(18:30):
then it's also because they're raising awareness for cancer survivors
for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, so pink is the
signature color. And yeah, so that's going to be kind
of the celebration on Oaks for an Oaks Day party. Yeah,
it is a really special event and it's it's not
(18:53):
as crazy, and you know, we went to the Oaks
and we were so glad that we did because we
kind of figured out where everything was we needed to know.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That's a hot tip if you're going to the go
to the Friday the folks. And then will you do
anything down in Louisville for your book?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I am not at the moment. I am. I've got
other readings or signings coming up. I'll be at Barnes
and Noble Hingham next Saturday, I believe, and then later
in June I'm doing a couple events at book Love
Done in Pine Hills, Plymouth, and an event at Buttonwood
(19:29):
Books in Cohasset. It's all on my website and I'm
going to start posting stuff on it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And how can they find you? Wendy is it Wendy
Francis author, Wendy Francis dot com.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Wendy Francis author, Okay dot com dot com. Great, yeah, yeah,
well let's check it out.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Fun betting on good. You need to definitely pick it up.
It's a great peat read right as we get into
that season. Well, thank you, Wendy, thank.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
You so much for having me. It's been so much fun.
Excute
Hey, Welcome to Lisa's book Club, a podcast where I
interview best selling authors from the New England area, pulling
back the curtain on what it's really like being a
best selling author. They're guilty pleasures, latest projects, and so
much more. Well, welcome into Lisa's book Club podcast. And
we usually post podcasts a book club event. So this
(00:25):
is a really special day because we have our first
in studio podcast author, Wendy Francis. She is local. She's
from Quincy, Massachusetts. Welcome Wendy, thank.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, you're our first, and I love because you're a
local author, you have seven books. You are not from
this area. Where are you from?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm from Wisconsin, originally around around Madison, and I moved
out here for high school first and in college and
stuck around ever since.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So well, Wendy went to college at Harvard, so it's
we were.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Talking about when it was easier, much easier to get into.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And then you went to law school. Did you end
up leaving?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well, yes I did. I'm a law school drop out proudly.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I was at law school for a semester and I
just I knew right away. I had gotten in thinking
I wanted to do kind of social work law and
women work with women and children. And I realized that
to pay want to pay off my loans, I would
have to work in corporate law for at least ten
years probably, But also I just wasn't you know, they
(01:41):
say if anyone had if you had to like law
school to become a lawyer, no one would be a lawyer.
So it's not supposed to be a fun experience. But
I really didn't enjoy reading cases, and you know, if
you like fiction and a good narrative, it's it's kind
of hard to those from from some of the case luck.
(02:03):
And that was really my mom who encouraged me to
pursue writing or get involved in publishing. I'd always loved
to write, but didn't ever think.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Of it really, so this career.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Career I could have, and in fact I took the
My mom encouraged me to apply to the Radcliffe Publishing Course,
which is now the Columbia Publishing Course, and uh, it
was this wonderful intensive I think it was six weeks
at the time, where you came and you were exposed
(02:38):
to all the different elements of publishing, so you got
to learn marketing and publicity and not just editorial in
sales and sort of all these different hats that people
wear within a company and to you know, explore all
these areas. Most everyone wanted to be an editor, but
still it was interesting to see and to understand, you know,
all these people, all the people it takes to make
(02:58):
a book actually successful. And it was you know, it
was Cherry Hour. Lindy House was the who ran it
at the time. Knew all these folks. She had worked
in publishing in New York, so she would bring them
in for Cherry Hour. It was very I love it
was fun.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And then Cherry Hour turned into you doing book editing
for Houghton Mufflin for fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Right, yep, Yeah, well yeah, I guess more like I
think it was a dozen there and then I was
there for a long time and I rose through the ranks.
As you do in publishing. It's very old fashioned in
the sense that it's an apprentice ship still virtually, you know,
you start working for one editor as an assistant and
then you climb your way up slowly eventually to being
(03:40):
a full time editor. Yeah, and I loved it. It
was a great a great place to start.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, you're here because you have a book coming out
tomorrow called Betting on Good And the reason why we
are here is because it's a book set at the
Kentucky Derby, and the Kentucky Derby is this weekend Churchill Downs.
