November 16, 2024 • 61 mins
Love the Gilded Age, a time when all seemed well? Join author Cecelia Tichi and Off The Shelf #Books #podcast host, Denise Turney, this Saturday at 11am/EST, right here in the chat room or via dial in (347) 994-3490. Cecelia and Denise kick off the show by revisiting Cecelia's childhood, what created her passion for books, and how working as a professor at Vanderbilt University shapes and influences her writing. Val and Roddy DeVere are memorable characters that make appearances in Cecilia's books; the duo works to solve a myriad of crime mysteries that take place during the Gilded Age. Cecelia has used her extensive travels across the United States as research for her stories, marrying real-life facts and fiction. Among the books Cecelia has written there’s “Death in a Gilead Frame”, “A Gilded Drowning Pool”, “A Deadly Gilded Free-Fall” and “A Fated Gilded High Note”. Tune in to discover the inner workings of the books' major and minor characters, particularly Val and Roddy! Find out what stories Cecilia is working on now. You might even get some marketing tips that you can use to propel your artistic, community, or business efforts forward. See you Saturday at 11am/EST Listener dial-in number: (347) 994-3490 You can also join right here in the chat room!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the winning literary show off the show
Books Talk Radio Live with hosts Denise Journey, author of
the books Long Walk Up, Porsha, Love for Over Me, Firls,
Love Has Many Faces, and brosett Us Great Hope. Turn
up your dials and get ready for a blast of
feature author interviews, four one one on book festivals, writing conferences,
(00:22):
and so much more. Ready let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You can either experience the pain of discipline or the
pain of regret. And that quote is anonymous. I actually
saw that somewhere else recently. You can either experience the
pain of discipline or the pain of regret. And people
say that's a regret. Is that something you don't want
to walk around carrying because you know I could have
done something to get the result I wanted, but I didn't,
(00:51):
And you don't want to live with that. So this
is November the sixth take off this show. Listeners, go
get it. You didn't have time. If you want to
do something in twenty twenty four, go get it, Go
after it, figure out a plan of strategy, pray for gangs,
and go get it. So I want to welcome you
(01:12):
to this Saturday. The sun is coming through the window.
Hello sunshine on the Snowvember of the sixteenth. If this
is your first time tuning in, and we may in
twenty twenty five be moving to a different platform, we'll
definitely let you know and be promoting and marketing that
whether we stay here or move on. But if this
(01:33):
is your first time tuning in the off the show,
I just want to say thank you and welcome and
to our low your listeners who have been here with
us going on seventeen years. Seventeen years, thank you, thank you,
thank you for joining us. We have a wonderful author
on deck for you today, and I love the time
period that her stories are written in, so I think
(01:56):
you're gonna have a treat once we introduce her to you.
To but before I begin, you know, the holidays are coming,
and I heard somewhere for those who do the Amazon
shopping they don't want to deal with the crowds, or
they can shop online at another retailer. I heard at
least for Amazon that books are still the number one.
(02:17):
That's what they make most of their revenues over the holidays.
I mean, when you think about it, the book, that's
a gift that just keeps on giving if you get
a journal. Somebody gave me a gift to me with
three journals. This was about twenty oh man, twenty four
years ago. I wrote a diary when I was a kid,
(02:40):
but I hadn't written in journals in years, and I started.
I said, I cannot let this gift go to waste
this person's money. I've got to start writing and these journals.
And I've been writing in journals ever since. And that's
a gift. I mean, you capture your own life, experiences,
things that matter to you in a journal. That gift
last decades. That's a gift that last decades that you
(03:05):
might not pay no more than twelve dollars for. I mean,
it's hard to price a gift that keeps giving like that.
And then for a book, a story that stays with you,
something that might even just speak to you, not just
entertain you, but speak to you. It might offer you
some something that you're looking for, some motivation, inspiration, oh,
(03:26):
some guidance, Oh this is an AHA moment might come
to you as you read something while you outter shopping.
I encourage you to treat yourself and somebody else with
a book, whether it's a journal, a mystery, and I'd
love for you to visit me online. You can. Wherever
(03:46):
you get your books, you can get them through my website,
which is Chistel c his te ll dot com. It's
not gonna cost you anything but a few minutes to
go over there, c h i s te ll dot com.
Go check out the books over there and journals and
(04:07):
treat yourself, and treat yourself and someone else to a book,
to her book this day and this holiday season. And
thank you so much. And now let us go and
meet our very special Off the Shelf guests. And this
morning's Off the Shelf guest who joins a long line
of just New York Times bestsellers, movie producers, et cetera. Actresses,
(04:33):
actors have been on this show. And so she's joining
that long glorious lineup guests. And her name is Cecilia.
I hope I pronounce her name right, Cecilia Teachi. And
if I don't know, hope she corrects me. And she's
fascinated with a Gilded Age America. Secilia writes mystery novels
that take place during the Gilded Age, like the late
(04:55):
eighteen nineties, early no more than like Grand the nineteen twenties.
In addition to being an award winning author, Cecilia is
a professor of English and American Studies in Marada at
Vanderbilt University. And Bow and Roddy the Beer They are
(05:16):
memorable characters that make appearances in books she writes. And
Baal and Roddy they are always trying to figure out
who the culprits who calls this crime and her mysteries.
And she has used her extensive travels across the United
States as research for her stories, marrying real life facts
(05:38):
and fiction. And among the books that Cecilia has written
this death in a guiliad frame, a gilded drowning pool,
a deadly gilded free fall, and a fated gilded heighth note.
Please check Secilia out online at CC books. I love
that CECEE books dot com, c E c E b
(06:03):
oh okay s dot com, ccbooks dot Com. We're absolutely
honored to have Cecilia teaching. Join us on Off the
Shelf this morning. Welcome, Welcome to Off the Shelf, Cecilia.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Denise, you are the best, I hope. Can you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I hear you? Perfectly perfect? You come and do perfect terrific.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
You know, let me if I could just go back
to some of your very beginning, uh, welcome and comments
to all the all the guests. The regret, regret from
discipline or or from what we'll call could a, would
have should have? That is a rap. Don't get in it,
(06:51):
no matter how old or young you are, get going forward.
I love the idea you put out there for journal
writing your own life's kind of your own biography day
by day. So I just think listening to you, I
thought everybody needs to take that to heart. None of
(07:12):
that could have, would have, should have? You know that
is all looking back heading your hands, sadness, none, no, no,
get up, get on with it. We've got to we've
got to move on. And I gotta say I'm gonna
wear my Kamala cap out in public for the next
epteen years, just saying there.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Okay, Okasillia, Oh my goodness. And it is just such
a pleasure to have you on this morning. The first
few questions I'm gonna ask you, And every time I
get somebody on who's a professor of English, I always
wonder how that impacts the writing. But the first few
questions I'm gonna ask you I have. I asked every yes,
(07:57):
because our listeners always want a little backstory before I
started talking about their books. So to kick off this
morning show, to say, can you tell off the shelf
listeners where you grew up and what life was like for.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
You growing up born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when it was
a steel town, not just the football team, they were
making steel. And my my parents split and I was
taken by my mom to Florida, West Palm Beach, Florida.
