The episode features an engaging conversation with New York Times bestselling author Katie Ashley, highlighting her transition from indie author to bestseller, her insight into the evolving landscape of publishing, and her success in the Mafia romance genre. Katie shares personal anecdotes about her writing journey, upcoming projects, and the emotional connections that drive her stories.
• Katie's experience navigating the current publishing landscape
• Discussion of her breakthrough book "The Proposition"
• The inspiration behind her Mafia romance series
• Personal account of balancing teaching and writing
• Insights into her creative process and character development
• A preview of her upcoming releases and events
• Shared laughter and reflections on personal experiences
Make sure to check out Katie Ashley's work and follow her on social media for updates and more engaging conversations about the world of romance literature!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey y'all.
Hey, you are watching andlistening to Licks.
Between the Lines, of course Iam your host, licks.
I'm so excited, especiallyabout our co-host today.
But before we get into it and Ilet her introduce herself,
let's go through the triggerwarnings.
For the most part I try to stayin between the lines, but
(00:26):
sometimes, if you have beenlistening, I tend to cross them
just a little.
So that is trigger number oftrigger warning number one.
The second thing is there mayor may not be explicit adult
language, depending on myemotions, how heightened I get.
(00:46):
There may or may not be umsexual content discussed.
There may or may not be talk ofviolence, because we're talking
about a mafia romance.
Of course there's violence inthe book.
So take these as your triggerwarnings, um, if you decide to
continue with us.
Thank you and without furtherado, I am going to introduce New
(01:08):
York Times bestselling author.
You know what I'm going to.
Let her introduce herself.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh, okay, well, thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
I am Katie Ashley and I'm a NewYork Times, usa Today and
Amazon top three bestsellingromance author.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I'm so excited for you, like that's a big deal it
is.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You know, like when I hit it in 2012, there was
something in our newspaper.
It was funny that you had thesame odds of hitting the lottery
was going on.
And so I said you have the sameodds that we could hitting the
lottery as you did the New Yorktimes.
And I was like, oh my God,because I still couldn't believe
it.
And I was lucky, I got to makeit a couple of times with
different series and all, and itwas an honor.
(01:55):
Now it's so hard for Indies todo it.
So I'm so thankful that I hadmy moment.
Um to do it, because now youknow you really have to.
Um to do it, because now youknow you really have to.
They don't let Indies on thelist unless you know a publisher
is distributing them.
So, um, I wish, yeah, yeah, andthen, awful, like USA Today is
pretty much the same way now too.
Um, but when I started, youcould be an Indie um, cause one
(02:17):
week I was on the um, the ebooklist, and I was on the trade
like the print or whatever, andnow they've taken it.
Yeah, you know, pissed it,indies, I guess, for all of our
independent success andeverything.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So, yeah, I know that .
So, that's a little piece ofinformation that I did not know.
Is there a reason why they?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I want to say, like New York Times happened like
three or four years ago maybe,and then USA Today was like the
last holdout that indies couldstill do.
And I want to say it's been inthe last two years, maybe
Because I remember thinking, oh,thank God I made a list,
because now, you know, unless Iwent traditional, I don't even
have the option.
(02:58):
So, yeah, that part, that partsucks.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
But this is a recent change.
Now I'm going to have toresearch.
Um, it's a recent change.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Now I'm gonna have to .
It is a recent change, yeah,yeah, and it sucks.
I know hd carlton made it theother day and she is
distributing uh haunting adelinethrough a publisher, but like
she still holds most of herrights, so it is.
It's really exciting foranother sort of like.
She's still sort of indie andshe's made it so you.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I know they be see, we didn't make it five minutes
and I'm I'm blowing out theprofanity already, so you know,
sorry look, at least it wasn'tme this time first, because it's
me everybody thinks I'm thisgenteel southern lady and then
you know, with my accent, andthen I just I don't know, it's
(03:46):
always it's always when are you?
from.
I am from about 45 minutesNorth of Atlanta, georgia, in
the mountains.
I actually I live on two acres,so it's really cool.
We have some horses up the roadthat don't belong to us, but we
get to like go and pet them,and my nine-year-old loves that
fact.
So we're also still fiveminutes from a Target and a
(04:08):
Chick-fil-A, so it's like I getthe best of both worlds.
It's like a little rural andthen I don't have to feel like I
can't get DoorDash or somethinglike that.
So yeah, that part helps.
You know, it's like I likebeing a little bit out and then,
but I don't want it to be um,you know, yeah, which book was
it that got you on the New YorkMissile and Tom?
(04:30):
The Proposition is the book thatlaunched me, um, and I had um
been in the young adult world.
I'd had two agents, two almostbook deals, um, and where they
they went to the acquisitionsmeeting and died.
And where they went to theacquisitions meeting and died.
And so that summer well, thatspring is when Fifty Shades had
(04:51):
hit you know which.
Now it's kind of hilarious that, because you know, we all
thought Fifty Shades was like,oh, and now we're like, hey, we
challenge each other.
It's like, let's write an adultscene.
Like you know, we've hadkissing and some naughty stuff
in our young adult, but nothinglike that.
So I didn't even have characternames for the book.
(05:13):
Then I wrote the office babymaking scene and then it was
like, ok, let's, let's writethis.
Because another one of mybuddies she was a young adult
but she put out an adult romancehit the USA Today, was like
quitting her job.
So I was like, damn, I got todo that too.
So I started on the propositionand it's an agent had told me
(05:36):
you know, you really need towrite what you I told her about
having to go to my great aunt'slingerie shower single.
And she's like, oh, my God,that's hilarious.
You should write that I'm like,no, I write to escape, not to
write.
You know, like having to besingle and being senior.
You know your great aunt unwraphandcuffs and stuff because
there was a gag gift that wasgiven and all this stuff my 70
(05:58):
year old great aunt's lingerieshower.
That is in a book actually itcalled Drop Dead Sexy, but
that's another story.
But she was like, no, youshould write, you know you're.
And so at that time I was a 30,32 ish gal and you know, wanting
to get married and have a babyand all that.
And so that's kind of what theproposition is.
The girl's biological clock isclanging and you know her gay
(06:18):
best friend says, oh, hey, I'lldo it.
And then he backs out and thecompany man Whore so it's an
office romance, in case you guysare interested in genre who
really wanted to sleep with herat the Christmas party, and she
told him no, it's like, hey, Iwill offer up my DNA if you and
I can conceive this childnaturally.
So that is the naughtyproposition.
(06:39):
And so they start baby makingand it kind of grows into
something more.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Wait, what book is this?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's called the Proposition.
Yes, and I put it out inOctober, like October 30th, 2012
.
And then, within three weeks, Iwas on the New York Times
bestseller list.
It was really.
It was crazy and it was themost amazing blessing.
In 2012, I lost my grandmother,who had been like my mother
after I lost my mom when I was23.
(07:07):
And she had been my strongestchampion in my writing.
Every time I got you know anagent or almost deal, she was
like I don't know if this is thebook, but I know it's going to
happen, it's all going to happenfor you.
And she passed away in May andI that was the only thing that
kept me sane was writing, youknow this book because I she was
like a spouse, I mean, I was ather house every day.
She lived five minutes from me,you know, and it was just so
(07:30):
sudden.
And so then that October,literally from May to October,
after losing her, you know, Iput the book out and I was a
teacher and I quit teaching inthat January sorry, at the end
of the and that by that time,december, I could.
In that January sorry at theend of the and that by that time
of December, I could, couldquit and you know.
Then started going to signingsand was leading this way,
(07:50):
incredible, like amazing,blessing life, all because of
this book that I wrote aboutwanting to have.
That was my own desires ofwanting to have a baby.
My own gay best friend wouldnot be the sperm donor I thought
he was going to be, becausethat's a little bit of my own
story later on of having mydaughter and um yeah, so
unfortunately I did not have anAiden to have.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That is my kind of book.
I'm surprised.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I didn't come across it.
I mean it's, it's 2012.
You got to be extreme OG tohave probably read the
proposition, but, um, yeah it it.
It was such.
You know, it's still whenpeople say, well, what's your
favorite book of yours, causeI've written almost 30 and I'm
like, well, they're likechildren, you can't pick a
favorite.
I mean, each one bringssomething, you know, pulls on
experience, does something.
(08:35):
But, like I said, that booksaved me in so many ways, you
know, and changed my life in somany wonderful, amazing ways.
And you know, kind of like I'mfeeling about poison and wine in
this series right now is itpulled me out of a terrible
writer's block of people youknow, kind of, you know, not
(08:55):
reading me for a lot.
So now that people arediscovering it and enjoying it,
it, you know, it feels a littlebit like a renaissance, a
rebirth.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Because that's how I discovered you from poison and
wine.
How long had it been since?
Was it like a big gap when youdid poison and wine?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I had a book come out in 2020, in January, right
before COVID, and then COVID,you know, was like caca and I
did not put out another oneuntil, I think, 2021.
It's called the actress and thearistocrat.
It went on submission.
It almost sold, it didn't, um,and it's for summary.
(09:34):
I don't, I don't know whathappened.
People just did not embrace itand did not really read it.
Then, to this past December, Iput out the, the son of
theositions characters who, I'mlike, everybody always wants the
son.
You know, they want the secondgeneration and I don't know if I
just, you know, I didn't whoremyself out like I did with
(09:55):
Poison and Wine, of messagingall the.
You know, I thought, okay, Ithink I have something with
Poison and Wine and Mafia isreally big.
I thought my hook was, you knowpretty good, of the fact that
Katerina is, um, trying toescape her family, so she joins.
She hasn't taken her final vows, but she, she is a nun, you
know.
So I'm like, oh, okay, so ifthis happens, you know surely?
(10:16):
So I kind of put more into itthan I did the pursuit.
But yeah, there was like a fouryear period that I only put out
two books and in reference,it'll be three books for this
one year that I'm doing.
So that's kind of thedifference.
So I don't know what happened.
I always think about such arandom I make the most random
analogies, but I grew up on CoalMiner's Daughter by Loretta
(10:39):
Lynn.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I freaking love this.
Oh, my God yes.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Her husband's like why don't you stay off the road?
And she's like no, you don'tunderstand.
If you don't, you're not on theroad, they forget about you.
And that's not that my readersforgot about me, it's just the
reading world changed socompletely since 2020.
I mean, tiktok exploded.
People like I my first signingwas with Colleen Hoover.
(11:04):
We signed at a bar, we didn'teven have tables like just the
whole trajectory of even hercareer, like she's always been
big in the indie world and thenshe got, you know, bigger, but
then TikTok just took it to thestratosphere.
And so just seeing the wayTikTok changed people, I just
it's like I want to go on andhold a sign and be like please
(11:25):
make me go viral, I'll be theviral whore.
That's fine, pick me, choose me, love me.
But yeah, it just changed somuch and I was just going
through such an emotional, youknow, kind of tumult with having
such trouble writing and I havea rheumatoid TMI if you're a
(11:50):
man listening or having ahysterectomy.
But something in my brainchemistry kind of changed too.
I feel like I have adult ADHDSquirrel.
See, I'll do that.
It's like how my brain worksnow is so very different and so
I just feel like that.
You know, it was just such ahard time.
And then to get this seriesidea to come really out of
(12:11):
nowhere, rereading my favoriteseries Black Dagger, brotherhood
Z is my favorite, if anybodyloves that series and I was
rereading his book and Quinn andIsla's story just came to me so
strong but I was like, oh no,that needs to be the second book
.
He's not the leader, he's theenforcer.
I got to.
And so then that's how thatbook, you know, came to me and
(12:33):
it was just like, oh, I feltlike it was such a.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I was wondering who you were going to write
after Callum.
I was like, first of all Iwanted to ask how did Poison and
Wine come about?
Like how did you get a nun?
Even though she went a nun andshe's from like the mafia family
.
But I was like how the heck didshe get from the mafia family
to run from her dad to a nunnery?
And then this Irish, like wheredid this come from?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Right.
I mean, I am part Irish, so Ilove all things Irish and so I
actually.
When I thought this would makea good mafia book, I started
reading a lot of mafia.
Shout out to Cora Riley.
I love her books.
They're actually Italian,they're not Irish, but I loved
her series.
In fact I'm signing with her atauthors in the bluegrass and I
(13:17):
have nerded out and like orderedway too many books on her
pre-order form.
She's going to be like Katiepre-order form.
She's going to be like KatieAshley's, ordering what the heck
Totally loved her Love SilentVowels by Jules Ramseur Neva
Altage, I think, is her name.
I don't know how to do this.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I don't know how to pronounce her name, but I
freaking love Jules.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh my God, love her books, love her books.
I've done rereads on Cora'sbook.
I've done rereads on hers.
So once I started getting intothe I was like, okay, I'm going
to.
You know, you're alwayssupposed to read what you're
going to write about.
So I started reading some mafiaand there was one book I want to
say where a priest was reallysome kind of and I was like, oh,
(14:00):
I should do it where, you know,the girl is really forbidden.
You know she's not supposed tobe.
Either she's been hidden awayin convent or she's chosen to
live in a convent.
And the Sound of Music is myfavorite movie too.
So it's kind of like bringingall that in.
I was like, oh, what if there'sa girl who tries to escape?
She knows her father that shecan't.
(14:21):
There is no escape because evenif she changes her name,
they'll drag her back andeverything.
But what if he fears God enoughthat she can get away with
being a nun and he won't screwthat up because he does fear,
you know, eternal damnation orwhatever?
So that's kind of where thatpart of it came.
But, like I said, in Z's book,in Black Dagger Brotherhood,
he's a scarred hero.
He doesn't like to be um, andthen bella is like his angel and
(14:46):
he wants to save her and um,through her he just I mean, it's
just a beautiful book.
I would recommend it.
I won't spoil too much.
But, um, no, bella is not astripper, that came.
Isla is a stripper, just on herown, like that.
That came from them owning theclub and then and all of that.