And before we get into that and the book, how
did you realize when you were editing books for other authors,
(04:08):
how did you realize that this was something that you
thought you could do, write a book.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I don't know that I ever thought I could do it.
I think at the time I left Houghton, I worked
for another publisher for a couple of years that was
in Cambridge, and when I was starting to sort of
think about other possibilities, maybe whether that was going into
(04:36):
magazines or books or freelance writing. And when I had
my son and I was at home with him, I
kind of, you know, I worked for a year. I
stayed at my job and publishing for a year after
he was born, and then I kind of was feeling
as though I really loved to have a job where
I could work at home, and so I talked it
(04:56):
over with my husband and said, what if you just,
you know, I take six months or see if I
can put something together that feels like a novel.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Your first book was Three Good Things, and how did
you come up with that storyline?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So they say that your first book is the book
that kind of lies within you, your heart, the one
you've always been meaning to tell. And that book is
very different from my other books, but it's set in
Wisconsin and it was really my Valentine to my home state,
and all the things I love about it. And it
(05:30):
focuses on two sisters and one runs a Kringle shop,
which I think people know about more on the East
coasts now because it's that Trader Joe's. But it's this
great Danish confection.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That it's like a cookie.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's like it's a pastry. It's almost it's not. It's
not a Danish, but it comes in an oval and
it just has layers and layers of butter and then
there's filling like crust, and you can get almond or
raspberry or blueberry. It's delicious. And so my dream was
to one day I'll have a bookstore Kringle store, But
(06:09):
short of that, I wrote about someone who had a
Kringle shop in Wisconsin. So that was kind of the
genesis behind that and the relationship between the sisters. And
one of the sisters also has just had her little baby,
so it's also my Valentine to my son when he
was little and precious and sweet.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
So all of your books you've written, seven of them
are character based. How do you come up with your
ideas your storylines? A lot of them are about dysfunctional couples,
like you know, great relationships, relationships that are tainted. Do
you draw from people around your house, like your community stories?
(06:53):
You've heard you changed the names a little bit slightly.
Tell us about that. And have you ever gotten into trouble?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Oh no, I haven't knockna would you know? It's an
interesting question everyone wants to know, and I think you know.
The easiest way to answer is, I've always loved exploring relationships,
sort of what makes them work, what where the cracks
are in them? You know how to maintain them, how
(07:21):
to repair them if they need repairing. It's just so
many interesting dynamics I think and fuel for a narrative.
And I think that you know, I kind of know
who my characters are going to be. And yes, there
are little parts of people or stories that I've heard,
(07:41):
but it's more just of an amalgamation of you know,
different different folks, different ideas that come together. So at
the end there's never really any one person who can
be identified, although except for some real character like publicity
or characters in the real world superstars in the Derby book,
there are few who you know make appearances.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So well, I'm glad you brought up the Derby book.