(08:33):
She was a retail clerk and and uh, you know,
money was was of course type type tight. And then
I sort of bounced back and forth. My my dad
was working up in in Pittsburgh and transferred to West Virginia.
So I went to high school in West Virginia. One
(08:55):
a part of my family history that I learned later
is that my grandma on my dad's side was a
bootlegger's girlfriend. But here's where I just it then made sense.
All those fur coats in her closet. I used to
(09:18):
go in put my face in those first. Now those
first now, just bear in mind bootlegging. That was all
through the twenties, and you know, and then she became.
She was a hard working woman running a wholesale bakery.
That bakery had been a front for the liquor distributed
(09:40):
all over Pittsburgh, all over. And I remember her jewelry,
lots and lots of diamonds, and those furs, sealskin and
beaver and mink and fox, I don't know what all,
but she was as I remembered her, running this whole
(10:00):
sell bakery, in suede pumps and pearl earrings and upswept
hair and a baker's and a baker's. So I think
I learned a lot about about working a working life
from from looking at her, looking at my mom, I
would say this about my character, val Valentine Michael de
(10:25):
Vere and she comes from the from the Rocky Mountain West,
and now she's in society in the East Coast because
she has married a fifth generation gentleman on the East East.
She's too rich for society to exclude her. But she
(10:45):
is too much a Western wild West woman to be
fully accepted in society. And I would say that that
touches me because I often felt as a kid back
in that day, because I was the child of single
(11:09):
parents divorced some of my schoolmates, I think thought that
that I might be infectious in their houses, and and
so I felt myself an outsider. But I'll tell you
and and maybe you know with your books, so that
(11:30):
so many books, the outsider can have an angle on
things that the insiders, because it's sort of like fish
don't know they're swimming in water. But but but the
outsider can get a handle on things and have a
(11:50):
look at things. And I think for a writer, it's
like a big gift. So I I have you know,
I have been very thankful to work in the classroom,
in the library. One of my students in Vanderbilt University.
(12:13):
I had a long time of very affluent families, sons
and daughters. But one student said to me, and I
always cherished she said, you give us ways to think
about things that we never had in our families. And
(12:34):
I cherished that. And that's a sort of an angle
that I have brought into my character. Valentine from that
wild West upbringing in the She grew up in the
in the Rocky Mountain mining camps, her papa an emigrant,
raising her. Her mama has died in her infancy, and
(12:56):
now she is a rich heiress money is no object,
but she is looking for purpose in her life and
in these in these historical novels. And I know I'm
sort of going on and on, but just to say,
if we google Kilded Age, we get as many references
(13:20):
to these very present years as to that past in
the eighteen nineties, and what is that about? We're dealing
with new technologies as they did the industrials order and
these new horseless carriages. What was that going to be about?
At And here we are with digital technologies and we
(13:45):
barely got hold of it with our phones and our
and our you know, social media, and now we're hearing
that artificial intelligence is going to swamp our lives if
we're not careful. So there's all that political turmoil back then,
and now here it is again the who knows what?
(14:05):
As we we get uh, the president in for another time,
and and so just the sense of where are we?
Who are we? And bye? By putting my mystery novels
back to that first Gilded Age, I think I can
let myself as the writer and my readers kind of
(14:29):
get some distance on some of the same conditions that
we're going on back then, that mirror our own time.
So let me let me take breath, take a sip
of my coffee, and I've just talked too much. I'm
sorry to Oh.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
No, enjoy you, enjoy you. I wanted to ask you
two questions. I know, how did you talk about the
writer feeling like an outsider and you get a different
perspective than maybe somebody is in inside. But specifically, who
would you say? What would you say or who inspired
you to actually sit down and start writing novels?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You know, in the eighth grade, we were asked, I
remember this composition of Simon. This is eighth grade. I'm
in West Palm Beach, Florida, in Northborough Junior High. Uh,
and we were asked to describe something. What did I
describe a book? Bo and Denise. I was not a
(15:35):
big reader. Let me tell you. I did not grow
up in a in a house either parent. Uh, neither
one of them were readers. I liked comic books. That
was where my vocabulary someone got figger. I liked Little
Lulu because she was the boss of the neighborhood and
(15:57):
she could boss these boys around. And so I'm looking
forward to Comic books were ten cents fifteen, and then
they went up and little Lulu. Anyway, uh so I
described a book and the and the teacher said, you know,
she didn't quite get it, but she said, okay, this
(16:17):
is good. And then I remember the next year writing
a story. I wrote a story, and you know I
and it was it was it was based on a
personal experience. My mom sent me to the to the
store for a loaf of bread and a quart of milk,
(16:38):
and she said, be careful crossing that road. You know,
I remember getting I looked back both ways. Nothing was coming.
I went into the middle of the road. This is stupid.
What was I maybe I was eight at the time.
Still nothing coming. I just sat myself down in the middle.
Oh my goodness. And then I just thought, oh, I
(17:02):
did this, didn't I. I got up across the road,
I went to the little store of Milton the bread
and went home. Never told anybody I wrote that story, now,
you know, whatever it was, I did my best. But
I had such a reward to myself writing that. And
(17:26):
it just felt good. It just felt and I would say,
you know, and you read how people got into the
work that they do. And I now I ask everybody
if I'm at the you know, if I'm in a
medical office, if I'm a waiting room, you know, if
I can strike up a conversation, how did you get
(17:48):
into this line of work? And it's just so interesting,
and you know, very recently, I'm in I'm in the
I'm at the eye doc and the technician. And she said,
how did she get into it? She said, well, I
thought I wanted to be a physical therapist, but then
(18:09):
the bodies you have to move are so big and
so really now that's the same question that I asked
our veterinarian. There is this little dog we have, and
and she said, I wanted to go into with horses,
but she said, they're not only and she's a veterinarian,
(18:31):
doctor Matt. She's a large woman, large, big, big bone frame,
she said, but horses are very large, and they're dangerous.
And you've and and she said, I thought, I thought
I better, my better, you know, But of course she's
she's treating Saint Bernards and Great Danes, and you know,
(18:52):
horses could put a saddle music. But but but just
to say but, but to pull it back back to
what work feels good? And you ask, what what is
work for my daughter? My daughter? And she said, what
about work? I said, work is for two things. To
(19:18):
increase well being and to diminish suffering. Those are the
two things. No matter what your job is, I mean
you could be you could be pushing coffee across a bar,
or or smoothies or or or valet parking in a
(19:41):
in a fine restaurant, whatever it is. Whatever you are doing,
you are and maybe both things decreasing suffering and increasing
well being. That's it as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
There interesting, and I'll never heard that before. You get
me something to think about. So thank we have never
heard that before. I definitely want to get want to
get into your story. So for our listeners, I mean
I have the pleasure of researching them, so I know
a little bit about the stories. But for our listeners
(20:20):
who this is the first time learning about your books,
can you please give our listeners an overview of a
faded gilded high note.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Oh, you have named the title of one of my favorites,
my favorites, a deadly gilded high note of fatal gilded
and gilded is the word in each of my of
my books. In that book, my coup Alan Roddy, and
they are deeply in love, and he is by training
(20:56):
an attorney and in his secret, secret life call it.