But, um, their idea really camefirst.
But I knew that shouldn't bethe first book in the series.
(15:08):
I was like, okay, he's going tobe the enforcer, where he has
to do the bad, a lot of the badthings, and he's seen a lot of
darkness, but she's going to behis light.
We've got to get the leader inthere.
So that's kind of wherecallum's book came in, is like,
okay, he's going to be theleader and you know we're, we're
going to combine my love ofirish people along and mafia
(15:28):
along with italian mafia.
So that's kind of where wherethat came up.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah I wanted to ask are we going to get a chance to
see them go back to, like themotherland, or are we going to
see them like take it back,because I know a lot of people
say that there's a lot of likeirish or italian and it's based
in like the states and stuff.
Are you gonna get a chance tosee them actually like one of
them to move back, or or?
(15:52):
You know the story.
I'm really looking for thesister yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Well, I know you haven't had a chance to read
dust to dust yet.
So there is toward the end ofthe book, where quinn goes back
to belfast.
He doesn't want to be in bostonanymore because of whatever you
know, he can't the theobstacles with isla or whatever.
So he is in he.
He makes a stopover to see herin dublin, though, and there's a
really cool scene that justcame out of nowhere to where she
(16:18):
really gets, where mave is init, and she gets to be very
kick-ass.
And originally, like I I saidin the back of the poison in
wine, I did not mean for maveand and rave to be together.
It was something where I wantedhim to be pissed off at the
reception.
So the brother was going to askto dance with her and it was
just going to be a nice moment,and then it was just like no,
(16:38):
these two are are supposed.
There's something supposed tobe with them, because the
chemistry was chemistry.
Chemistry was chemistry.
You'll hear authors say thecharacters do what they want to
and it sounds hokey.
I'm way serious.
It really does do that, becausethat wasn't even really
supposed to happen.
I mean, she was always such adriving force I was going to
(17:00):
have it, because mafia men aresuch assholes that that that
Callum and Quinn and Dara ordare, um, we're going to be a
family and then their dad's sidepiece chicks family was Callum
and Maeve and and Eamon.
And then I was like I knew her,her, what happens to her?
(17:20):
Trigger warning her sexualassault is so important to all
the brothers?
I was like, no, they, whathappens to her trigger warning
her sexual assault is soimportant to all the brothers?
I was like no, they, they needto be a full, they need it,
doesn't need to be a side piece,because mafia men are like that
.
They just they.
You know a lot of them and sothey have you know.
Yeah, so I nixed that they arenot faithful.
No, but my men are my men arevery faithful and all that.
(17:40):
But, um, so, yeah, it becamewhere they are this all, one
family and everything.
And then now I've lost where Iwas going with all that.
Before I said what I did aboutthe family part.
See, adhd, I swear it's, it'slike as an adult I have it so
much.
Uh, you know, I feel for myformer students because I never
understood it and, god almighty,now I do.
But, yeah, um, oh, but goingback to the motherland, yeah, he
(18:03):
is, excuse me, she's in dublinin school.
You'll see her and quinn indublin and then in mave's book.
Definitely there will be a timewhere they they're in dublin
and then maybe belfast, but um,is there a timeline for mave's
book?
because when I tell you I'm likeoh, it's november, it's her and
ray were together dancing atthe reception, I was like I need
(18:24):
this, no it's november, likethat was, her and Ray were
together dancing at thereception.
I was like I need this.
No, it's November.
Like that was not supposed tohappen.
I originally had my agent pitchthis series because I'm like,
okay, maybe I need another pubdeal, I need something to feel
like I'm back amongst thewriting world.
And so it went out, actuallybecause I only had written three
chapters and so in thetraditional world a lot of times
(18:49):
you can sell on three chaptersand sometimes you can't.
So I, they, they tried it withjust my original publisher,
penguin, and they were like, no,we're not really sold on Mafia.
And so it came back to me andmy agent was like, if you'll
finish it, we'll, you know,we'll go out with it again,
we'll, we'll sub it to, you know, all the publishers, not just
(19:12):
my, my old editor or whatever.
And I was like, yeah, I reallyneed to get a book out.
So I'm gonna continue, I'mgonna go ahead and write it.
And now I forgot, oh, thereason with the books.
Yes, so when it went on, god,so they're gonna be like that
lady, she's on something.
But, um, when it first went out,I had to out, you have to
outline the next two books ortell them what it's going to be
about.
So Quinn's book was alwaysnumber two and Dare's book was
supposed to be number three Likethat was the way it was
supposed to be.
And then everybody was justlike, oh my God, is Rafe and
(19:33):
Maeve going to get a book?
And it was so wonderful too.
You want people to embrace yourbook and you want them to care
enough about your characters.
I mean, it would really suck ifpeople were like I just don't
give a shit if they get a book,you know, or I don't care which
one.
But everybody was so much thatI put the author's note in the
end because I got feedback.
And they're like, oh, we reallywant to read this book.
Well, I talked to my betapartner.
She's been with me since Marchof 2013.
(19:55):
So she's read everything and Itorture her all the time with
things.
And she was like I really thinkyou need to do Rafe's book next
.
And I'm like, yeah, but if Idid DARE's, then I'm making them
wait and I'm dragging themalong.
She's like, nah, I would, Iwould go ahead and do it.
And then you know, because in away and the blurb will come out
DARE's book is he's a womanizer, he does not want to get
(20:16):
married, he doesn't want to bein an arranged marriage, and so
it's going to out that, um, itmight be a secret baby one or a
secret child one oh, my mom, asecret baby, yeah yeah so, and
then she has to.
She did not want any part of themafia world with him and so she
left.
And so now she's come back tohelp because she's got a kooky,
crazy, stalkery boyfriend andhe's like, okay, fine, but
(20:38):
you're gonna have to be with me.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And then he's angry because she had the baby already
, or like is the baby a coupleyears?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
no, no, it's going to be there.
Yes, it's there, I know.
So that will be.
Let's see that one comes out inNovember, that will be in
February.
Yeah, dara's book will beFebruary, but Rafe and Maeve's
to cut a long story short isNovember, and that's how you
know.
It ended up happening thisNovember.
(21:09):
Right, because once I sawthat's another thing too when I
talk about the Loretta Lynnthing that I lost myself on a
minute ago.
But if you don't stay prevalentin this world, that's why so
many authors are releasing everymonth, every two months, every
three months people do forgetabout you because they're just
so used to.
It's not like back in the daywhen authors would you know,
stephen King would put out abook a year.
Danielle still would put out abook.
You have to stay so relevant.
So, like Loretta, I got to hitthe tour bus and start putting
(21:32):
out, you know, several books.
And in between, there somewhere, I really do want to get the
why Choose Hockey.
I have 10,000 words of it.
It's gotten done.
I know exactly what's going tohappen.
And my agent was like, ok, ifyou finish this, we'll go out
with it too.
And so I'm just kind ofdebating because I don't, you
know, with traditionalpublishing they could accept
this in March, but it will comeout for another year or two and
(21:55):
by then people could be tired ofof why choose?
I don't know, I mean it's.
I guess, it's been a prettystrong for the last two years.
Um and hockey romance, that'sthe thing.
That's, that's the part of it.
So she had.
Actually my agent had checkedin with me the other day and I
was like, well, you see, I gotthese two mafia books done,
cause I need to get them out.
I was like, but I swear I thinkI'll have it to you by
(22:16):
Christmas.
Publishing kind of shuts downduring the Christmas holidays
and so it wouldn't really go outon submission until January.
But I'll have to see if I getit done.
That might be something I wantto put out myself.
But don't tell Jane that isJane Distel.
She's amazing, she's at aDistel in Godrich.
(22:39):
She's also Colleen's Hooper'sagent, so I can sound cool
saying that we have the sameagent but, that's how I get to
feel relevant with everybody,cause they're like I know, oh my
God, do you know Colleen Hoover?
I'm like, yeah, I've eventexted with her before and
(22:59):
they're like, oh, it's like likeat the pool, like we, we belong
to a pool.
And so the little lifeguardthere had the book and I was
like, oh, you know, I know whereI'm going to.
And that was the year I went.
I signed another one at BookBonanza and I was like I'm going
to be signing with her.
Oh my God, I'm like I know.
It's like I get to besecondhand cool just from you
(23:21):
know Colleen's stuff.
So, yeah, did you go to herpremiere?
I did not go to the premiere, Iwas supposed to sign at Book
Bonanza this year.
This is what.
This is.
What is the Katie Ashley?
Look, so I had signed the veryfirst year.
I think I've signed there threetimes.
It's an amazing event.
I mean you know everything goesto charity, everything is so
well run, but you know Colleen'swhole family's there, like the
last year I was there, I got tohug her.
I was in the elevator with hermom and so I was like, oh my God
(23:43):
, let me hug you.
Um, so I always love signingthere.
Well, this, I was like, okay,I'm going to take this year off,
because we just thought it wasgoing to keep on going, you know
.
So I was like I'll do 2024instead of this year.
So then we hear they come outand say okay, so last year was
the last book bonanza, we're notdoing it anymore.
I'm like mother trucker, likeif I'd known that I would have
(24:05):
gone.
And then what do they do?
They pile everybody up on busesand take them to go see the
damn movie.
And I didn't even get to dothat.
Well, dang, yeah, jenna Bush wasthere the year I was there.
So I was telling my bestiewho's my daughter's godmother
she went with us last summerbecause I'm paranoid and my
daughter travels with us, like Idon't like to leave her behind.
(24:26):
So she was going to.
So Christy kept her while I wasdoing all my stuff.
So she was like, oh my God,jenna, you know today's show is
so exciting.
So I called her.
I was like Christy, I hate totell you this, but yeah, blake
Lively was there and tookeverybody to the movies.
You're like that's my luck.
I always that always happens tome Like I'll choose to do stuff
(24:47):
, but it was an amazingexperience when I got to do it
and you know, I was so grateful,like I said, colleen and I I
mean she was already out when Istarted.
She had started publishing in2011.
But I remember reading Slammedand you know, loving it and
seeing her success and AbbyGlines and a couple of other
independent authors, becauseback then, self-publishing was
(25:09):
like you had the scarlet letter.
You did not want toself-publish.
It was the last resort.
The last resort and at thattime I had an agent and I wanted
to be in bookstores and thingsbecause I had this Southern
literary Christian fiction whichis, you're going to say, really
did you, katie?
I've read you.
Are you sure you had one likethat?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I was going to say you had a Christian book.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I had a Christian sort of Christian fiction, but
it was funny because it wasalways I'm always the Goldilocks
.
It was too Christian for that,the Goldilocks, it was too
Christian for and this was myyoung adult too it was too
Christian for the Christian forthe secular publishers and too
religious for the other, orwhatever, or not Christian
enough.
Anyway, it's basically like atequila.
It was like a tequilamockingbird, fried green
(25:52):
tomatoes.
Southern depression era novel.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Hold on when I told you, I wrote everything.
Look, we're going to take aquick commercial break and as
soon as we get back from thiscommercial break, I want to talk
about this Christian fiction,because what, coming from the
mafia queen, I know we're goingto be right back.
Y'all Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It's about tradition, value and community.
We're Creed and Creed and we'reproud to call Northeast
Louisiana home.
Katherine and I raised ourfamily here, we worship here and
we serve here.
It's an honor to support thecommunity that has given us so
much Tradition, value andcommunity.
That's Creed and Creed.
If you've been injured in anaccident, call Creed and Creed
(26:39):
today, proudly serving thisgreat community for over 25
years.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Okay, guys, so we are back and I'm ready to dive into
this Christian fiction.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I know it's so shocking, but if you look at all
my books, there's faith in allof them.
I am actually Baptist.
There's a lot of Catholicism in, obviously, in Poison and Wine
and Dust to Dust, becausethey're Irish Catholics.
The same in the Propositionhe's an Irish Catholic and
there's usually some reference.
I don't want to be preachy, I'mnot that.
(27:10):
I mean I am a naughty Christian, if I'm anything, you know.
But because I drink, I curse,you know all that kind of stuff.
I write books with no, no words, as my nine year old says.
But, um, this book was, it'scalled the road to Damascus.
It was kind of like, um, an odeto fried green tomatoes and
(27:31):
kill mockingbird, the green mile.
Uh, stephen King's book, it wasset in the depression.
Um, it was all in a seriousnote.
Because it's set in thedepression, it was all in a
serious note.
I mean I grew up where race wasan issue and I wanted to write
somewhere where there could be autopia where we all got along.
You know, we're not got along,but everybody was accepted as
(27:52):
they.
They are, and that what heavenreally is, where there is no, no
color, and you know all of that.
It's just, you know.
So you know I wrote this and Iwanted it to be.
You know, a nice little.
You know have symbolism andliterary devices like that.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I taught so was there like interracial dating in
there too.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
There, wasn't there.
It's basically, you know it'sthe tried and true.
There's a man who's accused ofcrime he didn't commit, and you
know it's the tried and true.
There's a man who's accused ofcrime he didn't commit and you
know it's this girl who livedfrom the mountains and a rich
cotton baron and they gettogether and it's her trying to
teach him, you know, the valueof life and meeting this man
along the way, who's beenthrough such terrible things
(28:34):
because of this cotton baron'sfamily, because of this Cotton
Barren's family.
And you know, it was just, it'sa romance, that's what that was
so hard, it was so hard to sell, because it's a romance but
it's also like literary fictionand it was just, you know.
But it was also, like I toldyou on the break, I mean when
you were like Christian fiction.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
But where does the whorehouse take place?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Chapter two Well, jackson is a wayward man.
He's at the whorehouse, he hasto meet Sarah on the road to
Damascus, you know.
So, like I said it was, I'mstill very, you know, I'm proud
of it because it was, it was thefirst thing I ever wrote.
I was nearing 30 and I was likeyou've always wanted to write a
(29:17):
book.