It's called Betting on Good and this book focuses on
two couples who go to the Derby for sort of
a getaway. Have you been to the Derby?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I have, yeah, So can you paint.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
The picture for us? Because I've never been. I've always
wanted to go. It seems like so much fun, and
everyone gets dressed up and wears these beautiful hats, and
so paint the picture for us.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It is. It is everything you imagine and even more
over the top. It's been on our bucket list. My
husband and I have bought to go for years, and
we finally went into twenty twenty three and it was
just it was so much fun and it is everything
you think. There are huge wild hats, some are designer hats,
(08:50):
others are hats that people have been so creative, you know,
making I remember what was fun. Yeah, one woman had
made this gorgeous hat, which was basically a field of
butterflies fluttering above her head. And I said, tell you
the gorgeous Where did you get your hat? And said, oh,
I made it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
What's the history behind the hats? Why does everyone wear
a hat because it's so hot and it's so sunny,
And yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Think it's part of the Southern tradition. And I think
that it's sort of just, you know, taken off as
a manner in a mare of speaking, that this has
become fashion, has become as much a part of the
Derby now as horse racing and bedding.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
What was your favorite part of your trip with your husband?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Gosh, there are so many great things. I learned so much,
but I just had so much fun people watching.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Were you doing research for the book?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I ended up, I mean, when we were there, this
would be such a dynamic setting for some kind of story,
and I didn't know who my characters were going to be.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
At or what it was.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But I thought, you know, here's there's so much. It's
such a spectacle. There's so there's so much juelps and
booze and beg behavior, colors and stories and tension with
the bedding, and it's just all these different elements, right lighting,
And yeah, I thought that it would be a perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Setting, so for people that love the Derby and love
your writing, and kind of give us a little behind
the scenes on what the book's about.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Okay, you know they always say you should have your
elevator pitch down, So it's a little, yeah, just a
little tees. So it is, as you said, about two
couples who've been longtime friends. They both live outside of Boston,
and one of them, Drew, has just turned forty and
(10:41):
she's not so happy about the fact that she's forty now,
and her husband decides to surprise her with two tickets
to the Kentucky Derby. It's always been on Drew's bucket list,
so she's over the moon to go, and their best friends,
Leslie and Graham decide to join them, and you know,
every and goes expecting it's a long weekend away from
(11:03):
the kids, and it'll be you know, we'll take in
the whole scene. We'll get fancy hats and fancy dresses
and you'll drink me in Julips and it's gonna be
wild and fun and maybe we'll win some money too.
But as a story unfolds, we begin to see that
each of them have actually come with very different expectations
(11:25):
of what they want to get out of this weekend
or what their idea of their debut weekend should be.
And it's kind of the way that those expectations either
dovetail or bump heads that that, you know, deliver the
story or.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Punch move the narrative along. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So there's a lot of betrayal, loyal you know, questions
of loyalty, old grudges, the tension of bedding, and you know,
just it's ripe for lots.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Of conflict all on one weekend. In one weekend, Yeah,
a lot of mayhem. How do you pick the names
of your characters? Where do you draw from?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That's interesting?
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I know.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Ellen Hildebrand has a very interesting way of.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Doing I loved her story about how she's so many characters,
so many Yeah, she says she keeps lists like graduation lists,
like at her kids graduation, like they'll print out the
names of and she'll keep it and circle names and
use them.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah. Yeah, and even just meeting people at signings. You know,
she'll write them down if post us, if she thinks, oh,
that's a particularly good name. So I you know, it's funny.
I always just kind of think it feel like, well,
it's more of an intuitive feeling, like this person feels
like like a Drew right or yeah, and Nate just
(12:47):
kind of this hunky guy both football player and college
I don't know, it just you know, it's more I
have a list of names as well, but I'm not
as meticulous about Okay, I've used uh, a b name
in here, and I you know, you don't like to
have names that repeat because I think it's hard to
follow with first letter names where they're all the same.
But it is fun to kind of, uh, you know,
(13:12):
go back and think about, you know, why I chose
this name for this character. I found actually did go
back a few years ago just to look and see,
and I found that, you know, I'd used Matt as
a as a teenager girl's boyfriend and two different stories.
I was like, oh, Matt must be a car for
a name, and now I can't do that. And then,
(13:33):
you know, I like, I seem to like names that
begin with ms, and else I'm trying to break out
of that mold.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You should usually say at some point I would love to.
So we mentioned Ellen, and we mentioned the fact that
you worked in publishing, And I want to ask this
question the blurbs. I think Ellen wrote a blurb for
you on for one of your books, and a blurb
is basically an author saying, hey, this is a great book.
I read it. You should read it too, right, So
(14:02):
how effective is that in selling a book?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
You know? I think if you get a blurb from
someone who is known in the genre of the kind
of book that you're writing, it can be very effective
and helpful. You know, there are the big names out
there that everyone knows in summer beach Reads, and it's
Allen Hildebrand, it's you know, Nancy Thayer, some Christy Woodson, Harvey,
(14:30):
Patty Callahan, Henry all those folks. And Jennifer Winer too
for women's fiction. So I think those kinds of blurbs
can make a difference, especially when you're starting out, when
you're a debut author and nobody knows who you are.