It's a hobby mixing the new Gilded Age drinks called cocktails.
And he doesn't want to take take any have any
notice of it, because he is an attorney and what
he does is to fend taverns and barrooms from the
(21:20):
from the temperance crowd that want to abolish all such drinks. Anyway,
I'm not to go too deep into the rabbit hole
of who he is and she is. As I've said
from the from the far West, but he really likes opera.
He just likes those those areas. So Val goes along
(21:42):
because you know, to be to be nice. But also
the Metropolitan Opera House in New York is just it's
just so glittering and sparkling, and it sort of it
steals the show. So they're in their private box and
something pops from the next box and it's dark, and
(22:05):
he looks down and oh, and he raises his hand,
and what's on his hand but blood. Somebody in the
next box has died. And what Val and Roddy have
to do because they have agreed to look over that
(22:28):
next box because it's it's friends box, and they've been
traveling and they have rented the box, and so the
question becomes who died and who did it? Now, this
novel will take Val and Roddy Desire from New York
(22:50):
to Palm Beach. And now you know, if you're going
to write historical novels, including mystery novels, you need to
do enough research so that your reader is.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
So it seems that Henry Flagler, who made a ton
of money from the Rockefeller oil business, he started to
build hotels on the east coast of Florida, and one
of them in Palm Beach. And it seems that the
(23:32):
de Verirs Vlin Roddy will need to track the murderer
to Palm Beach, and they go there in their private railcar,
which they can have because Val is an heiress from
all that silver fortune that our daddy made and there's
(23:52):
and money's no objects. So of course there's a scene
in the railcar. And of course, Denise, I have to
have a book on the private railcars. They were called
mansions on wheels and yeah, and I tell you if
you see a picture, like if you go online and
(24:16):
look at Newport cottages, which are the mansions, and you
have a look online at the interiors of those houses,
you will see the same decorations that you'll find in
the private rail cars. And the yachts too, the ocean
(24:36):
going yachts. It was the same decorators, the same designers.
They like the same furniture. So there you are. So
they go down to Palm Beach and they're trying to
figure out and the you know, they have several several suspects,
and they're back in New York and there's a showdown.
(24:59):
And what the reviewers have especially liked is vowed of
hers fortitude, her bravery, her you know, she's like a
new woman of the time, and she's not going to
be trapped in her coursets with etiquette books. She's so
(25:22):
we have climaxes in each of the novels. Her life
is at risk and I better not give it away,
but she's about to be pitched off a high ledge,
and what she does to save herself, she has to
(25:44):
save herself.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I love Journy's kitchen. Oh my goodness, I love you
ex kitchen of your story. Now for listeners who do
like historical fiction, and it is quite popular, we had
a guest on once and it was I mean, this
will do like historical fiction. But authors who write it
have told me readers have told them things like, no,
you got the napkin wrong. It's amazing what people know.
(26:10):
It's just amazing what some people know. They didn't have
those napkins in nineteen twelve. They didn't come out until
nineteen fourteen. Authors are like, whoa, you wouldn't either type
of silverware. You describe that the smallest, minutest thing. There's
a reader out there that could tell you that they
didn't have that then they didn't come out the six
months later, or like, oh my god. So so I
(26:33):
can imagine the research. But for people who might want
to take a history journey, even if they're not real
history buffs, is this something they could get at the
same time they're being entertained with this mystery? This who've
done it from the series your Guilted Mystery series? Could
they get that from the books as well?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Well? Yes, And let me say I try to be
very careful as I think other mystery writers do. Uh
And and your of course right, You're quite right bringing
up the you know, the come up. And I'm also
careful about about language. What slang terms? Did they say?
(27:15):
That was the word showdown? Uh? In play at the time.
I look it up. I look it up. And because
you can't have somebody, you can't have words that are
from now pushed back a century. People hear it, they
(27:35):
know it, and I And sometimes you look something up
and your source is wrong. You trust your source, and
your sources is in error. But but trying, trying the best.
Here's another another. Uh, I'll call it a challenge. You know,
these days we never have problems, we have challenges. Uh.
(27:58):
So it is it is simply that once you do
so much research, there's a tendency to overload the book
with with with too much, and and sometimes you're reading
(28:19):
an overloaded book and in the first paragraph you're just
so dazzled you just can't believe it. It's just wonderful, wonderful.
Second paragraph, the dazzle is a little that shines a
little off. You're browning, and you feed brown and you
just put it down because it's too much. So it's
(28:43):
it's kind of rationing what you know and just write
and just to fit this scene, save some of it
for later. You can just you know, the breadcrumbs along
the way.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
But but monitor yourself so that what you know doesn't
it doesn't overwhelm drown the reader. You know, a friend
of mine said, said, only ten percent of what you
have researched gets into the book. Ten percent. That ten
(29:20):
percent better be on the mark and count. But but
let your files stay in the file drawer because yes,
your reader. Yeah, it's be nice to your reader.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yes, yes, now. And I want to ask you because
you've written so many different books in the series and
in this in this story we're talking about do members
of high society and I'm sure I'm assuming they're Vow's
friends because this is a circle she moves in. Do
members of society do they stand by Val and Roddy
(29:54):
They're they're they're they're they're like close to what is
murder has happened, right, so the things people might be
giving them a side eye? Do they stand by them
or do they or do they betray them? And think?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
You know what we think, YadA kolps, great question, great question.
They the close friend Val has, especially close friend Cassie Cassandra.
She is a high society blue blood for many generations.
Her issue, her issue from from almost infancy. All along,
(30:37):
she has visions of what we would call the paranormal
or the psychic. She has psychic powers now she had.
Her backstory is that her parents hired and nanny from
the islands, and so we can think Caribbean, we can
(31:02):
think all kinds of rituals and special special visions. Anyway,
Cassie began to have these visions. Her parents were alarmed.
They sent the nanny back to the islands. But Cassie forever,
(31:23):
though her parents have sent her to specialists to try
to rid her of what she sees for the future,
she still has these visions. Now, niece, I want to say,
she's a very close friend. She sticks by Valen Roddy
(31:43):
sick and sin. Her husband's a scientists and he's out
hunting fossils in the middle of the ocean. But my point,
and it's a point I think that for writers and
for readers who see what get called secondary characters, they
come in time and again and they become familiar in
(32:08):
the books. Here's the point. Do not writer give qualities
to that character that you have doubts about or don't
believe in. I am not psychic. I'm not psychic. I can't.
But the number of times that you're thinking about somebody
(32:31):
you haven't seen in a good while, and they get
in touch with you at that very moment, at that
very moment, or you have suddenly the feeling that something
major has happened to somebody and it turns out it
has happened this true life I ask people. Everybody nods.
(32:58):
So sometimes it's had that that we in America and
maybe maybe the West, generally small w West, we are
discouraged from these sorts of experiences. We're told to kind
(33:18):
of kind of don't follow our intuition, don't follow our gut.
But sometimes the the gut has a message or there,
or there's a peep in one's thoughts, there's there's something
and and logic doesn't explain it. Science doesn't explain it.