I was been a teacher I wasn'tcoaching cheerleading that year
and I was like the summer, byGod, you're sitting down and
you're going to write a book.
And so I started and it was.
I still look back.
There was some TikTok the otherday.
That was like what are yourmost amazing writing experiences
?
And just thinking, I mean, Iwould stay up all night writing.
And it was like I was in thatcommunity, that that beautiful
place where everybody, you know,could love each other and it
(29:40):
would be, you know.
And it was an amazing summerand nobody wanted to publish it.
So I did.
When I this, the whole point ofthis, going back again, squirrel
, was the whole self-publishingthing.
So I had an agent at the timeand I was like, look, I, you
know my late grandmother, shewants me to.
She wasn't dead then, sorry.
She, my grandmother, was likewanting me to put it out Cause
(30:00):
she was just the first time sheread it.
She's like honey, this is whereI get my vices from.
She while we were sitting onher back porch while she's
smoking you know, front, frontseat Baptist woman and she's out
there smoking.
She's like you're going to beon Oprah and Larry King.
This is amazing, like herbelief in me was just so.
You know, so many people gothrough where their family
(30:20):
doesn't support their writingand she was just telling
everybody, I mean.
And she's like I want you toput this book out if you can't
sell it At least.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I'm going to read your books.
Grandma had read the books.
Who did your grandmother readthe books?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Grandma read the book .
But, ok, so he wakes up in awhorehouse.
Now when they get married andthey have some smacks, it's all
closed door, because I rememberher saying because my
grandmother was this littlebitty lady but everybody called
her big mama and I was like whatdo you think the church is
going to think, you know, if Iput out this book and it has,
you know, he's at a whorehouseand he's drinking and he's you
know.
They're like, well, that justhappens.
(30:55):
And I'm like, okay, it justhappens Whatever.
But, like I said, her belief inme was just so amazing and so I
ended once again, I'm trying toreel it in the whole reason and
so I self-published it.
But my agent was like you cannotput this book out under your
(31:15):
name because you are onsubmission right now and if they
go and look at these sales andsee that you aren't selling much
, it's going to hurt yourchances.
So when I say how selfpublishing was the dirty word in
2011, it really was.
So Abby and and and Colleen hadhad been, they'd put out their
books and I saw, hey, it's notthe dirty word, they're, you
(31:36):
know, doing pretty.
They're decent, you know.
So that's why we decided youknow, we're our group of friends
were like we're going to writethis adult book.
It was I don't know if you'veread Emily Snow, michelle
Valentine and Kelly Main I'mthinking of I'm having to do
their pen names because they'redifferent names when we were in
the young adult community.
(31:57):
But we all got together, youknow, we were our beta readers
and we did this.
We decided to write the book, Idecided to write the proposition
.
So when you read the series andyou read the office baby making
scene, that was the first thingI ever wrote.
They didn't even have names.
It was basically to see if Icould write a full on scene.
(32:18):
So that was that.
Yeah, that was the first.
And I told my grandmother aboutit and that that a couple of
weeks before she passed away, Iwas like big mama, I'm writing
this book and it, it, it doesn'thave closed door scenes.
And she was like, oh, you know,if you're Southern, you know
that they, they, god, or thatterm.
And I was like I know.
And she was like, well, okay,and you know, I know she was
(32:49):
definitely looking down, or hasbeen and has enjoyed my career
as wild and yes, even you knowthe craziness of um, and so
whenever someone her age or,like my mother, my late mother's
age, is like, oh, I read yourbooks, I'm like I usually tell
them if you want to read mybooks, read the road to damascus
, that's my safe out because I'mlike it might have slight
cussing, um, you know.
(33:11):
And then it does have.
I mean, it's a darker book,there's lynching and there's you
, there's all kinds of horriblethings, because the South's
history is pretty horrible andit is.
And so, yes, but you know, likeI said to you, you know, I, I
it's still one that I'm proud of.
And then I started writing YoungAdult because I wrote it.
(33:32):
And then I, I saw I readTwilight, I became under the
Twilight, whatever that wascurse, uh, you know.
And so that's when I startedwriting young adult and I met a
lot of great people in the youngadult world and had my first um
agent.
And then my second age, like I,when I wrote my, my motorcycle
(33:54):
series.
I get to say that I alreadyhave some separate, six degrees
of separation.
My agent that I had at the timefor young adult, lee Feldman
she was the one who read andrepresented Cold Mountain.
Charlie Hunnam was the weirdalbino guy in Cold Mountain.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I was like how did you go about getting your agent?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Uh, back in the day it was that you emailed them, um
, your like a query letter thatsaid that was basically a
summary of your book and likethe couple of pages.
So the first book I queried wasroad to Damascus.
That did not go very well.
The first one, the young adult,was the guardians, which was
like a twilight kind of thing,but it was angels.
In high school, see, I was, Iwas still on the semi religious
(34:44):
path, still with that.
And then I lost my firststudent, um and I, in February,
and I started.
He was a male student and, um,I started thinking about how men
grieve, along with my own grief.
We lost two friends like sixmonths apart in high school to
(35:05):
car accidents, and so I wrotethis book called Don't Hate the
Player.
That's about this young guywho's been friends since
kindergarten with this basicallydouchebag guy who's always the
bully kind of guy, the mostpopular guy, but he accidentally
, um, blows himself up on atrain.
I don't know, I don't know ifyou've ever seen, uh, drop dead
(35:31):
gorgeous, how that's kind of aum, oh gosh, denise richards a
lifetime oh well, well, deniseRichards, and it's kind of like
a spoof of like beauty pageants,but it's also it's like I guess
when I wrote Don't Hate thePlayer, it was kind of like a
Heather's thing where there'shumor but it's dark and it's I
was kind of going for a darkhumor vibe.
(35:52):
So Jake is like the school manwhore and everybody dated him
and slept with him, and so whenNoah is helping his dad go
through his room they comeacross a diamond ring, and so
there was some unknown girl thatJake was in love with and
planned to propose to, and hewas also changing, he was making
his.
You know, he was doing better,he was volunteering, he was
doing all these different thingsto be a better person than Noah
(36:14):
was kind of like what is goingon with him.
And so it's kind of the storyof Noah Grieving his best
friend's loss Even though attimes he was a real douche bag
to him and then also, you know,coming the girl, trying to
figure out who the girl is andthen hoping it's not the girl
he's falling in love with too.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Wasn't the girl he was falling in love with too.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yes, it was Jake's tutor.
So, yeah, the good girl, thegood, whose dad's the pastor,
pastor Dan, so yeah, so, as youguys can see, I have a, you know
, a book collection that'salmost as ADHD as I'm talking
right now, but when I say I've,I've written everything, yeah.
And then the young adults, youknow.
But then the proposition serieshappened, and then I did music
(36:57):
of the heart.
Then the Proposition serieshappened and then I did Music of
the Heart, which is a rock starseries.
I ended up Penguin, who turnedme down on Don't Hate the Player
when it went run out onsubmission, with Lee Feldman,
who did Cold Mountain.
They were the ones that endedup picking up my motorcycle
series, vicious Cycle.
All Roads Lead Back to CharlieHunnam again.
(37:19):
And I guess Fifty Shades, youknow is, has such a part in my
career because I would havenever written an adult novel had
it been probably, I don't knowfor the big, huge swarm that was
the Fifty Shades craziness, oh,I know.
And then Charlie, you know, wassupposed to play Christian.
So I started watching Sons ofAnarchy because I wanted to see
(37:42):
who this, even though I reallywasn't really a fan of Vicky
Shades, but I started watchingit because I'm like he's going
to be Christian Grey.
And everybody was like, eh, andthen damn it if I didn't come up
with a motorcycle series idea.
And that's where Vicious Cycle,redemption Road and Last Mile
comes in.
You know it's authors get the.
You know, like I said, theideas come from the strangest
(38:03):
places sometimes.
And so I did that series.
And when I decided to do theMafia I was like, oh Katie, I
don't know if you can really doDark.
And I'm like dumbass.
You wrote a motorcycle series.
You know the kid watches hermother get her throat slit.
In the preface, the prologtrigger warning.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Sorry, violence, I'm just mad that I have not had the
chance to come across and readthese dang on books.
Like everything I'm, trying tolike take notes.
I bet people are going to belike what the hell is she doing?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I'm putting this shit in my phone.
Yeah, because I'm just, youknow, kind of hitting all of
them and like when I say, and no, you're not coming, you can say
hello real quick and then go.
This is my child who has snuckdownstairs.
Fix your top.
This is Olivia.
Hi, olivia, hello, mommy'stalking about her books.
(39:00):
We got a late start so you gotto go back upstairs.
I love you.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
We're almost done.
I'm gonna wrap it up with mom.
She kind of looked for you likewhere you at.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, because my office is actually downstairs in
our basement and so well, it'sfinished, thankfully, and so I
could hear the steps, just likeyou heard before, and I was like
, oh crap, she's coming for me.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Are you a full time author?
Are you working somewhere?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I had been full time for eight years and then I, when
I went through the dip, um ofnot putting anything out, I went
back to teaching.
Yeah, I'm actually high schoolspecial ed now, so, but I do, I
do teach English.
Yes, but it's so funny because,well, for two years I was a
parent, my daughter's school,and then I was like, okay, I'm,
(39:46):
I'm gonna, I'm doing everythingthat I did as a teacher, I'm
going to go back full becauseI'm single, um, if I had a man,
um, maybe I could be doing thisfull time.
But single people's healthinsurance when you have
autoimmune diseases really sucks.
So that was really part of why,you know, I went back as, like,
I gotta get some decent healthinsurance because I'm going to,
you know, be bankrupted from um,cause I do um infusions twice a
(40:08):
year that are, I want to say,eight or 10,000 a pop.
So I had, yeah, rituxan,anybody else on Rituxan out
there?
Um, so I, I, yeah between thatpart, but I, I'm thankfully very
um.
Besides, like, the fatigue, themind fatigue, I'm, I'm fine
physically, thank goodness.
I've been very blessed.
There's a lot of people I gotdiagnosed at 36.
(40:29):
Um, and actually I mentionedrheumatoid arthritis.
Isla's mom passes away from itin dust to dust and she talks
well, actually she doesn't sorrythere's something else that
happens, but she has it, um.
But she talks about how, um,you know her, her mom, she would
see her mom in so much pain,and that's kind of the reason
why their financial situation isthe way.
(40:50):
When she loses her parents isbecause her mom had been like an
insurance adjuster.
She had to quit her job, shecouldn't get on disability and
they ate into their savings.
So that's why she's going tohave to go be stripping to pay
for her college, her grad school.
So that's how she ends up inGwen's club.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
What's the baby brother name?
Kellen?
Are we gonna see Kellen?
You said Dare was the onethat's gonna.
When is when are we gonna getKellen's story?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Kellen will be after Dare's story and he is in Dust
to Dust a lot there.
He's having trouble with whathappened and what he had to see,
and so he kind of seeks outIsla.
She first thinks he's there totry to get her to do more than
she wants to and he's like no, Ijust want to pay to talk to you
.
I can't talk to anybody else,I'm a mafia man, you know.
(41:40):
I can't see a therapist andwhen you, yes, and so you know
she's lost her parents, um, in acar accident.
Um, her dad had a widow makeher heart attack and her mom
unbuckled to try to help get thecar, and so that's how she ends
up dying.
She would have made it like,because isla was in the car with
them too, but she, um, you know, survived and mom would have
(42:01):
shannon buckled her seatbelt,but that's, that's something
within.
But yeah, kellen is he always.
He just came out on the pagejust so I loved his name comes
from, uh, another OG goddess, uh, sc Stevens.
She wrote uh, kellen Kyle, um,and I have always loved Kellen.
He is one of my favorite bookboyfriends.
I think I read him in 2011, 2012too, and so it just happens
(42:24):
that Kellen is a good Irish nametoo, cause at first my beta
reader was like Callum, kellum,what you know, callum and Kellan
.
This is getting confusing.
I'm like, no, they're, they'reat opposite ends of the spectrum
, it's going to be okay.
And finding Irish names too, um, that you don't have to.
Um, I've read a lot of themthat I have to go to the YouTube
and figure out how to say them.
(42:44):
Some of the Italian ones arelike that too Definitely Russian
.
You have to figure out.
They don't have a pronunciationguide.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You got to figure out how to say them If you've read
any of Serena Ackroyd I hadbefore I went and looked at the,
because sometimes I have atendency to just flip through
and get to the actual book, likethe first chapter one, and so I
have been pronouncing thepeople name wrong this whole
time.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I forget which one.
I was reading Lillian Harrisand she had, oh gosh, the girl's
name is Eru, I believe Eru, andit's like E-R-I-U or Uru, and
then the sister's name is Isolta, or Isolt, because there's an
English, there's a Welsh inthere too, and so when I went to
(43:27):
the thing, I was like, oh God,and like Russian names, like
Kirill is really Kirill, andlike all these.
I'm like damn it, I'm just beenmassacring these names.
So I think, when I put and somepeople I know I've heard a
review and someone was like Isla, and I'm like, oh no, it's Isla
(43:48):
, you know.
It's almost like I need to puther name in there too.
That that's how you say youknow Isla.
But in some of the I'm trying tothink if it was some of the
Italian, I mean, I've had toGoogle them all.
There's a YouTube channel Ifyou need them.
It's called how to pronouncenames, and they've got this guy
that gets on there and tells youhow to say it, because I have
been really even the littleonline things that tells you how
to pronounce man.
(44:08):
That doesn't help me.
I have to go and actually haveto hear it.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
I'm definitely going to have to go and listen to the
YouTube.
That's why I like to listen tosome of the audio books and
stuff, so I can actually hearhow the names are pronounced and
even some of the language, howsometimes there's a little
language in their nativelanguage and stuff.
I'd be butchering.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I, I was lucky.
I, by a fluke, I ended up witha proofreader who was from um,
who was irish, and so I had beensailing saying gaelic.