I do think though, there are two sides of it,
and a lot of people now feel as though, well,
(14:51):
you know her, agent was represents this author and that's
why she got the blurb or she you know, these
people don't really read each other's books as friends and
through connections, and so they provide the blurbs. So I
think that, you know, it's kind of both. I think
there's valid it's hard to get someone to take the
time to actually read and provide a quote, and so
(15:13):
in that you know, that way, I'm very appreciative of
every blurb I get, and and of course I want
to believe everything they say about, you know, how wonderful
your book is. But I think that there's also a
little bit of pushback just from readers that it's gotten
so insane in some ways that you have all these
blurbs on your book.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
But as an author, did you ever reach out to
other author from and say, hey.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, I guess yeah. There are more acquaintances or people
who I've met on tours or at other publishing events
where I could feel comfortable saying, you know, would you
consider doing this? And it's it is a funny thing
because it's you know, publishers will say, well, the author
(16:00):
usually respond best when you reach out to them personally,
which is probably true, but it also means that you
have to do the awkward. I feel very awkward asking
people to do that. Read and give a blurb, because
you know, authors are busy and they and people like
Ellen get hundreds and hundreds of galleys to read, so
(16:23):
it's a big.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Ask, what are you reading right now?
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So much there's I feel there's so much good stuff
out there.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Right, It's like your favorite book right now, let's.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
See, I will a couple right now. I just finished
Broken Country, which I think is I love books with
a what's her name, Claire Leslie Hall. It's set in England,
but it's basically about an old love that went wrong
and can it be rekindled? And it's just beautifully written.
(16:57):
I love so. I love books with a strong sense
of setting and that are very character driven. That's kind
of what I'm I like those two. Yeah, and another
one the Wedding People.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Oh yes, that's Allison right. Yes, I'm trying to get
her to come to a book club in August with
j Courtney Sullivan.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Oh so fun.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I think that would be fun.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah yeah nearby?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah yeah, she lives in Milton. Where can people find you?
Are you doing a big Derby party? Book signing.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Next Chapter Bookstore, a new independent bookstore in Quincy, is
hosting the launch party this Friday at six point thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
And the public go.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
You can't it's free, but you have to register. I
think they just add some tickets. Okay, great, so that
you can go online and I just register for it.
And that's sort of going to be the big kickoff
for it. People are invited to wear their hats or
they're fascinators if they would like. It's off and yeah,
so that should be a fun and it's really at
that we're celebrating the Oaks on Friday because the Oaks
(18:08):
Race is actually sort of the precursor, the lead up
to the Derby, and the Oaks Race is for the Phillies,
so only the girl horses race and the signature color
is pink. And for two reasons. One is that the
winner of the Oaks Race gets a garland of star
Stargazer lilies and it's a pink, pinkish hue flower. And
(18:30):
then it's also because they're raising awareness for cancer survivors
for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, so pink is the
signature color. And yeah, so that's going to be kind
of the celebration on Oaks for an Oaks Day party. Yeah,
it is a really special event and it's it's not
(18:53):
as crazy, and you know, we went to the Oaks
and we were so glad that we did because we
kind of figured out where everything was we needed to know.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That's a hot tip if you're going to the go
to the Friday the folks. And then will you do
anything down in Louisville for your book?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I am not at the moment. I am. I've got
other readings or signings coming up. I'll be at Barnes
and Noble Hingham next Saturday, I believe, and then later
in June I'm doing a couple events at book Love
Done in Pine Hills, Plymouth, and an event at Buttonwood
(19:29):
Books in Cohasset. It's all on my website and I'm
going to start posting stuff on it.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And how can they find you? Wendy is it Wendy
Francis author, Wendy Francis dot com.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Wendy Francis author, Okay dot com dot com. Great, yeah, yeah,
well let's check it out.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Fun betting on good. You need to definitely pick it up.
It's a great peat read right as we get into
that season. Well, thank you, Wendy, thank.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
You so much for having me. It's been so much fun.
Excute
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