(33:43):
Religions can take us there, Faith can take us there.
I sort of don't mean to wander from this whole
topic that may come back to my character Cassie. She
has psychic powers. I'm not, but I keep an open mind.
(34:03):
And she is a very close friend of of Val
and of Roddy. She sticks with them. They have other
friends who also are are our good friends. The Harriman's
and that's a real that's a real couple. UH. And
I have memoirs UH of of people who can be
(34:26):
in the novel and be good friends. But there are others,
the social queens they're called and have been called UH,
and some of them are ready with their razor tongues
to slash and cut UH. And so there's always, you know,
(34:47):
sort of the the maze to walk through uh in
the novel and find out who's true blue and who
will turn on you first chance they get. And of
course that's part of part of the story. Who comes through,
who turns against and Val and Roddy have to keep going.
(35:11):
Let me mentioned they did not start off deciding to
be Fluth detectives. In the very first novel, which is
titled A Gilded f and it is set in Newport,
the summer playground of the fielded age rich, they are
trying to protect Cassie, who I just was talking about,
(35:35):
whose life is threatened, and they team up to protect her,
and that's where they find that they then have this ability,
and then on and on they're called upon their reputation
precedes them. We hear you helped with that case in Newport,
(36:00):
could you help us? Here's what's going there. And of
course they do need they need a policeman to help them.
And there's acquaintance with a New York detective and he
comes into the into the action from time to time.
(36:23):
He who used to be a merchant marine sailor. So
his language though he's a detective at New York, he
talks nautical talk. He'll talk about the ballast and the
decks and the full sales billowing and that sort of thing. Uh,
let me just mention along these lines. You know it.
(36:45):
As a writer, I know it. All writers know it.
You have to give your readers little presents along the way,
little surprises, a word that they weren't expecting it. It's
a little turn of phrase. Uh, something gifts all along
(37:06):
because because you're asking for some serious time where it's
just a few what you know, and and everybody's busy
and and and and and what have you got to offer? What?
What have you got to make it worthwhile to open
up your book? So so always to have your reader
(37:30):
in mind, that's so important, you know it. All the
writers know it. Okay, there we go, now, thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I wanted to ask you next is. And we may
not get to all your books, but I definitely want
to get to the murder Murder Murder and get essential part.
But for the next question, is a is a deadly
Gilded free Fall for our listeners? Is this a sequel to? Uh?
Is this? Are these books like would you have to read,
(37:59):
for instance, a faded gild at high Note to understand
and follow what happens in a daily guild of Freefall?
Are these sequels? Or are these standalone books where somebody
can fully understand what's happening in each book without having
read the previous story.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, that's such an important question. They are standalones. They
are because I never like it when a writer makes
me go back to book number one so I can
get the book number four. I find that irritating. So
so they're all standalones. But of course there are some
you know, there are some threads that run from one
(38:38):
to another, and readers will find will find those threads
and be pleased. You know, there're their friends who show
up in the different books and and and I hope
people are glad to see the friends come back. But
they are standalones. Now for a writer, you and you
(39:00):
we're well aware of this. You've got to be able
to set the book up each time, and to do
it in a way that will offer some interest to
readers who have seen it set up in the previous
book or books. So each time, for the writer, for
(39:21):
it's a stand alone and you've got to introduce those
characters where they came from, who they are, why they matter,
And you've got to do it a little differently every time,
not in contradiction, but in a a kind of smooth
partnership each one. So they are standalones, and you can
start anywhere and then go forward, go backward. There they are. Yep.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Now what's going on at the start of a deadly
gilded free fall?
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Well, at the start, Val is really irritated because she
spent a lot of time and effort into a farewell
formal dinner and the chef she hired has burned the
dinner and it was just a mess and the footman
(40:15):
dropped the platters and it was just terrible. And she's irritated.
And here comes one of Roddy's old law school classmates
from Chicago to visit them this very afternoon after that
disastrous formal dinner, and the last thing she wants is
to be entertaining a visitor who's come from Chicago. The
(40:37):
visitor's wife died suddenly just a few weeks ago. She
died in a fall from her stairway in Oak Park,
outside of Chicago, Chicago, very high end house. It's been
(40:57):
rumored that she was pushed down the stairs. A detective
is sure of it. And the the visitor, the former
law school classmate of Roddy's, asks would Val and Roddy
please come to Chicago sort this out? The suspicion is
(41:23):
hanging heavy over him, over his brother, over another woman
friends who has would they please come to Chicago? And
it turns out that this, this man's family business is
highly profitable on a health a health medicine, a tonic
(41:50):
that is toxic. So, so, Benias, what I'm able to
to to also bring into into the book is the
problem that even is in our own time, what medicines
can we trust and what medicines might wreck our health?
(42:12):
So who killed this woman? If in or did she
just fall accidentally? How did that play? What does that?
And so, just as in in a high Note, they
go to Palm Beach. In free Fall, they go to Chicago,
and so I have the chance to and they stay
(42:35):
at the Auditorium, which is the first combination of hotel
and commercial of space, and was it one time the
highest building in Chicago. So I get to, you know,
do a little Chicago there and say.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, yeah, Oh my goodness, God. Now you got me
curious on this. When you say the Madison, it sounds
like it is an accidental But I'm going to assume
that that is not. Actually it sounds like it might
be accidental in your stories. It's just popped into my head.
Do you have like court scenes that take place in
(43:15):
your stories where the reader gets to see this is
who did it? Or or they discover who done it?
Just through vow and Roddy's work.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
I have not done a court scene that may come up,
you know, the Perry Mason or or baw in order.
I mean, I believe I've left that to TV so far.
In the movies. I might send them out to Los Angeles.
(43:51):
There was a famous defense attorney named Earl Rogers, and
he became the model for Perry Mason. His daughter, Adele
Saint John Rogers. Saint John was was a She lived
on and was on TV night shows the famous journalist.
(44:15):
So you can see where my where my uh, you know,
my little brain goes here, there and everywhere. But I
have not done a court scene. I report on Roddy's
uh uh cases. Because the Temperance ladies, you know, and
this was true, you know there there they would come
(44:37):
to a often often these were church women, and and
their families had been ruined by by men drinking, drinking
away their wages after after work.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Large families unable to unable to keep to keep a
roof over their heads. And the mouth said, and this
was real. So the temperance movement had behind it a
lot of anguish because of of men who just drank
(45:20):
away the family income. So they would sometimes come to
a you know, gather kneel in prayer before a tavern,
and then go in and and raise heavoc havoc uh,
smash the bottles.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
There was a woman, Carrie Nation, she was called, and
she she had hatchets, and and she called her her
her little campaigns hachetations, and would go in and smash
the kegs, the kegs and and the beer and the whiskey,
(46:01):
I mean, all of it would just be a mess.