When they say like, instead ofsaying oh, he said this to me in
irish.
I said gaelic and she was likeno, we say irish.
I'm like oh, okay, so um.
Thankfully she didn't say myslang or my my was too crazy and
(44:46):
I was like oh good, or like youknow, I always laugh and you
can feel this being in Louisiana, like when you see movies of
people in the South and they'realways sweating profusely and
like I love a time to kill.
But Matthew McConaughey is likesoaked through and I'm like the
South, we're not like this, youknow.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
It's not.
And then what really be gettingme about the movies and stuff
be the accents.
I'm like, yes, nobody talkslike that now my grandmother.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
That generation was kind of a throw-off like the
savannah, where you don'tpronounce your oz, darling,
because I told you I did a.
Um, uh, I wrote in penny reed'sworld, um, in the green valley.
She was a librarian, it was setin tennessee and at book
bonanza Chris Brinkley heard meread a scene.
He's like you know what youshould totally do the audio book
for this.
And I'm like you know I was atheater nerd, yeah, but no, I
(45:36):
thought he was just being nice.
And I got back home he was likeno, I'm serious, go find a
studio and do it the fake accentsometimes to make her aunt
sound different than just her.
And then it was really hard,you know, like lowering your
voice to be the man I mean itwas.
It was really wild.
But it was also another one ofmy top things of getting to do
was to voice your own book.
(45:58):
And obviously I couldn't dothese books because I'm too
Southern, I can't.
I can't do the Irish.
I code switch a lot.
If I hear people talk a certainway, I'll do that yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Honey and I'm too country to be doing holiday too.
For the most part people belike where you from South
Louisiana, and then they're likewe're not close to.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
I never think I have an accent and then people are
like, oh no, you have an accentI.
Then people are like, oh no,you, you have an accent.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
Um, you know, and and it's alsowho I'm with, if I'm trying to
be with like people who speakvery, you know, but if I'm with
my family, some of the you knowI'll, I'll start letting that
draw really come out and be realcountry, you know, because
(46:45):
that's where I'm from, becauseI'm real country.
I mean, like I said, we gotmountain people in my family and
I was laughing the other daybecause I was like it's kind of
absurd how many deliverancereferences I have made in some
of my books to the movieDeliverance and and and
(47:08):
Hillbillies and things like that.
But um, and I always laugh toobecause this one I was actually
doing something with this beforeI came on.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Wait, the new movie Deliverance.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
No, no, no, the old movie Deliverance with like Burt
Reynolds and it's like aboutHillbillies who who kidnap and
kind of do something to thesetwo guys and it's, yeah, it's
about these really backwoodsscary people.
But this book for some reasondrop dead sexy.
I'm trying to get in there hassold rights in Germany, foreign
(47:40):
rights in Germany and Israel.
This book is a Southern sexcomedy mystery about a victim
who dies, a very mild manneredpharmacistist who dies, who has
defalia, which is two penises Iwas gonna say why does that
sound so dirty?
Speaker 1 (47:55):
what is this so?
Speaker 2 (47:56):
he has this, and so I'm thinking how are these
people in germany and israelreading, how do you even
translate snake handlingchurches?
Um, I'm trying to think whatelse is in there that they have
that is so a nudist colony, like?
I'm like, what are these peoplethinking of the south and other
countries when they read thisbook that I mean it was, it was
(48:19):
so fun to write and I had ahilarious time doing it, but it
it's.
I always ask my agent.
I like we're not selling myother like this is the one that
they won.
The Southern sex comedy, wherethe girl has been in a sex
drought because her firstattempt at sex ended with the
guy with a latex allergy and histhing blowing almost blowing up
(48:40):
the second one.
The guy came and went on top ofher and so she's been in this
drought.
And so she finally decides whenshe goes to her mother's
lingerie shower.
Remember how I said?
I wrote that in a book about mygreat aunt's lingerie shower.
Yes, she goes to her mother'slaundry and she's like I can't
do this anymore.
I'm single and it's not gonnahappen.
So she hooks up with this guywho's a GBI agent, and then
(49:03):
she's a coroner and a morticianand has to investigate this
murder mystery, but I still sithere going.
There's someone in Germanyright now reading about
backwoods, nudist colonies, theDixie Mafia I do mention that in
there too, and yeah, it's justcraziness.
So if you're wondering if youshould read my books, you should
(49:26):
, because there is something foreveryone out there.
I have some sports.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
You have so much Right, literally yes.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Uh huh, I mean, it's not just that I've been that for
a while.
I was prolific because I didwrite full time Eight years, was
so blessed to get to, you know,go to so many signings here in
the US.
My daughter had a passport attwo.
She went to rare Berlin with meat two years old.
She's been to Italy, she's beento pair.
I'm like mommy didn't leave thecountry till she was 21 on a
(49:57):
cruise ship and that was just togo like the Bahamas on like a
three day.
And I'm like you're over herewith a passport and spoiled
little bougie thing, we haven'tflown since before COVID because
that's when everything was kindof dying.
Well, one, we didn't havesignings for like two or three
years and then everything youknow was kind of crazy.
And so we're going toCalifornia in two weeks during
(50:17):
the break and she was like Ijust can't believe I haven't
flown since 2009.
I'm like, shut up.
Mommy didn't even fly till Iwas 19.
You, little bougie girl, havingto have you, mommy didn't even
fly until I was 19.
You, little bougie girl, you aStanley and all this stuff Are
yours.
That way, do yours care aboutthe name?
She's nine and started caringabout the name brand things.
(50:38):
I thought I had about two moreyears, but she came home before
school started and said I needNikes to start school in.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I'm like shit, Mines are four and eight.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Okay, so you're about to get in that with the
eight-year-old.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yeah, not the eight, it's the four-year-old, it's
both of them.
Oh, four likes to be bougie.
Oh, they like to be bougie,like food and like going places,
like not so much as the well,whoever Lulu lemon is there on
saloon, lemon I think they haveto have a little lemon,
everything, but it's the eatingout and alright, we'll be like
(51:14):
oh, you want to go to McDonald's, I don't want to go to
McDonald's, I want Ronan hibachi.
Do you have money?
Speaker 2 (51:23):
I'm like do you know how much hibachi is?
I mean dang, I want sushi.
I won't see food.
I'm like Liv, do you know howmuch hibachi?
Speaker 1 (51:27):
is.
I mean dang.
I want sushi, I want seafood.
I'm like I wasn't even eatingsushi at three and four years
old.
No, she can tell you what kindof sushi roll she wants.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
At four.
Oh my God, I love it.
A lot of times it is just thetwo of us, so it is easy to pick
up, you know stuff.
But I kept telling her.
I was like we need to starteating at home.
We've got to be better.
We've got to um.
You know, do I'm about to uh,get back on full time?
Um, some of glue tide, I don'tmind saying.
Hopefully, when you see meagain, readers, I will be
(52:00):
slightly um, because I'mpre-diabetic so I gotta do it
for medical reasons too.
But I don't care.
Y'all can be like she'scheating, she's doing the jab,
but I'm like I don't care, I'mdoing it.
It's funny because I'm notgoing to.
I won't name things, but I seeso many authors who have done it
, and there's been one that hascome out and said, hey, I'm
doing it.
There's so many that haven't.
(52:21):
I'm your back.
I'm going to be like I am on it, I'm doing it, okay.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
I'm letting y'all know up front, so you bitches
don't talk about me behind myback, cause I'm telling y'all
that I'm doing it.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
You start seeing me all svelte and everything and
you're like that bitch is onOsepik.
I'll be like, no, it's Mondorodiabetic and I have health shit
I have to take it for, butbecause I had been on it before.
And then you get out and mydaughter's so funny.
She's like, oh God, are yougoing to take your shots again?
Because it just it.
It it makes me have these.
(52:54):
This is so to you, my burps,that are just terrible.
And she's like, oh, she callsthem surfer burps instead of
sulfur.
Yes, cause I've I've got to getserious about that.
But um, yeah, I'm going to be.
(53:14):
I'm honest about it.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
So what's your next event?
Where are we going to see yousigning it, or what's next?
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Yeah, I am going to be at Authors in the Bluegrass
in Lexington, kentucky, loveKiki Chatfield and Next Step PR.
They actually represented ordid my PR stuff for the last two
books.
Then I'm going to be at Magicwith the Bells in Orlando in
March, yeah, and then, if I getthe, really I'm supposed to be
(53:43):
there.
In God, I always say this forinternational signings because
it's always seems like somethingcrazy.
But, um, for Brits book fest inMay.
So I'll get to go go across thepond again and I'm hoping to go
.
I've never been to Belfast,I've been to Dublin.
So I want to like go take mybooks and like take pictures of
them in in Irish, you know, kindof places and, um, see the
(54:04):
Titanic thing, places, and seethe Titanic thing.
Liv will be excited about it.
Of course she's going with mebecause she gets stuck going
with me to everything.
So thankfully for in Octoberher godmother is going to come
with us to that.
And then we're going to go downwith friends to the Disney one
because while I'm signingthey're going to go to Disney.
So I'm telling you this becausewe had so many Orlando signings
(54:27):
back in the day.
She was 18 months old the firsttime she went to Disney and
then, when we didn't go, youknow, for a while, she's like I
can't believe it's been twoyears since I've been to Disney.
I'm like, excuse you, mommy gotto go one freaking time when
she was a kid and I was nine.
I'm like you're going to livechild, OK.
(54:49):
I'm like I're going to livechild, okay.
I'm like I need to take her tothat.
Whatever that experience, it iswhere they show you how people
in underdeveloped countries haveto live, so that she'll be
appreciative of what you knowshe has.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
When you find out what it is, send it to me, so I
can send mine too.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
It must be.
It must be this generation,because I have so many friends
who say the same things.
They're like my kid just doesnot, you know, and I, she has a
good heart.
Like yesterday, we had to go tothe shelter for some the doggy
shelter to take some stuff wealso I meant to have on my
volunteer.
Another thing about me, besidesthe other 9,000 things, is we
(55:19):
rescue, we are foster, we're afoster house for kitties.
So we're actually about tofoster fail with a kitten, god,
because the rest of the littergot adopted and we we've had her
sleeping with us and now we'reway too attached.
So, yeah, so you can't let hergo.
No, we can't let her go.
And she's thankfully gettingalong with the dogs.
We have two dogs and we havetwo, two cats, and so we're soon
(55:45):
to have three.
But she ran out to get the icecream money that she had for
next week.
She ran out of the car and gotto put in for the animals.
So she's selectively caring.
Now you know like in that caseshe was like oh, I got to donate
to the animals.
If we see a homeless person, shewants to do that, especially if
they're the dog.
She's like me.
You could just be a horribleperson, but if you're homeless
(56:05):
with a dog, I'm not going tocare, I'm going to give you, you
know, everything.
So, um, and I'm never one ofthose people I'm always like, if
I feel something, this is, thisis like a nudge, this is the
universe telling me I need to doit.
He may go buy alcohol with it,but who cares?
I universe, whatever youbelieve in, you know, nudging me
to do so.
I've got to try that buthopefully, you know she'll,
(56:28):
she'll be a little less bougie,but miss katie, can you tell us
where we can follow you at ontiktok, instagram, facebook?
all of them.
No, uh, yes, I am at.
Uh, you can follow.
Do you want like a handle orlike what do I need to?
Speaker 1 (56:46):
tell you, is your handle the same or all like
across the board?
Speaker 2 (56:49):
I want to say it is Katie Ashley love on Instagram,
I'm Katie Ashley romance onFacebook and then, um, tick tock
, I might be.
Hang on, let me see, I'm reallystarting to try to get tick
tock.
I.
I went against it for so long.
I Try to get TikTok.
I went against it for so long.
I am author Katie Ashley onthere, but you're going to see
(57:09):
me posting and stuff.
In fact, that was one thing Iworked on before we sat down was
getting my, my setup in hereready to be a little bit better.
So I got to do it.
You know, we got to whoreourselves wherever we do.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
Do you have a bookish website or?
Speaker 2 (57:25):
anything I do.
I am katyashleybookscom and Ishould.
I'm working with someone to getmy TikTok shop set up and I
will have some sprayed edgesreally soon of and hopefully
some little roses and sprayedfor poison and wine and dust to
dust, and I was so lucky I foundsomeone local in Atlanta so I
(57:48):
can take the books to them andmake sure, because a lot of the
companies you don't know, youknow they're overseas and I'm a
little scared to order, like youknow, 500 books and then come
back, like you know, looking alittle scary.
So I'm like this is so greatand it helps the local business
too because we're.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
We're all out there hustling.
Yes, we are.
Well, I thank you for coming onand talking to us today.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
I'm so excited.
Like I said, thank you so muchfor having me letting an old dog
do some new tricks in the bookworld and thank you guys for
tuning in.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Until next time, make sure you are following Miss
Katie Ashley and, of course,make sure you're following me.
Download this episode, makesure that you go and pick up
Poison and Wine and Dust to Dust.
And then we are waiting forMaeve's story and we are waiting
for Kel.
Look, listen, I am so ready forhis story, so I'm going to make
(58:44):
sure to be on her and keep youguys updated for when it drops.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
It will be February.
They're going to be every threemonths, so I promise he's
coming.
Seamus is getting a book.
Her brothers are all gettingbooks.
It's Oprah Everybody gets abook.
You'll get a book.
You'll get a book.
You'll get a book.
Then we're going to go to asideways Russian breakfast
series with someone that one ofthe brothers gets.
There's just going to be mafiaeverywhere.
Speaker 1 (59:08):
You said with someone that one of the brothers gets.
Are we going to get like an MM?
Maybe?
Not telling you yet how did shedrop that T when it's time to
go?
She knew what she was doing.
That's time to go T.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
That's a t-shirt.
I'm going to trademark that.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
None of y'all better be out there doing it.
Don't steal this lady's shit,man, I know.
Speaker 2 (59:39):
I'll be coming after you.