So I have Roddy dealing with the damage from from
some of these zealous groups. Not that he approves of
drunkenness at all. The cocktails, and let me just just
(46:24):
get in here a bit. We think of cocktails as
sort of forever and whatever. They just are. The fact
is they were inventions of the Gilded Age. Before that,
whiskey was straight, poured from the bottle to the shot
(46:47):
glass and drunk only by men. And no one knows
who first added ice. That was the first adulterant. And
people liked it. It cooled whiskey. They liked the sound
(47:08):
of the ice shining against the glass, and that started,
that started to break through of of fruit juices and
syrups and bitters and guards. Oh really, And but the
whole idea was to sip first, to be to be
(47:32):
delighted by the look of it, you know, in a
in a stemware glass, maybe a slice of orange or
lemon as and the cherry in there mar skino chair,
and so look at it, enjoy it from visually, then
sip it slowly. These were not to be chunned or
(47:58):
swallowed down. The whole idea was a very careful sipping
over a long period of time. Uh. And so the uh,
the the invention, Gilded Age invention. We mentioned this and
I'm bringing it up in the in the I've just
(48:19):
started the newest one vow wants to order a cocktail.
Ladies were not permitted to order cocktails. Only the gentlemen.
The ladies could have as much champagne as they liked,
as much wine liqueurs after dinner. That was fine. All
(48:43):
these drinks were approved in the etiquette books. But the
etiquette books said nothing about cocktails. So the ladies dare not.
It's so crazy to think of that, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
And in these guys.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
It wasn't till the twenties when the flappers, you know,
the were just sort of up to the bar and
put their little boot up on the brass rail and
order but and mostly and speakeasies because that was prohibition.
But during the Gilded Age, it was a no no
for a lady to even gesture. Here's what they did. Instead.
(49:29):
Here would be the rolling bar. Let's say, at the
Waldorf Astoria in the in the great dining room, and
there was a rolling cart and it had tea kettle
and cups you hear what's coming. And it had liquor
bottles and ice in a in a ice bucket, and
(49:49):
the waiter would come up to the table and the
lady would say, wink, wink, I'll have a Manhattan cup
of tea. Her cocktail in disguise, would be served in
the teacup. He would get the stemware or the crystal,
(50:12):
you know, with a slug bottom. He would have the glass.
She would have the teacup and they would sip along,
but it was in disguise.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
My goodness, yeah, can you can you with uh? And
we have like ten minutes left? Can you introduce us?
You said you're working on the latest one. What is
the title? Can you give us a brief synopsis and
let us know when it will be published?
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Coming out at the end of January? And it is
a gilded redwood coffin. Whoa a gilded would often mmmmmm.
Now there is a character who has who has been
(51:01):
in is a friend. He's one of the true blue friends.
THEO is his name. He's the gentleman man about town,
very stylish and he's from Boston. But he's been adopted
by society, unqualifiedly adopted. He's in like Flynn, as a
(51:22):
saying used to go Suddenly he has family troubles and
Valen Roddy are called upon and they discover issues in
his family that never would have been dreamed about. So
a gilded Redwood Coffin. And it's an easier title to
(51:46):
I think than some of my other titles, So Redwood Coffin.
And it's at the end. I think it's January twenty eighth.
You know, I have to say, I think during this
action season, Uh, it's been so so involving, uh that
(52:07):
that end of January, I think people will be ready
to read something.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Oh yeah, yes, and you got the guilded with Coffin
is not an stories are set in? Uh eighteen ninety nine?
Is this? Is this story set in that year or
near somewhere near that?
Speaker 3 (52:31):
Yes, well ninety nine and I have just just started.
And here's what I'm doing, and this won't be for
a couple of year and a half or so. I'm
moving Here's what vow. Vow sees a horseless carriage at
(52:57):
an event and she's interested, and she's thinking, I want
one of those horseless carriages. In this one I've just begun.
I'm moving them up to nineteen o two and she's
been driving. She's been, she's learned to drive. She's driving
(53:18):
this little eight horse power Fiat and she has reason
to want a much more powerful motor car. So there
that's gonna But that's all my in the distance. And
I don't have a title, and I don't know, but
Redwood Coffin is about to pop in twenty twenty five
(53:39):
at the end of January.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Oh my goodness. I love that in the history piece,
and how you stay true to the history in the
in the story you don't come but modern times you
stay with that generally that year eighteen ninety nine, but
then now you say the latest nineteen oh two. As
we wrap up, can you please share three to four steps.
Let's just say that you you have personally found to
(54:04):
be effective at getting the word out about your books.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
Well, you know this is friends and family. Ask them
to recommend. Ask friends and family when they really like
a book, would they not? Please? Would they not? If
they have the actual bound paper book, Please suggest that
(54:33):
others actually acquire the book, whether whether on kindle or
or order the paperback. You know, here is a here
is a problem I think people readers aren't really aware of.
Unlike works of art, which have a lot of legal
(54:59):
whether you an entanglement or or you know wise uh laws.
Books once they are once they go into a used
used book market, the author earns nothing. And and so
(55:22):
what can so I would say, please suggest, as you
did at the very at the very beginning of the show,
give the gift of a book, and that book should
be a new book, just purchased so that an author
has the opportunity to to to to get the royalty payment.
(55:46):
Unless you're Stephen King or Louise Penny, uh, you're not
chances are going to earn much of a of a
living through your royalties. Uh. But but when you see
that a book is purchased as an author, it's just
it's so heartwarming. You see that there's somebody out there
(56:08):
who cares enough. So I would say, please, don't just
pass the book on to your to your friends, or
your family, or or or one of those little neighborhood
uh sort of voluntary libraries that pop up. They look
like little dog houses on stilts. Uh. But but suggest
(56:32):
that the person pulley up. Uh yeah, share it with
a couple of people, but but don't don't keep circulating
the book that one person bought, and that the author
has no idea that others are enjoying and and just
so so do that. And of course there's Facebook, there's Instagram. Uh,
(56:58):
there's well, Denise, there is off the shelf here you
are talking to you podcast too. So so. But it's
a crowded field. We all know this, and people are busy.
Uh and and and and let me also here's another
(57:20):
piece of what I'm I'm going to say, advice, uh
to to to readers, try a new writer. Uh. Maybe
it's maybe it's me Cecy books, maybe it's you. Uh.
Here's here's something I found very discouraging. Louise Penny has
(57:41):
a has a wonderful long time series. She's probably got
twenty five books out now, and I on her on
her face. Here was here was a reader saying, oh,
now that I've read every single one of them, I'm
going to start and we read everyone from the beginning.
(58:03):
Now that that is I mean, that is a tribute
to Louise Penny. But it's crushing, uh for anybody who
thinks trying me, try try.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
So that's sort of sort of a closed loop. And
uh and so so uh I about to break out
a little, a little little outside that, outside that familiar zone.
So I would say, you know, so get out into
a free rage zone and go there. Give it a try.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
Yeah, yes, all right, yes, where can listeners on that note,
where can listeners get copies of your books? And are
they in ebook? Print, audio book? What kind of very
kind of formats are they available in? And where can
are they are? Pretty copies of your books?
Speaker 3 (59:01):
Okay, they are in e books and they are in paperback.