I mean, I already said I gotmountain people, we'll go
deliverance on you, not the newdeliverance, the old one with
the creepy hillbilly.
I didn't even watch the newDeliverance, honey.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
I've seen so many funny memes about that.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
I'm like I gotta watch this.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
So until next time, you guys.
We are signing out.
Alright, thanks, guys.
Hey y'all.
Hey, you are watching andlistening to Licks.
Between the Lines, of course Iam your host, licks.
I'm so excited, especiallyabout our co-host today.
But before we get into it and Ilet her introduce herself,
let's go through the triggerwarnings.
For the most part I try to stayin between the lines, but
(00:26):
sometimes, if you have beenlistening, I tend to cross them
just a little.
So that is trigger number oftrigger warning number one.
The second thing is there mayor may not be explicit adult
language, depending on myemotions, how heightened I get.
(00:46):
There may or may not be umsexual content discussed.
There may or may not be talk ofviolence, because we're talking
about a mafia romance.
Of course there's violence inthe book.
So take these as your triggerwarnings, um, if you decide to
continue with us.
Thank you and without furtherado, I am going to introduce New
(01:08):
York Times bestselling author.
You know what I'm going to.
Let her introduce herself.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh, okay, well, thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
I am Katie Ashley and I'm a NewYork Times, usa Today and
Amazon top three bestsellingromance author.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I'm so excited for you, like that's a big deal it
is.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
You know, like when I hit it in 2012, there was
something in our newspaper.
It was funny that you had thesame odds of hitting the lottery
was going on.
And so I said you have the sameodds that we could hitting the
lottery as you did the New Yorktimes.
And I was like, oh my God,because I still couldn't believe
it.
And I was lucky, I got to makeit a couple of times with
different series and all, and itwas an honor.
(01:55):
Now it's so hard for Indies todo it.
So I'm so thankful that I hadmy moment.
Um to do it, because now youknow you really have to.
Um to do it, because now youknow you really have to.
They don't let Indies on thelist unless you know a publisher
is distributing them.
So, um, I wish, yeah, yeah, andthen, awful, like USA Today is
pretty much the same way now too.
Um, but when I started, youcould be an Indie um, cause one
(02:17):
week I was on the um, the ebooklist, and I was on the trade
like the print or whatever, andnow they've taken it.
Yeah, you know, pissed it,indies, I guess, for all of our
independent success andeverything.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So, yeah, I know that .
So, that's a little piece ofinformation that I did not know.
Is there a reason why they?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I want to say, like New York Times happened like
three or four years ago maybe,and then USA Today was like the
last holdout that indies couldstill do.
And I want to say it's been inthe last two years, maybe
Because I remember thinking, oh,thank God I made a list,
because now, you know, unless Iwent traditional, I don't even
have the option.
(02:58):
So, yeah, that part, that partsucks.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
But this is a recent change.
Now I'm going to have toresearch.
Um, it's a recent change.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Now I'm gonna have to .
It is a recent change, yeah,yeah, and it sucks.
I know hd carlton made it theother day and she is
distributing uh haunting adelinethrough a publisher, but like
she still holds most of herrights, so it is.
It's really exciting foranother sort of like.
She's still sort of indie andshe's made it so you.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I know they be see, we didn't make it five minutes
and I'm I'm blowing out theprofanity already, so you know,
sorry look, at least it wasn'tme this time first, because it's
me everybody thinks I'm thisgenteel southern lady and then
you know, with my accent, andthen I just I don't know, it's
(03:46):
always it's always when are you?
from.
I am from about 45 minutesNorth of Atlanta, georgia, in
the mountains.
I actually I live on two acres,so it's really cool.
We have some horses up the roadthat don't belong to us, but we
get to like go and pet them,and my nine-year-old loves that
fact.
So we're also still fiveminutes from a Target and a
(04:08):
Chick-fil-A, so it's like I getthe best of both worlds.
It's like a little rural andthen I don't have to feel like I
can't get DoorDash or somethinglike that.
So yeah, that part helps.
You know, it's like I likebeing a little bit out and then,
but I don't want it to be um,you know, yeah, which book was
it that got you on the New YorkMissile and Tom?
(04:30):
The Proposition is the book thatlaunched me, um, and I had um
been in the young adult world.
I'd had two agents, two almostbook deals, um, and where they
they went to the acquisitionsmeeting and died.
And where they went to theacquisitions meeting and died.
And so that summer well, thatspring is when Fifty Shades had
(04:51):
hit you know which.
Now it's kind of hilarious that, because you know, we all
thought Fifty Shades was like,oh, and now we're like, hey, we
challenge each other.
It's like, let's write an adultscene.
Like you know, we've hadkissing and some naughty stuff
in our young adult, but nothinglike that.
So I didn't even have characternames for the book.
(05:13):
Then I wrote the office babymaking scene and then it was
like, ok, let's, let's writethis.
Because another one of mybuddies she was a young adult
but she put out an adult romancehit the USA Today, was like
quitting her job.
So I was like, damn, I got todo that too.
So I started on the propositionand it's an agent had told me
(05:36):
you know, you really need towrite what you I told her about
having to go to my great aunt'slingerie shower single.
And she's like, oh, my God,that's hilarious.
You should write that I'm like,no, I write to escape, not to
write.
You know, like having to besingle and being senior.
You know your great aunt unwraphandcuffs and stuff because
there was a gag gift that wasgiven and all this stuff my 70
(05:58):
year old great aunt's lingerieshower.
That is in a book actually itcalled Drop Dead Sexy, but
that's another story.
But she was like, no, youshould write, you know you're.
And so at that time I was a 30,32 ish gal and you know, wanting
to get married and have a babyand all that.
And so that's kind of what theproposition is.
The girl's biological clock isclanging and you know her gay
(06:18):
best friend says, oh, hey, I'lldo it.
And then he backs out and thecompany man Whore so it's an
office romance, in case you guysare interested in genre who
really wanted to sleep with herat the Christmas party, and she
told him no, it's like, hey, Iwill offer up my DNA if you and
I can conceive this childnaturally.
So that is the naughtyproposition.
(06:39):
And so they start baby makingand it kind of grows into
something more.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Wait, what book is this?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
It's called the Proposition.
Yes, and I put it out inOctober, like October 30th, 2012
.
And then, within three weeks, Iwas on the New York Times
bestseller list.
It was really.
It was crazy and it was themost amazing blessing.
In 2012, I lost my grandmother,who had been like my mother
after I lost my mom when I was23.
(07:07):
And she had been my strongestchampion in my writing.
Every time I got you know anagent or almost deal, she was
like I don't know if this is thebook, but I know it's going to
happen, it's all going to happenfor you.
And she passed away in May andI that was the only thing that
kept me sane was writing, youknow this book because I she was
like a spouse, I mean, I was ather house every day.
She lived five minutes from me,you know, and it was just so
(07:30):
sudden.
And so then that October,literally from May to October,
after losing her, you know, Iput the book out and I was a
teacher and I quit teaching inthat January sorry, at the end
of the and that by that time,december, I could.
In that January sorry at theend of the and that by that time
of December, I could, couldquit and you know.
Then started going to signingsand was leading this way,
(07:50):
incredible, like amazing,blessing life, all because of
this book that I wrote aboutwanting to have.
That was my own desires ofwanting to have a baby.
My own gay best friend wouldnot be the sperm donor I thought
he was going to be, becausethat's a little bit of my own
story later on of having mydaughter and um yeah, so
unfortunately I did not have anAiden to have.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That is my kind of book.
I'm surprised.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I didn't come across it.
I mean it's, it's 2012.
You got to be extreme OG tohave probably read the
proposition, but, um, yeah it it.
It was such.
You know, it's still whenpeople say, well, what's your
favorite book of yours, causeI've written almost 30 and I'm
like, well, they're likechildren, you can't pick a
favorite.
I mean, each one bringssomething, you know, pulls on
experience, does something.
(08:35):
But, like I said, that booksaved me in so many ways, you
know, and changed my life in somany wonderful, amazing ways.
And you know, kind of like I'mfeeling about poison and wine in
this series right now is itpulled me out of a terrible
writer's block of people youknow, kind of, you know, not
(08:55):
reading me for a lot.
So now that people arediscovering it and enjoying it,
it, you know, it feels a littlebit like a renaissance, a
rebirth.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Because that's how I discovered you from poison and
wine.
How long had it been since?
Was it like a big gap when youdid poison and wine?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I had a book come out in 2020, in January, right
before COVID, and then COVID,you know, was like caca and I
did not put out another oneuntil, I think, 2021.
It's called the actress and thearistocrat.
It went on submission.
It almost sold, it didn't, um,and it's for summary.
(09:34):
I don't, I don't know whathappened.
People just did not embrace itand did not really read it.
Then, to this past December, Iput out the, the son of
theositions characters who, I'mlike, everybody always wants the
son.
You know, they want the secondgeneration and I don't know if I
just, you know, I didn't whoremyself out like I did with
(09:55):
Poison and Wine, of messagingall the.
You know, I thought, okay, Ithink I have something with
Poison and Wine and Mafia isreally big.
I thought my hook was, you knowpretty good, of the fact that
Katerina is, um, trying toescape her family, so she joins.
She hasn't taken her final vows, but she, she is a nun, you
know.
So I'm like, oh, okay, so ifthis happens, you know surely?
(10:16):
So I kind of put more into itthan I did the pursuit.
But yeah, there was like a fouryear period that I only put out
two books and in reference,it'll be three books for this
one year that I'm doing.
So that's kind of thedifference.
So I don't know what happened.
I always think about such arandom I make the most random
analogies, but I grew up on CoalMiner's Daughter by Loretta
(10:39):
Lynn.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I freaking love this.
Oh, my God yes.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Her husband's like why don't you stay off the road?
And she's like no, you don'tunderstand.
If you don't, you're not on theroad, they forget about you.
And that's not that my readersforgot about me, it's just the
reading world changed socompletely since 2020.
I mean, tiktok exploded.
People like I my first signingwas with Colleen Hoover.
(11:04):
We signed at a bar, we didn'teven have tables like just the
whole trajectory of even hercareer, like she's always been
big in the indie world and thenshe got, you know, bigger, but
then TikTok just took it to thestratosphere.
And so just seeing the wayTikTok changed people, I just
it's like I want to go on andhold a sign and be like please
(11:25):
make me go viral, I'll be theviral whore.
That's fine, pick me, choose me, love me.
But yeah, it just changed somuch and I was just going
through such an emotional, youknow, kind of tumult with having
such trouble writing and I havea rheumatoid TMI if you're a
(11:50):
man listening or having ahysterectomy.
But something in my brainchemistry kind of changed too.
I feel like I have adult ADHDSquirrel.
See, I'll do that.
It's like how my brain worksnow is so very different and so
I just feel like that.
You know, it was just such ahard time.
And then to get this seriesidea to come really out of
(12:11):
nowhere, rereading my favoriteseries Black Dagger, brotherhood
Z is my favorite, if anybodyloves that series and I was
rereading his book and Quinn andIsla's story just came to me so
strong but I was like, oh no,that needs to be the second book
.
He's not the leader, he's theenforcer.
I got to.
And so then that's how thatbook, you know, came to me and
(12:33):
it was just like, oh, I feltlike it was such a.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I was wondering who you were going to write
after Callum.
I was like, first of all Iwanted to ask how did Poison and
Wine come about?
Like how did you get a nun?
Even though she went a nun andshe's from like the mafia family
.
But I was like how the heck didshe get from the mafia family
to run from her dad to a nunnery?
And then this Irish, like wheredid this come from?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Right.
I mean, I am part Irish, so Ilove all things Irish and so I
actually.
When I thought this would makea good mafia book, I started
reading a lot of mafia.
Shout out to Cora Riley.
I love her books.
They're actually Italian,they're not Irish, but I loved
her series.
In fact I'm signing with her atauthors in the bluegrass and I
(13:17):
have nerded out and like orderedway too many books on her
pre-order form.
She's going to be like Katiepre-order form.
She's going to be like KatieAshley's, ordering what the heck
Totally loved her Love SilentVowels by Jules Ramseur Neva
Altage, I think, is her name.
I don't know how to do this.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I don't know how to pronounce her name, but I
freaking love Jules.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh my God, love her books, love her books.
I've done rereads on Cora'sbook.
I've done rereads on hers.
So once I started getting intothe I was like, okay, I'm going
to.
You know, you're alwayssupposed to read what you're
going to write about.
So I started reading some mafiaand there was one book I want to
say where a priest was reallysome kind of and I was like, oh,
(14:00):
I should do it where, you know,the girl is really forbidden.
You know she's not supposed tobe.
Either she's been hidden awayin convent or she's chosen to
live in a convent.
And the Sound of Music is myfavorite movie too.
So it's kind of like bringingall that in.
I was like, oh, what if there'sa girl who tries to escape?
She knows her father that shecan't.
(14:21):
There is no escape because evenif she changes her name,
they'll drag her back andeverything.
But what if he fears God enoughthat she can get away with
being a nun and he won't screwthat up because he does fear,
you know, eternal damnation orwhatever?
So that's kind of where thatpart of it came.
But, like I said, in Z's book,in Black Dagger Brotherhood,
he's a scarred hero.
He doesn't like to be um, andthen bella is like his angel and
(14:46):
he wants to save her and um,through her he just I mean, it's
just a beautiful book.
I would recommend it.
I won't spoil too much.
But, um, no, bella is not astripper, that came.
Isla is a stripper, just on herown, like that.
That came from them owning theclub and then and all of that.
But, um, their idea really camefirst.
But I knew that shouldn't bethe first book in the series.
(15:08):
I was like, okay, he's going tobe the enforcer, where he has
to do the bad, a lot of the badthings, and he's seen a lot of
darkness, but she's going to behis light.
We've got to get the leader inthere.
So that's kind of wherecallum's book came in, is like,
okay, he's going to be theleader and you know we're, we're
going to combine my love ofirish people along and mafia
(15:28):
along with italian mafia.
So that's kind of where wherethat came up.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah I wanted to ask are we going to get a chance to
see them go back to, like themotherland, or are we going to
see them like take it back,because I know a lot of people
say that there's a lot of likeirish or italian and it's based
in like the states and stuff.
Are you gonna get a chance tosee them actually like one of
them to move back, or or?
(15:52):
You know the story.
I'm really looking for thesister yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Well, I know you haven't had a chance to read
dust to dust yet.
So there is toward the end ofthe book, where quinn goes back
to belfast.
He doesn't want to be in bostonanymore because of whatever you
know, he can't the theobstacles with isla or whatever.
So he is in he.
He makes a stopover to see herin dublin, though, and there's a
really cool scene that justcame out of nowhere to where she
(16:18):
really gets, where mave is init, and she gets to be very
kick-ass.
And originally, like I I saidin the back of the poison in
wine, I did not mean for maveand and rave to be together.
It was something where I wantedhim to be pissed off at the
reception.
So the brother was going to askto dance with her and it was
just going to be a nice moment,and then it was just like no,
(16:38):
these two are are supposed.
There's something supposed tobe with them, because the
chemistry was chemistry.
Chemistry was chemistry.
You'll hear authors say thecharacters do what they want to
and it sounds hokey.
I'm way serious.
It really does do that, becausethat wasn't even really
supposed to happen.
I mean, she was always such adriving force I was going to
(17:00):
have it, because mafia men aresuch assholes that that that
Callum and Quinn and Dara ordare, um, we're going to be a
family and then their dad's sidepiece chicks family was Callum
and Maeve and and Eamon.
And then I was like I knew her,her, what happens to her?
(17:20):
Trigger warning her sexualassault is so important to all
the brothers?
I was like, no, they, whathappens to her trigger warning
her sexual assault is soimportant to all the brothers?
I was like no, they, they needto be a full, they need it,
doesn't need to be a side piece,because mafia men are like that
.
They just they.
You know a lot of them and sothey have you know.
Yeah, so I nixed that they arenot faithful.
No, but my men are my men arevery faithful and all that.
(17:40):
But, um, so, yeah, it becamewhere they are this all, one
family and everything.
And then now I've lost where Iwas going with all that.
Before I said what I did aboutthe family part.
See, adhd, I swear it's, it'slike as an adult I have it so
much.
Uh, you know, I feel for myformer students because I never
understood it and, god almighty,now I do.
But, yeah, um, oh, but goingback to the motherland, yeah, he
(18:03):
is, excuse me, she's in dublinin school.
You'll see her and quinn indublin and then in mave's book.
Definitely there will be a timewhere they they're in dublin
and then maybe belfast, but um,is there a timeline for mave's
book?
because when I tell you I'm likeoh, it's november, it's her and
ray were together dancing atthe reception, I was like I need
(18:24):
this, no it's november, likethat was, her and Ray were
together dancing at thereception.
I was like I need this.
No, it's November.
Like that was not supposed tohappen.
I originally had my agent pitchthis series because I'm like,
okay, maybe I need another pubdeal, I need something to feel
like I'm back amongst thewriting world.
And so it went out, actuallybecause I only had written three
chapters and so in thetraditional world a lot of times
(18:49):
you can sell on three chaptersand sometimes you can't.
So I, they, they tried it withjust my original publisher,
penguin, and they were like, no,we're not really sold on Mafia.
And so it came back to me andmy agent was like, if you'll
finish it, we'll, you know,we'll go out with it again,
we'll, we'll sub it to, you know, all the publishers, not just
(19:12):
my, my old editor or whatever.
And I was like, yeah, I reallyneed to get a book out.
So I'm gonna continue, I'mgonna go ahead and write it.
And now I forgot, oh, thereason with the books.
Yes, so when it went on, god,so they're gonna be like that
lady, she's on something.
But, um, when it first went out,I had to out, you have to
outline the next two books ortell them what it's going to be
about.
So Quinn's book was alwaysnumber two and Dare's book was
supposed to be number three Likethat was the way it was
supposed to be.
And then everybody was justlike, oh my God, is Rafe and
(19:33):
Maeve going to get a book?
And it was so wonderful too.
You want people to embrace yourbook and you want them to care
enough about your characters.
I mean, it would really suck ifpeople were like I just don't
give a shit if they get a book,you know, or I don't care which
one.
But everybody was so much thatI put the author's note in the
end because I got feedback.
And they're like, oh, we reallywant to read this book.
Well, I talked to my betapartner.
She's been with me since Marchof 2013.
(19:55):
So she's read everything and Itorture her all the time with
things.
And she was like I really thinkyou need to do Rafe's book next
.
And I'm like, yeah, but if Idid DARE's, then I'm making them
wait and I'm dragging themalong.
She's like, nah, I would, Iwould go ahead and do it.
And then you know, because in away and the blurb will come out
DARE's book is he's a womanizer, he does not want to get
(20:16):
married, he doesn't want to bein an arranged marriage, and so
it's going to out that, um, itmight be a secret baby one or a
secret child one oh, my mom, asecret baby, yeah yeah so, and
then she has to.
She did not want any part of themafia world with him and so she
left.
And so now she's come back tohelp because she's got a kooky,
crazy, stalkery boyfriend andhe's like, okay, fine, but
(20:38):
you're gonna have to be with me.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And then he's angry because she had the baby already
, or like is the baby a coupleyears?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
no, no, it's going to be there.
Yes, it's there, I know.
So that will be.
Let's see that one comes out inNovember, that will be in
February.
Yeah, dara's book will beFebruary, but Rafe and Maeve's
to cut a long story short isNovember, and that's how you
know.
It ended up happening thisNovember.
(21:09):
Right, because once I sawthat's another thing too when I
talk about the Loretta Lynnthing that I lost myself on a
minute ago.
But if you don't stay prevalentin this world, that's why so
many authors are releasing everymonth, every two months, every
three months people do forgetabout you because they're just
so used to.
It's not like back in the daywhen authors would you know,
stephen King would put out abook a year.
Danielle still would put out abook.
You have to stay so relevant.
So, like Loretta, I got to hitthe tour bus and start putting
(21:32):
out, you know, several books.
And in between, there somewhere, I really do want to get the
why Choose Hockey.
I have 10,000 words of it.
It's gotten done.
I know exactly what's going tohappen.
And my agent was like, ok, ifyou finish this, we'll go out
with it too.
And so I'm just kind ofdebating because I don't, you
know, with traditionalpublishing they could accept
this in March, but it will comeout for another year or two and
(21:55):
by then people could be tired ofof why choose?
I don't know, I mean it's.
I guess, it's been a prettystrong for the last two years.
Um and hockey romance, that'sthe thing.
That's, that's the part of it.
So she had.
Actually my agent had checkedin with me the other day and I
was like, well, you see, I gotthese two mafia books done,
cause I need to get them out.
I was like, but I swear I thinkI'll have it to you by
(22:16):
Christmas.
Publishing kind of shuts downduring the Christmas holidays
and so it wouldn't really go outon submission until January.
But I'll have to see if I getit done.
That might be something I wantto put out myself.
But don't tell Jane that isJane Distel.
She's amazing, she's at aDistel in Godrich.
(22:39):
She's also Colleen's Hooper'sagent, so I can sound cool
saying that we have the sameagent but, that's how I get to
feel relevant with everybody,cause they're like I know, oh my
God, do you know Colleen Hoover?
I'm like, yeah, I've eventexted with her before and
(22:59):
they're like, oh, it's like likeat the pool, like we, we belong
to a pool.
And so the little lifeguardthere had the book and I was
like, oh, you know, I know whereI'm going to.
And that was the year I went.
I signed another one at BookBonanza and I was like I'm going
to be signing with her.
Oh my God, I'm like I know.
It's like I get to besecondhand cool just from you
(23:21):
know Colleen's stuff.
So, yeah, did you go to herpremiere?
I did not go to the premiere, Iwas supposed to sign at Book
Bonanza this year.
This is what.
This is.
What is the Katie Ashley?
Look, so I had signed the veryfirst year.
I think I've signed there threetimes.
It's an amazing event.
I mean you know everything goesto charity, everything is so
well run, but you know Colleen'swhole family's there, like the
last year I was there, I got tohug her.
I was in the elevator with hermom and so I was like, oh my God
(23:43):
, let me hug you.
Um, so I always love signingthere.
Well, this, I was like, okay,I'm going to take this year off,
because we just thought it wasgoing to keep on going, you know
.
So I was like I'll do 2024instead of this year.
So then we hear they come outand say okay, so last year was
the last book bonanza, we're notdoing it anymore.
I'm like mother trucker, likeif I'd known that I would have
(24:05):
gone.
And then what do they do?
They pile everybody up on busesand take them to go see the
damn movie.
And I didn't even get to dothat.
Well, dang, yeah, jenna Bush wasthere the year I was there.
So I was telling my bestiewho's my daughter's godmother
she went with us last summerbecause I'm paranoid and my
daughter travels with us, like Idon't like to leave her behind.
(24:26):
So she was going to.
So Christy kept her while I wasdoing all my stuff.
So she was like, oh my God,jenna, you know today's show is
so exciting.
So I called her.
I was like Christy, I hate totell you this, but yeah, blake
Lively was there and tookeverybody to the movies.
You're like that's my luck.
I always that always happens tome Like I'll choose to do stuff
(24:47):
, but it was an amazingexperience when I got to do it
and you know, I was so grateful,like I said, colleen and I I
mean she was already out when Istarted.
She had started publishing in2011.
But I remember reading Slammedand you know, loving it and
seeing her success and AbbyGlines and a couple of other
independent authors, becauseback then, self-publishing was
(25:09):
like you had the scarlet letter.
You did not want toself-publish.
It was the last resort.
The last resort and at thattime I had an agent and I wanted
to be in bookstores and thingsbecause I had this Southern
literary Christian fiction whichis, you're going to say, really
did you, katie?
I've read you.
Are you sure you had one likethat?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I was going to say you had a Christian book.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I had a Christian sort of Christian fiction, but
it was funny because it wasalways I'm always the Goldilocks
.
It was too Christian for that,the Goldilocks, it was too
Christian for and this was myyoung adult too it was too
Christian for the Christian forthe secular publishers and too
religious for the other, orwhatever, or not Christian
enough.
Anyway, it's basically like atequila.
It was like a tequilamockingbird, fried green
(25:52):
tomatoes.
Southern depression era novel.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Hold on when I told you, I wrote everything.
Look, we're going to take aquick commercial break and as
soon as we get back from thiscommercial break, I want to talk
about this Christian fiction,because what, coming from the
mafia queen, I know we're goingto be right back.
Y'all Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It's about tradition, value and community.
We're Creed and Creed and we'reproud to call Northeast
Louisiana home.
Katherine and I raised ourfamily here, we worship here and
we serve here.
It's an honor to support thecommunity that has given us so
much Tradition, value andcommunity.
That's Creed and Creed.
If you've been injured in anaccident, call Creed and Creed
(26:39):
today, proudly serving thisgreat community for over 25
years.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Okay, guys, so we are back and I'm ready to dive into
this Christian fiction.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I know it's so shocking, but if you look at all
my books, there's faith in allof them.
I am actually Baptist.
There's a lot of Catholicism in, obviously, in Poison and Wine
and Dust to Dust, becausethey're Irish Catholics.
The same in the Propositionhe's an Irish Catholic and
there's usually some reference.
I don't want to be preachy, I'mnot that.
(27:10):
I mean I am a naughty Christian, if I'm anything, you know.
But because I drink, I curse,you know all that kind of stuff.
I write books with no, no words, as my nine year old says.
But, um, this book was, it'scalled the road to Damascus.
It was kind of like, um, an odeto fried green tomatoes and
(27:31):
kill mockingbird, the green mile.
Uh, stephen King's book, it wasset in the depression.
Um, it was all in a seriousnote.
Because it's set in thedepression, it was all in a
serious note.
I mean I grew up where race wasan issue and I wanted to write
somewhere where there could be autopia where we all got along.
You know, we're not got along,but everybody was accepted as
(27:52):
they.
They are, and that what heavenreally is, where there is no, no
color, and you know all of that.
It's just, you know.
So you know I wrote this and Iwanted it to be.
You know, a nice little.
You know have symbolism andliterary devices like that.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I taught so was there like interracial dating in
there too.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
There, wasn't there.
It's basically, you know it'sthe tried and true.
There's a man who's accused ofcrime he didn't commit, and you
know it's the tried and true.
There's a man who's accused ofcrime he didn't commit and you
know it's this girl who livedfrom the mountains and a rich
cotton baron and they gettogether and it's her trying to
teach him, you know, the valueof life and meeting this man
along the way, who's beenthrough such terrible things
(28:34):
because of this cotton baron'sfamily, because of this Cotton
Barren's family.
And you know, it was just, it'sa romance, that's what that was
so hard, it was so hard to sell, because it's a romance but
it's also like literary fictionand it was just, you know.
But it was also, like I toldyou on the break, I mean when
you were like Christian fiction.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
But where does the whorehouse take place?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Chapter two Well, jackson is a wayward man.
He's at the whorehouse, he hasto meet Sarah on the road to
Damascus, you know.
So, like I said it was, I'mstill very, you know, I'm proud
of it because it was, it was thefirst thing I ever wrote.
I was nearing 30 and I was likeyou've always wanted to write a
(29:17):
book.
I was been a teacher I wasn'tcoaching cheerleading that year
and I was like the summer, byGod, you're sitting down and
you're going to write a book.
And so I started and it was.
I still look back.
There was some TikTok the otherday.
That was like what are yourmost amazing writing experiences
?
And just thinking, I mean, Iwould stay up all night writing.
And it was like I was in thatcommunity, that that beautiful
place where everybody, you know,could love each other and it
(29:40):
would be, you know.