Uh and they are They're right there on on Amazon
on it either way you can can have the or
at a bookstore, and if the bookstore doesn't have them,
you can order them uh through Barnes and Noble has them,
(59:23):
has them all uh and and uh bookstore orders. Uh
They're but they're available and of course if you're an
e book person, you get it immediately on your kindle
uh through from Amazon. So so there they are, they're
out there. Get them okay, okay, Oh, we have had
(59:45):
a pleasure of speaking with uh uh uh Cecilia t G.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
T G and her website. Please visit her online c
E C E b oh oks dot com. Again, that's
C E C E b O okay s dot I'm
skipping it so so so simple. If you came in
midstreams or you were busy this morning, you came in
at the end of the show, no, no worries. Once
the show finished the streaming, you can go back and
(01:00:11):
listen to it. It's an entirety and share it, share it,
share it with as many people as you like. We
really really thank you, Secilia for taking time out of
your day to be well here with us on Off
the Shelf. I loved the way you talked about your stories.
Oh my gosh, you would be if you got to
a place where you could do readings or talk about
(01:00:32):
your stories like you did on Off the Shelf. I
could see where you if you had the I could
see in person you're doing that. You're selling lots of copies.
You talk about that time period and your story so
so well, so engaging. So thank you for being here
with us us today and to our listeners, please come
back next Saturday, eleven am Eastern Standard time or New
(01:00:54):
York City time, and when we will bring you another
awesome guest right here on Off the Shelf Books, Cecilia.
I thank you again. When the show finishes streaming, I'll
send you or your representative a link to the show
to our listeners. Remember you are awesome. You are incredible.
Go out and create a fabulous day for yourself today
(01:01:18):
See you back here next Saturday. Bye for now, lady,
you are top chelf
You're listening to the winning literary show off the show
Books Talk Radio Live with hosts Denise Journey, author of
the books Long Walk Up, Porsha, Love for Over Me, Firls,
Love Has Many Faces, and brosett Us Great Hope. Turn
up your dials and get ready for a blast of
feature author interviews, four one one on book festivals, writing conferences,
(00:22):
and so much more. Ready let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You can either experience the pain of discipline or the
pain of regret. And that quote is anonymous. I actually
saw that somewhere else recently. You can either experience the
pain of discipline or the pain of regret. And people
say that's a regret. Is that something you don't want
to walk around carrying because you know I could have
done something to get the result I wanted, but I didn't,
(00:51):
And you don't want to live with that. So this
is November the sixth take off this show. Listeners, go
get it. You didn't have time. If you want to
do something in twenty twenty four, go get it, Go
after it, figure out a plan of strategy, pray for gangs,
and go get it. So I want to welcome you
(01:12):
to this Saturday. The sun is coming through the window.
Hello sunshine on the Snowvember of the sixteenth. If this
is your first time tuning in, and we may in
twenty twenty five be moving to a different platform, we'll
definitely let you know and be promoting and marketing that
whether we stay here or move on. But if this
(01:33):
is your first time tuning in the off the show,
I just want to say thank you and welcome and
to our low your listeners who have been here with
us going on seventeen years. Seventeen years, thank you, thank you,
thank you for joining us. We have a wonderful author
on deck for you today, and I love the time
period that her stories are written in, so I think
(01:56):
you're gonna have a treat once we introduce her to you.
To but before I begin, you know, the holidays are coming,
and I heard somewhere for those who do the Amazon
shopping they don't want to deal with the crowds, or
they can shop online at another retailer. I heard at
least for Amazon that books are still the number one.
(02:17):
That's what they make most of their revenues over the holidays.
I mean, when you think about it, the book, that's
a gift that just keeps on giving if you get
a journal. Somebody gave me a gift to me with
three journals. This was about twenty oh man, twenty four
years ago. I wrote a diary when I was a kid,
(02:40):
but I hadn't written in journals in years, and I started.
I said, I cannot let this gift go to waste
this person's money. I've got to start writing and these journals.
And I've been writing in journals ever since. And that's
a gift. I mean, you capture your own life, experiences,
things that matter to you in a journal. That gift
last decades. That's a gift that last decades that you
(03:05):
might not pay no more than twelve dollars for. I mean,
it's hard to price a gift that keeps giving like that.
And then for a book, a story that stays with you,
something that might even just speak to you, not just
entertain you, but speak to you. It might offer you
some something that you're looking for, some motivation, inspiration, oh,
(03:26):
some guidance, Oh this is an AHA moment might come
to you as you read something while you outter shopping.
I encourage you to treat yourself and somebody else with
a book, whether it's a journal, a mystery, and I'd
love for you to visit me online. You can. Wherever
(03:46):
you get your books, you can get them through my website,
which is Chistel c his te ll dot com. It's
not gonna cost you anything but a few minutes to
go over there, c h i s te ll dot com.
Go check out the books over there and journals and
(04:07):
treat yourself, and treat yourself and someone else to a book,
to her book this day and this holiday season. And
thank you so much. And now let us go and
meet our very special Off the Shelf guests. And this
morning's Off the Shelf guest who joins a long line
of just New York Times bestsellers, movie producers, et cetera. Actresses,
(04:33):
actors have been on this show. And so she's joining
that long glorious lineup guests. And her name is Cecilia.
I hope I pronounce her name right, Cecilia Teachi. And
if I don't know, hope she corrects me. And she's
fascinated with a Gilded Age America. Secilia writes mystery novels
that take place during the Gilded Age, like the late
(04:55):
eighteen nineties, early no more than like Grand the nineteen twenties.
In addition to being an award winning author, Cecilia is
a professor of English and American Studies in Marada at
Vanderbilt University. And Bow and Roddy the Beer They are
(05:16):
memorable characters that make appearances in books she writes. And
Baal and Roddy they are always trying to figure out
who the culprits who calls this crime and her mysteries.
And she has used her extensive travels across the United
States as research for her stories, marrying real life facts
(05:38):
and fiction. And among the books that Cecilia has written
this death in a guiliad frame, a gilded drowning pool,
a deadly gilded free fall, and a fated gilded heighth note.
Please check Secilia out online at CC books. I love
that CECEE books dot com, c E c E b
(06:03):
oh okay s dot com, ccbooks dot Com. We're absolutely
honored to have Cecilia teaching. Join us on Off the
Shelf this morning. Welcome, Welcome to Off the Shelf, Cecilia.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Denise, you are the best, I hope. Can you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I hear you? Perfectly perfect? You come and do perfect terrific.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
You know, let me if I could just go back
to some of your very beginning, uh, welcome and comments
to all the all the guests. The regret, regret from
discipline or or from what we'll call could a, would
have should have? That is a rap. Don't get in it,
(06:51):
no matter how old or young you are, get going forward.
I love the idea you put out there for journal
writing your own life's kind of your own biography day
by day. So I just think listening to you, I
thought everybody needs to take that to heart. None of
(07:12):
that could have, would have, should have? You know that
is all looking back heading your hands, sadness, none, no, no,
get up, get on with it. We've got to we've
got to move on. And I gotta say I'm gonna
wear my Kamala cap out in public for the next
epteen years, just saying there.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Okay, Okasillia, Oh my goodness. And it is just such
a pleasure to have you on this morning. The first
few questions I'm gonna ask you, And every time I
get somebody on who's a professor of English, I always
wonder how that impacts the writing. But the first few
questions I'm gonna ask you I have. I asked every yes,
(07:57):
because our listeners always want a little backstory before I
started talking about their books. So to kick off this
morning show, to say, can you tell off the shelf
listeners where you grew up and what life was like for.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
You growing up born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when it was
a steel town, not just the football team, they were
making steel. And my my parents split and I was
taken by my mom to Florida, West Palm Beach, Florida.