And it was an amazing summerand nobody wanted to publish it.
So I did.
When I this, the whole point ofthis, going back again, squirrel
, was the whole self-publishingthing.
So I had an agent at the timeand I was like, look, I, you
know my late grandmother, shewants me to.
She wasn't dead then, sorry.
She, my grandmother, was likewanting me to put it out Cause
(30:00):
she was just the first time sheread it.
She's like honey, this is whereI get my vices from.
She while we were sitting onher back porch while she's
smoking you know, front, frontseat Baptist woman and she's out
there smoking.
She's like you're going to beon Oprah and Larry King.
This is amazing, like herbelief in me was just so.
You know, so many people gothrough where their family
(30:20):
doesn't support their writingand she was just telling
everybody, I mean.
And she's like I want you toput this book out if you can't
sell it At least.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I'm going to read your books.
Grandma had read the books.
Who did your grandmother readthe books?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Grandma read the book .
But, ok, so he wakes up in awhorehouse.
Now when they get married andthey have some smacks, it's all
closed door, because I rememberher saying because my
grandmother was this littlebitty lady but everybody called
her big mama and I was like whatdo you think the church is
going to think, you know, if Iput out this book and it has,
you know, he's at a whorehouseand he's drinking and he's you
know.
They're like, well, that justhappens.
(30:55):
And I'm like, okay, it justhappens Whatever.
But, like I said, her belief inme was just so amazing and so I
ended once again, I'm trying toreel it in the whole reason and
so I self-published it.
But my agent was like you cannotput this book out under your
(31:15):
name because you are onsubmission right now and if they
go and look at these sales andsee that you aren't selling much
, it's going to hurt yourchances.
So when I say how selfpublishing was the dirty word in
2011, it really was.
So Abby and and and Colleen hadhad been, they'd put out their
books and I saw, hey, it's notthe dirty word, they're, you
(31:36):
know, doing pretty.
They're decent, you know.
So that's why we decided youknow, we're our group of friends
were like we're going to writethis adult book.
It was I don't know if you'veread Emily Snow, michelle
Valentine and Kelly Main I'mthinking of I'm having to do
their pen names because they'redifferent names when we were in
the young adult community.
(31:57):
But we all got together, youknow, we were our beta readers
and we did this.
We decided to write the book, Idecided to write the proposition
.
So when you read the series andyou read the office baby making
scene, that was the first thingI ever wrote.
They didn't even have names.
It was basically to see if Icould write a full on scene.
(32:18):
So that was that.
Yeah, that was the first.
And I told my grandmother aboutit and that that a couple of
weeks before she passed away, Iwas like big mama, I'm writing
this book and it, it, it doesn'thave closed door scenes.
And she was like, oh, you know,if you're Southern, you know
that they, they, god, or thatterm.
And I was like I know.
And she was like, well, okay,and you know, I know she was
(32:49):
definitely looking down, or hasbeen and has enjoyed my career
as wild and yes, even you knowthe craziness of um, and so
whenever someone her age or,like my mother, my late mother's
age, is like, oh, I read yourbooks, I'm like I usually tell
them if you want to read mybooks, read the road to damascus
, that's my safe out because I'mlike it might have slight
cussing, um, you know.
(33:11):
And then it does have.
I mean, it's a darker book,there's lynching and there's you
, there's all kinds of horriblethings, because the South's
history is pretty horrible andit is.
And so, yes, but you know, likeI said to you, you know, I, I
it's still one that I'm proud of.
And then I started writing YoungAdult because I wrote it.
(33:32):
And then I, I saw I readTwilight, I became under the
Twilight, whatever that wascurse, uh, you know.
And so that's when I startedwriting young adult and I met a
lot of great people in the youngadult world and had my first um
agent.
And then my second age, like I,when I wrote my, my motorcycle
(33:54):
series.
I get to say that I alreadyhave some separate, six degrees
of separation.
My agent that I had at the timefor young adult, lee Feldman
she was the one who read andrepresented Cold Mountain.
Charlie Hunnam was the weirdalbino guy in Cold Mountain.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I was like how did you go about getting your agent?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Uh, back in the day it was that you emailed them, um
, your like a query letter thatsaid that was basically a
summary of your book and likethe couple of pages.
So the first book I queried wasroad to Damascus.
That did not go very well.
The first one, the young adult,was the guardians, which was
like a twilight kind of thing,but it was angels.
In high school, see, I was, Iwas still on the semi religious
(34:44):
path, still with that.
And then I lost my firststudent, um and I, in February,
and I started.
He was a male student and, um,I started thinking about how men
grieve, along with my own grief.
We lost two friends like sixmonths apart in high school to
(35:05):
car accidents, and so I wrotethis book called Don't Hate the
Player.
That's about this young guywho's been friends since
kindergarten with this basicallydouchebag guy who's always the
bully kind of guy, the mostpopular guy, but he accidentally
, um, blows himself up on atrain.
I don't know, I don't know ifyou've ever seen, uh, drop dead
(35:31):
gorgeous, how that's kind of aum, oh gosh, denise richards a
lifetime oh well, well, deniseRichards, and it's kind of like
a spoof of like beauty pageants,but it's also it's like I guess
when I wrote Don't Hate thePlayer, it was kind of like a
Heather's thing where there'shumor but it's dark and it's I
was kind of going for a darkhumor vibe.
(35:52):
So Jake is like the school manwhore and everybody dated him
and slept with him, and so whenNoah is helping his dad go
through his room they comeacross a diamond ring, and so
there was some unknown girl thatJake was in love with and
planned to propose to, and hewas also changing, he was making
his.
You know, he was doing better,he was volunteering, he was
doing all these different thingsto be a better person than Noah
(36:14):
was kind of like what is goingon with him.
And so it's kind of the storyof Noah Grieving his best
friend's loss Even though attimes he was a real douche bag
to him and then also, you know,coming the girl, trying to
figure out who the girl is andthen hoping it's not the girl
he's falling in love with too.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Wasn't the girl he was falling in love with too.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yes, it was Jake's tutor.
So, yeah, the good girl, thegood, whose dad's the pastor,
pastor Dan, so yeah, so, as youguys can see, I have a, you know
, a book collection that'salmost as ADHD as I'm talking
right now, but when I say I've,I've written everything, yeah.
And then the young adults, youknow.
But then the proposition serieshappened, and then I did music
(36:57):
of the heart.
Then the Proposition serieshappened and then I did Music of
the Heart, which is a rock starseries.
I ended up Penguin, who turnedme down on Don't Hate the Player
when it went run out onsubmission, with Lee Feldman,
who did Cold Mountain.
They were the ones that endedup picking up my motorcycle
series, vicious Cycle.
All Roads Lead Back to CharlieHunnam again.
(37:19):
And I guess Fifty Shades, youknow is, has such a part in my
career because I would havenever written an adult novel had
it been probably, I don't knowfor the big, huge swarm that was
the Fifty Shades craziness, oh,I know.
And then Charlie, you know, wassupposed to play Christian.
So I started watching Sons ofAnarchy because I wanted to see
(37:42):
who this, even though I reallywasn't really a fan of Vicky
Shades, but I started watchingit because I'm like he's going
to be Christian Grey.
And everybody was like, eh, andthen damn it if I didn't come up
with a motorcycle series idea.
And that's where Vicious Cycle,redemption Road and Last Mile
comes in.
You know it's authors get the.
You know, like I said, theideas come from the strangest
(38:03):
places sometimes.
And so I did that series.
And when I decided to do theMafia I was like, oh Katie, I
don't know if you can really doDark.
And I'm like dumbass.
You wrote a motorcycle series.
You know the kid watches hermother get her throat slit.
In the preface, the prologtrigger warning.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Sorry, violence, I'm just mad that I have not had the
chance to come across and readthese dang on books.
Like everything I'm, trying tolike take notes.
I bet people are going to belike what the hell is she doing?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I'm putting this shit in my phone.
Yeah, because I'm just, youknow, kind of hitting all of
them and like when I say, and no, you're not coming, you can say
hello real quick and then go.
This is my child who has snuckdownstairs.
Fix your top.
This is Olivia.
Hi, olivia, hello, mommy'stalking about her books.
(39:00):
We got a late start so you gotto go back upstairs.
I love you.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
We're almost done.
I'm gonna wrap it up with mom.
She kind of looked for you likewhere you at.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, because my office is actually downstairs in
our basement and so well, it'sfinished, thankfully, and so I
could hear the steps, just likeyou heard before, and I was like
, oh crap, she's coming for me.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Are you a full time author?
Are you working somewhere?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I had been full time for eight years and then I, when
I went through the dip, um ofnot putting anything out, I went
back to teaching.
Yeah, I'm actually high schoolspecial ed now, so, but I do, I
do teach English.
Yes, but it's so funny because,well, for two years I was a
parent, my daughter's school,and then I was like, okay, I'm,
(39:46):
I'm gonna, I'm doing everythingthat I did as a teacher, I'm
going to go back full becauseI'm single, um, if I had a man,
um, maybe I could be doing thisfull time.
But single people's healthinsurance when you have
autoimmune diseases really sucks.
So that was really part of why,you know, I went back as, like,
I gotta get some decent healthinsurance because I'm going to,
you know, be bankrupted from um,cause I do um infusions twice a
(40:08):
year that are, I want to say,eight or 10,000 a pop.
So I had, yeah, rituxan,anybody else on Rituxan out
there?
Um, so I, I, yeah between thatpart, but I, I'm thankfully very
um.
Besides, like, the fatigue, themind fatigue, I'm, I'm fine
physically, thank goodness.
I've been very blessed.
There's a lot of people I gotdiagnosed at 36.
(40:29):
Um, and actually I mentionedrheumatoid arthritis.
Isla's mom passes away from itin dust to dust and she talks
well, actually she doesn't sorrythere's something else that
happens, but she has it, um.
But she talks about how, um,you know her, her mom, she would
see her mom in so much pain,and that's kind of the reason
why their financial situation isthe way.
(40:50):
When she loses her parents isbecause her mom had been like an
insurance adjuster.
She had to quit her job, shecouldn't get on disability and
they ate into their savings.
So that's why she's going tohave to go be stripping to pay
for her college, her grad school.
So that's how she ends up inGwen's club.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
What's the baby brother name?
Kellen?
Are we gonna see Kellen?
You said Dare was the onethat's gonna.
When is when are we gonna getKellen's story?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Kellen will be after Dare's story and he is in Dust
to Dust a lot there.
He's having trouble with whathappened and what he had to see,
and so he kind of seeks outIsla.
She first thinks he's there totry to get her to do more than
she wants to and he's like no, Ijust want to pay to talk to you
.
I can't talk to anybody else,I'm a mafia man, you know.
(41:40):
I can't see a therapist andwhen you, yes, and so you know
she's lost her parents, um, in acar accident.
Um, her dad had a widow makeher heart attack and her mom
unbuckled to try to help get thecar, and so that's how she ends
up dying.
She would have made it like,because isla was in the car with
them too, but she, um, you know, survived and mom would have
(42:01):
shannon buckled her seatbelt,but that's, that's something
within.
But yeah, kellen is he always.
He just came out on the pagejust so I loved his name comes
from, uh, another OG goddess, uh, sc Stevens.
She wrote uh, kellen Kyle, um,and I have always loved Kellen.
He is one of my favorite bookboyfriends.
I think I read him in 2011, 2012too, and so it just happens
(42:24):
that Kellen is a good Irish nametoo, cause at first my beta
reader was like Callum, kellum,what you know, callum and Kellan
.
This is getting confusing.
I'm like, no, they're, they'reat opposite ends of the spectrum
, it's going to be okay.
And finding Irish names too, um, that you don't have to.
Um, I've read a lot of themthat I have to go to the YouTube
and figure out how to say them.
(42:44):
Some of the Italian ones arelike that too Definitely Russian
.
You have to figure out.
They don't have a pronunciationguide.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
You got to figure out how to say them If you've read
any of Serena Ackroyd I hadbefore I went and looked at the,
because sometimes I have atendency to just flip through
and get to the actual book, likethe first chapter one, and so I
have been pronouncing thepeople name wrong this whole
time.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I forget which one.
I was reading Lillian Harrisand she had, oh gosh, the girl's
name is Eru, I believe Eru, andit's like E-R-I-U or Uru, and
then the sister's name is Isolta, or Isolt, because there's an
English, there's a Welsh inthere too, and so when I went to
(43:27):
the thing, I was like, oh God,and like Russian names, like
Kirill is really Kirill, andlike all these.
I'm like damn it, I'm just beenmassacring these names.
So I think, when I put and somepeople I know I've heard a
review and someone was like Isla, and I'm like, oh no, it's Isla
(43:48):
, you know.
It's almost like I need to puther name in there too.
That that's how you say youknow Isla.
But in some of the I'm trying tothink if it was some of the
Italian, I mean, I've had toGoogle them all.
There's a YouTube channel Ifyou need them.
It's called how to pronouncenames, and they've got this guy
that gets on there and tells youhow to say it, because I have
been really even the littleonline things that tells you how
to pronounce man.
(44:08):
That doesn't help me.
I have to go and actually haveto hear it.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
I'm definitely going to have to go and listen to the
YouTube.
That's why I like to listen tosome of the audio books and
stuff, so I can actually hearhow the names are pronounced and
even some of the language, howsometimes there's a little
language in their nativelanguage and stuff.
I'd be butchering.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I, I was lucky.
I, by a fluke, I ended up witha proofreader who was from um,
who was irish, and so I had beensailing saying gaelic.
When they say like, instead ofsaying oh, he said this to me in
irish.
I said gaelic and she was likeno, we say irish.
I'm like oh, okay, so um.
Thankfully she didn't say myslang or my my was too crazy and
(44:46):
I was like oh good, or like youknow, I always laugh and you
can feel this being in Louisiana, like when you see movies of
people in the South and they'realways sweating profusely and
like I love a time to kill.
But Matthew McConaughey is likesoaked through and I'm like the
South, we're not like this, youknow.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
It's not.
And then what really be gettingme about the movies and stuff
be the accents.
I'm like, yes, nobody talkslike that now my grandmother.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
That generation was kind of a throw-off like the
savannah, where you don'tpronounce your oz, darling,
because I told you I did a.
Um, uh, I wrote in penny reed'sworld, um, in the green valley.
She was a librarian, it was setin tennessee and at book
bonanza Chris Brinkley heard meread a scene.
He's like you know what youshould totally do the audio book
for this.
And I'm like you know I was atheater nerd, yeah, but no, I
(45:36):
thought he was just being nice.
And I got back home he was likeno, I'm serious, go find a
studio and do it the fake accentsometimes to make her aunt
sound different than just her.
And then it was really hard,you know, like lowering your
voice to be the man I mean itwas.
It was really wild.
But it was also another one ofmy top things of getting to do
was to voice your own book.
(45:58):
And obviously I couldn't dothese books because I'm too
Southern, I can't.
I can't do the Irish.
I code switch a lot.
If I hear people talk a certainway, I'll do that yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Honey and I'm too country to be doing holiday too.
For the most part people belike where you from South
Louisiana, and then they're likewe're not close to.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
I never think I have an accent and then people are
like, oh no, you have an accentI.
Then people are like, oh no,you, you have an accent.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
Um, you know, and and it's alsowho I'm with, if I'm trying to
be with like people who speakvery, you know, but if I'm with
my family, some of the you knowI'll, I'll start letting that
draw really come out and be realcountry, you know, because
(46:45):
that's where I'm from, becauseI'm real country.
I mean, like I said, we gotmountain people in my family and
I was laughing the other daybecause I was like it's kind of
absurd how many deliverancereferences I have made in some
of my books to the movieDeliverance and and and
(47:08):
Hillbillies and things like that.
But um, and I always laugh toobecause this one I was actually
doing something with this beforeI came on.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Wait, the new movie Deliverance.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
No, no, no, the old movie Deliverance with like Burt
Reynolds and it's like aboutHillbillies who who kidnap and
kind of do something to thesetwo guys and it's, yeah, it's
about these really backwoodsscary people.
But this book for some reasondrop dead sexy.
I'm trying to get in there hassold rights in Germany, foreign
(47:40):
rights in Germany and Israel.
This book is a Southern sexcomedy mystery about a victim
who dies, a very mild manneredpharmacistist who dies, who has
defalia, which is two penises Iwas gonna say why does that
sound so dirty?
Speaker 1 (47:55):
what is this so?
Speaker 2 (47:56):
he has this, and so I'm thinking how are these
people in germany and israelreading, how do you even
translate snake handlingchurches?
Um, I'm trying to think whatelse is in there that they have
that is so a nudist colony, like?
I'm like, what are these peoplethinking of the south and other
countries when they read thisbook that I mean it was, it was
(48:19):
so fun to write and I had ahilarious time doing it, but it
it's.
I always ask my agent.
I like we're not selling myother like this is the one that
they won.
The Southern sex comedy, wherethe girl has been in a sex
drought because her firstattempt at sex ended with the
guy with a latex allergy and histhing blowing almost blowing up
(48:40):
the second one.
The guy came and went on top ofher and so she's been in this
drought.
And so she finally decides whenshe goes to her mother's
lingerie shower.
Remember how I said?
I wrote that in a book about mygreat aunt's lingerie shower.
Yes, she goes to her mother'slaundry and she's like I can't
do this anymore.
I'm single and it's not gonnahappen.
So she hooks up with this guywho's a GBI agent, and then
(49:03):
she's a coroner and a morticianand has to investigate this
murder mystery, but I still sithere going.
There's someone in Germanyright now reading about
backwoods, nudist colonies, theDixie Mafia I do mention that in
there too, and yeah, it's justcraziness.
So if you're wondering if youshould read my books, you should
(49:26):
, because there is something foreveryone out there.
I have some sports.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
You have so much Right, literally yes.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Uh huh, I mean, it's not just that I've been that for
a while.
I was prolific because I didwrite full time Eight years, was
so blessed to get to, you know,go to so many signings here in
the US.
My daughter had a passport attwo.
She went to rare Berlin with meat two years old.
She's been to Italy, she's beento pair.
I'm like mommy didn't leave thecountry till she was 21 on a
(49:57):
cruise ship and that was just togo like the Bahamas on like a
three day.
And I'm like you're over herewith a passport and spoiled
little bougie thing, we haven'tflown since before COVID because
that's when everything was kindof dying.
Well, one, we didn't havesignings for like two or three
years and then everything youknow was kind of crazy.
And so we're going toCalifornia in two weeks during
(50:17):
the break and she was like Ijust can't believe I haven't
flown since 2009.
I'm like, shut up.
Mommy didn't even fly till Iwas 19.
You, little bougie girl, havingto have you, mommy didn't even
fly until I was 19.
You, little bougie girl, you aStanley and all this stuff Are
yours.
That way, do yours care aboutthe name?
She's nine and started caringabout the name brand things.
(50:38):
I thought I had about two moreyears, but she came home before
school started and said I needNikes to start school in.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I'm like shit, Mines are four and eight.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Okay, so you're about to get in that with the
eight-year-old.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yeah, not the eight, it's the four-year-old, it's
both of them.
Oh, four likes to be bougie.
Oh, they like to be bougie,like food and like going places,
like not so much as the well,whoever Lulu lemon is there on
saloon, lemon I think they haveto have a little lemon,
everything, but it's the eatingout and alright, we'll be like
(51:14):
oh, you want to go to McDonald's, I don't want to go to
McDonald's, I want Ronan hibachi.
Do you have money?
Speaker 2 (51:23):
I'm like do you know how much hibachi is?
I mean dang, I want sushi.
I won't see food.
I'm like Liv, do you know howmuch hibachi?
Speaker 1 (51:27):
is.
I mean dang.
I want sushi, I want seafood.
I'm like I wasn't even eatingsushi at three and four years
old.
No, she can tell you what kindof sushi roll she wants.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
At four.
Oh my God, I love it.
A lot of times it is just thetwo of us, so it is easy to pick
up, you know stuff.
But I kept telling her.
I was like we need to starteating at home.
We've got to be better.
We've got to um.
You know, do I'm about to uh,get back on full time?
Um, some of glue tide, I don'tmind saying.
Hopefully, when you see meagain, readers, I will be
(52:00):
slightly um, because I'mpre-diabetic so I gotta do it
for medical reasons too.
But I don't care.
Y'all can be like she'scheating, she's doing the jab,
but I'm like I don't care, I'mdoing it.
It's funny because I'm notgoing to.
I won't name things, but I seeso many authors who have done it
, and there's been one that hascome out and said, hey, I'm
doing it.
There's so many that haven't.
(52:21):
I'm your back.
I'm going to be like I am on it, I'm doing it, okay.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
I'm letting y'all know up front, so you bitches
don't talk about me behind myback, cause I'm telling y'all
that I'm doing it.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
You start seeing me all svelte and everything and
you're like that bitch is onOsepik.
I'll be like, no, it's Mondorodiabetic and I have health shit
I have to take it for, butbecause I had been on it before.
And then you get out and mydaughter's so funny.
She's like, oh God, are yougoing to take your shots again?
Because it just it.
It it makes me have these.
(52:54):
This is so to you, my burps,that are just terrible.
And she's like, oh, she callsthem surfer burps instead of
sulfur.
Yes, cause I've I've got to getserious about that.
But um, yeah, I'm going to be.
(53:14):
I'm honest about it.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
So what's your next event?
Where are we going to see yousigning it, or what's next?
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Yeah, I am going to be at Authors in the Bluegrass
in Lexington, kentucky, loveKiki Chatfield and Next Step PR.
They actually represented ordid my PR stuff for the last two
books.
Then I'm going to be at Magicwith the Bells in Orlando in
March, yeah, and then, if I getthe, really I'm supposed to be
(53:43):
there.
In God, I always say this forinternational signings because
it's always seems like somethingcrazy.
But, um, for Brits book fest inMay.
So I'll get to go go across thepond again and I'm hoping to go
.
I've never been to Belfast,I've been to Dublin.
So I want to like go take mybooks and like take pictures of
them in in Irish, you know, kindof places and, um, see the
(54:04):
Titanic thing, places, and seethe Titanic thing.
Liv will be excited about it.
Of course she's going with mebecause she gets stuck going
with me to everything.
So thankfully for in Octoberher godmother is going to come
with us to that.
And then we're going to go downwith friends to the Disney one
because while I'm signingthey're going to go to Disney.
So I'm telling you this becausewe had so many Orlando signings
(54:27):
back in the day.
She was 18 months old the firsttime she went to Disney and
then, when we didn't go, youknow, for a while, she's like I
can't believe it's been twoyears since I've been to Disney.
I'm like, excuse you, mommy gotto go one freaking time when
she was a kid and I was nine.
I'm like you're going to livechild, OK.
(54:49):
I'm like I're going to livechild, okay.
I'm like I need to take her tothat.
Whatever that experience, it iswhere they show you how people
in underdeveloped countries haveto live, so that she'll be
appreciative of what you knowshe has.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
When you find out what it is, send it to me, so I
can send mine too.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
It must be.
It must be this generation,because I have so many friends
who say the same things.
They're like my kid just doesnot, you know, and I, she has a
good heart.
Like yesterday, we had to go tothe shelter for some the doggy
shelter to take some stuff wealso I meant to have on my
volunteer.
Another thing about me, besidesthe other 9,000 things, is we
(55:19):
rescue, we are foster, we're afoster house for kitties.
So we're actually about tofoster fail with a kitten, god,
because the rest of the littergot adopted and we we've had her
sleeping with us and now we'reway too attached.
So, yeah, so you can't let hergo.
No, we can't let her go.
And she's thankfully gettingalong with the dogs.
We have two dogs and we havetwo, two cats, and so we're soon
(55:45):
to have three.
But she ran out to get the icecream money that she had for
next week.
She ran out of the car and gotto put in for the animals.
So she's selectively caring.
Now you know like in that caseshe was like oh, I got to donate
to the animals.
If we see a homeless person, shewants to do that, especially if
they're the dog.
She's like me.
You could just be a horribleperson, but if you're homeless
(56:05):
with a dog, I'm not going tocare, I'm going to give you, you
know, everything.
So, um, and I'm never one ofthose people I'm always like, if
I feel something, this is, thisis like a nudge, this is the
universe telling me I need to doit.
He may go buy alcohol with it,but who cares?
I universe, whatever youbelieve in, you know, nudging me
to do so.
I've got to try that buthopefully, you know she'll,
(56:28):
she'll be a little less bougie,but miss katie, can you tell us
where we can follow you at ontiktok, instagram, facebook?
all of them.
No, uh, yes, I am at.
Uh, you can follow.
Do you want like a handle orlike what do I need to?
Speaker 1 (56:46):
tell you, is your handle the same or all like
across the board?
Speaker 2 (56:49):
I want to say it is Katie Ashley love on Instagram,
I'm Katie Ashley romance onFacebook and then, um, tick tock
, I might be.
Hang on, let me see, I'm reallystarting to try to get tick
tock.
I.
I went against it for so long.
I Try to get TikTok.
I went against it for so long.
I am author Katie Ashley onthere, but you're going to see
(57:09):
me posting and stuff.
In fact, that was one thing Iworked on before we sat down was
getting my, my setup in hereready to be a little bit better.
So I got to do it.
You know, we got to whoreourselves wherever we do.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
Do you have a bookish website or?
Speaker 2 (57:25):
anything I do.
I am katyashleybookscom and Ishould.
I'm working with someone to getmy TikTok shop set up and I
will have some sprayed edgesreally soon of and hopefully
some little roses and sprayedfor poison and wine and dust to
dust, and I was so lucky I foundsomeone local in Atlanta so I
(57:48):
can take the books to them andmake sure, because a lot of the
companies you don't know, youknow they're overseas and I'm a
little scared to order, like youknow, 500 books and then come
back, like you know, looking alittle scary.
So I'm like this is so greatand it helps the local business
too because we're.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
We're all out there hustling.
Yes, we are.
Well, I thank you for coming onand talking to us today.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
I'm so excited.
Like I said, thank you so muchfor having me letting an old dog
do some new tricks in the bookworld and thank you guys for
tuning in.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Until next time, make sure you are following Miss
Katie Ashley and, of course,make sure you're following me.
Download this episode, makesure that you go and pick up
Poison and Wine and Dust to Dust.
And then we are waiting forMaeve's story and we are waiting
for Kel.
Look, listen, I am so ready forhis story, so I'm going to make
(58:44):
sure to be on her and keep youguys updated for when it drops.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
It will be February.
They're going to be every threemonths, so I promise he's
coming.
Seamus is getting a book.
Her brothers are all gettingbooks.
It's Oprah Everybody gets abook.
You'll get a book.
You'll get a book.
You'll get a book.
Then we're going to go to asideways Russian breakfast
series with someone that one ofthe brothers gets.
There's just going to be mafiaeverywhere.
Speaker 1 (59:08):
You said with someone that one of the brothers gets.
Are we going to get like an MM?
Maybe?
Not telling you yet how did shedrop that T when it's time to
go?
She knew what she was doing.
That's time to go T.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
That's a t-shirt.
I'm going to trademark that.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
None of y'all better be out there doing it.
Don't steal this lady's shit,man, I know.
Speaker 2 (59:39):
I'll be coming after you.
I mean, I already said I gotmountain people, we'll go
deliverance on you, not the newdeliverance, the old one with
the creepy hillbilly.
I didn't even watch the newDeliverance, honey.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
I've seen so many funny memes about that.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
I'm like I gotta watch this.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
So until next time, you guys.
We are signing out.
Alright, thanks, guys.
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