(08:33):
She was a retail clerk and and uh, you know,
money was was of course type type tight. And then
I sort of bounced back and forth. My my dad
was working up in in Pittsburgh and transferred to West Virginia.
So I went to high school in West Virginia. One
(08:55):
a part of my family history that I learned later
is that my grandma on my dad's side was a
bootlegger's girlfriend. But here's where I just it then made sense.
All those fur coats in her closet. I used to
(09:18):
go in put my face in those first. Now those
first now, just bear in mind bootlegging. That was all
through the twenties, and you know, and then she became.
She was a hard working woman running a wholesale bakery.
That bakery had been a front for the liquor distributed
(09:40):
all over Pittsburgh, all over. And I remember her jewelry,
lots and lots of diamonds, and those furs, sealskin and
beaver and mink and fox, I don't know what all,
but she was as I remembered her, running this whole
(10:00):
sell bakery, in suede pumps and pearl earrings and upswept
hair and a baker's and a baker's. So I think
I learned a lot about about working a working life
from from looking at her, looking at my mom, I
would say this about my character, val Valentine Michael de
(10:25):
Vere and she comes from the from the Rocky Mountain West,
and now she's in society in the East Coast because
she has married a fifth generation gentleman on the East East.
She's too rich for society to exclude her. But she
(10:45):
is too much a Western wild West woman to be
fully accepted in society. And I would say that that
touches me because I often felt as a kid back
in that day, because I was the child of single
(11:09):
parents divorced some of my schoolmates, I think thought that
that I might be infectious in their houses, and and
so I felt myself an outsider. But I'll tell you
and and maybe you know with your books, so that
(11:30):
so many books, the outsider can have an angle on
things that the insiders, because it's sort of like fish
don't know they're swimming in water. But but but the
outsider can get a handle on things and have a
(11:50):
look at things. And I think for a writer, it's
like a big gift. So I I have you know,
I have been very thankful to work in the classroom,
in the library. One of my students in Vanderbilt University.
(12:13):
I had a long time of very affluent families, sons
and daughters. But one student said to me, and I
always cherished she said, you give us ways to think
about things that we never had in our families. And
(12:34):
I cherished that. And that's a sort of an angle
that I have brought into my character. Valentine from that
wild West upbringing in the She grew up in the
in the Rocky Mountain mining camps, her papa an emigrant,
raising her. Her mama has died in her infancy, and
(12:56):
now she is a rich heiress money is no object,
but she is looking for purpose in her life and
in these in these historical novels. And I know I'm
sort of going on and on, but just to say,
if we google Kilded Age, we get as many references
(13:20):
to these very present years as to that past in
the eighteen nineties, and what is that about? We're dealing
with new technologies as they did the industrials order and
these new horseless carriages. What was that going to be about?
At And here we are with digital technologies and we
(13:45):
barely got hold of it with our phones and our
and our you know, social media, and now we're hearing
that artificial intelligence is going to swamp our lives if
we're not careful. So there's all that political turmoil back then,
and now here it is again the who knows what?
(14:05):
As we we get uh, the president in for another time,
and and so just the sense of where are we?
Who are we? And bye? By putting my mystery novels
back to that first Gilded Age, I think I can
let myself as the writer and my readers kind of
(14:29):
get some distance on some of the same conditions that
we're going on back then, that mirror our own time.
So let me let me take breath, take a sip
of my coffee, and I've just talked too much. I'm
sorry to Oh.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
No, enjoy you, enjoy you. I wanted to ask you
two questions. I know, how did you talk about the
writer feeling like an outsider and you get a different
perspective than maybe somebody is in inside. But specifically, who
would you say? What would you say or who inspired
you to actually sit down and start writing novels?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You know, in the eighth grade, we were asked, I
remember this composition of Simon. This is eighth grade. I'm
in West Palm Beach, Florida, in Northborough Junior High. Uh,
and we were asked to describe something. What did I
describe a book? Bo and Denise. I was not a
(15:35):
big reader. Let me tell you. I did not grow
up in a in a house either parent. Uh, neither
one of them were readers. I liked comic books. That
was where my vocabulary someone got figger. I liked Little
Lulu because she was the boss of the neighborhood and
(15:57):
she could boss these boys around. And so I'm looking
forward to Comic books were ten cents fifteen, and then
they went up and little Lulu. Anyway, uh so I
described a book and the and the teacher said, you know,
she didn't quite get it, but she said, okay, this
(16:17):
is good. And then I remember the next year writing
a story. I wrote a story, and you know I
and it was it was it was based on a
personal experience. My mom sent me to the to the
store for a loaf of bread and a quart of milk,
(16:38):
and she said, be careful crossing that road. You know,
I remember getting I looked back both ways. Nothing was coming.
I went into the middle of the road. This is stupid.
What was I maybe I was eight at the time.
Still nothing coming. I just sat myself down in the middle.
Oh my goodness. And then I just thought, oh, I
(17:02):
did this, didn't I. I got up across the road,
I went to the little store of Milton the bread
and went home. Never told anybody I wrote that story, now,
you know, whatever it was, I did my best. But
I had such a reward to myself writing that. And
(17:26):
it just felt good. It just felt and I would say,
you know, and you read how people got into the
work that they do. And I now I ask everybody
if I'm at the you know, if I'm in a
medical office, if I'm a waiting room, you know, if
I can strike up a conversation, how did you get
(17:48):
into this line of work? And it's just so interesting,
and you know, very recently, I'm in I'm in the
I'm at the eye doc and the technician. And she said,
how did she get into it? She said, well, I
thought I wanted to be a physical therapist, but then
(18:09):
the bodies you have to move are so big and
so really now that's the same question that I asked
our veterinarian. There is this little dog we have, and
and she said, I wanted to go into with horses,
but she said, they're not only and she's a veterinarian,
(18:31):
doctor Matt. She's a large woman, large, big, big bone frame,
she said, but horses are very large, and they're dangerous.
And you've and and she said, I thought, I thought
I better, my better, you know, But of course she's
she's treating Saint Bernards and Great Danes, and you know,
(18:52):
horses could put a saddle music. But but but just
to say but, but to pull it back back to
what work feels good? And you ask, what what is
work for my daughter? My daughter? And she said, what
about work? I said, work is for two things. To
(19:18):
increase well being and to diminish suffering. Those are the
two things. No matter what your job is, I mean
you could be you could be pushing coffee across a bar,
or or smoothies or or or valet parking in a
(19:41):
in a fine restaurant, whatever it is. Whatever you are doing,
you are and maybe both things decreasing suffering and increasing
well being. That's it as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
There interesting, and I'll never heard that before. You get
me something to think about. So thank we have never
heard that before. I definitely want to get want to
get into your story. So for our listeners, I mean
I have the pleasure of researching them, so I know
a little bit about the stories. But for our listeners
(20:20):
who this is the first time learning about your books,
can you please give our listeners an overview of a
faded gilded high note.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Oh, you have named the title of one of my favorites,
my favorites, a deadly gilded high note of fatal gilded
and gilded is the word in each of my of
my books. In that book, my coup Alan Roddy, and
they are deeply in love, and he is by training
(20:56):
an attorney and in his secret, secret life call it.
It's a hobby mixing the new Gilded Age drinks called cocktails.
And he doesn't want to take take any have any
notice of it, because he is an attorney and what
he does is to fend taverns and barrooms from the
(21:20):
from the temperance crowd that want to abolish all such drinks. Anyway,
I'm not to go too deep into the rabbit hole
of who he is and she is. As I've said
from the from the far West, but he really likes opera.
He just likes those those areas. So Val goes along
(21:42):
because you know, to be to be nice. But also
the Metropolitan Opera House in New York is just it's
just so glittering and sparkling, and it sort of it
steals the show. So they're in their private box and
something pops from the next box and it's dark, and
(22:05):
he looks down and oh, and he raises his hand,
and what's on his hand but blood. Somebody in the
next box has died. And what Val and Roddy have
to do because they have agreed to look over that
(22:28):
next box because it's it's friends box, and they've been
traveling and they have rented the box, and so the
question becomes who died and who did it? Now, this
novel will take Val and Roddy Desire from New York
(22:50):
to Palm Beach. And now you know, if you're going
to write historical novels, including mystery novels, you need to
do enough research so that your reader is.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
So it seems that Henry Flagler, who made a ton
of money from the Rockefeller oil business, he started to
build hotels on the east coast of Florida, and one
of them in Palm Beach. And it seems that the
(23:32):
de Verirs Vlin Roddy will need to track the murderer
to Palm Beach, and they go there in their private railcar,
which they can have because Val is an heiress from
all that silver fortune that our daddy made and there's
(23:52):
and money's no objects. So of course there's a scene
in the railcar. And of course, Denise, I have to
have a book on the private railcars. They were called
mansions on wheels and yeah, and I tell you if
you see a picture, like if you go online and
(24:16):
look at Newport cottages, which are the mansions, and you
have a look online at the interiors of those houses,
you will see the same decorations that you'll find in
the private rail cars. And the yachts too, the ocean
(24:36):
going yachts. It was the same decorators, the same designers.
They like the same furniture. So there you are. So
they go down to Palm Beach and they're trying to
figure out and the you know, they have several several suspects,
and they're back in New York and there's a showdown.
(24:59):
And what the reviewers have especially liked is vowed of
hers fortitude, her bravery, her you know, she's like a
new woman of the time, and she's not going to
be trapped in her coursets with etiquette books. She's so
(25:22):
we have climaxes in each of the novels. Her life
is at risk and I better not give it away,
but she's about to be pitched off a high ledge,
and what she does to save herself, she has to
(25:44):
save herself.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I love Journy's kitchen. Oh my goodness, I love you
ex kitchen of your story. Now for listeners who do
like historical fiction, and it is quite popular, we had
a guest on once and it was I mean, this
will do like historical fiction. But authors who write it
have told me readers have told them things like, no,
you got the napkin wrong. It's amazing what people know.
(26:10):
It's just amazing what some people know. They didn't have
those napkins in nineteen twelve. They didn't come out until
nineteen fourteen. Authors are like, whoa, you wouldn't either type
of silverware. You describe that the smallest, minutest thing. There's
a reader out there that could tell you that they
didn't have that then they didn't come out the six
months later, or like, oh my god. So so I
(26:33):
can imagine the research. But for people who might want
to take a history journey, even if they're not real
history buffs, is this something they could get at the
same time they're being entertained with this mystery? This who've
done it from the series your Guilted Mystery series? Could
they get that from the books as well?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Well? Yes, And let me say I try to be
very careful as I think other mystery writers do. Uh
And and your of course right, You're quite right bringing
up the you know, the come up. And I'm also
careful about about language. What slang terms? Did they say?
(27:15):
That was the word showdown? Uh? In play at the time.
I look it up. I look it up. And because
you can't have somebody, you can't have words that are
from now pushed back a century. People hear it, they
(27:35):
know it, and I And sometimes you look something up
and your source is wrong. You trust your source, and
your sources is in error. But but trying, trying the best.
Here's another another. Uh, I'll call it a challenge. You know,
these days we never have problems, we have challenges. Uh.
(27:58):
So it is it is simply that once you do
so much research, there's a tendency to overload the book
with with with too much, and and sometimes you're reading
(28:19):
an overloaded book and in the first paragraph you're just
so dazzled you just can't believe it. It's just wonderful, wonderful.
Second paragraph, the dazzle is a little that shines a
little off. You're browning, and you feed brown and you
just put it down because it's too much. So it's
(28:43):
it's kind of rationing what you know and just write
and just to fit this scene, save some of it
for later. You can just you know, the breadcrumbs along
the way.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
But but monitor yourself so that what you know doesn't
it doesn't overwhelm drown the reader. You know, a friend
of mine said, said, only ten percent of what you
have researched gets into the book. Ten percent. That ten
(29:20):
percent better be on the mark and count. But but
let your files stay in the file drawer because yes,
your reader. Yeah, it's be nice to your reader.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yes, yes, now. And I want to ask you because
you've written so many different books in the series and
in this in this story we're talking about do members
of high society and I'm sure I'm assuming they're Vow's
friends because this is a circle she moves in. Do
members of society do they stand by Val and Roddy
(29:54):
They're they're they're they're they're like close to what is
murder has happened, right, so the things people might be
giving them a side eye? Do they stand by them
or do they or do they betray them? And think?
Speaker 3 (30:09):
You know what we think, YadA kolps, great question, great question.
They the close friend Val has, especially close friend Cassie Cassandra.
She is a high society blue blood for many generations.
Her issue, her issue from from almost infancy. All along,
(30:37):
she has visions of what we would call the paranormal
or the psychic. She has psychic powers now she had.
Her backstory is that her parents hired and nanny from
the islands, and so we can think Caribbean, we can
(31:02):
think all kinds of rituals and special special visions. Anyway,
Cassie began to have these visions. Her parents were alarmed.
They sent the nanny back to the islands. But Cassie forever,
(31:23):
though her parents have sent her to specialists to try
to rid her of what she sees for the future,
she still has these visions. Now, niece, I want to say,
she's a very close friend. She sticks by Valen Roddy
(31:43):
sick and sin. Her husband's a scientists and he's out
hunting fossils in the middle of the ocean. But my point,
and it's a point I think that for writers and
for readers who see what get called secondary characters, they
come in time and again and they become familiar in
(32:08):
the books. Here's the point. Do not writer give qualities
to that character that you have doubts about or don't
believe in. I am not psychic. I'm not psychic. I can't.
But the number of times that you're thinking about somebody
(32:31):
you haven't seen in a good while, and they get
in touch with you at that very moment, at that
very moment, or you have suddenly the feeling that something
major has happened to somebody and it turns out it
has happened this true life I ask people. Everybody nods.
(32:58):
So sometimes it's had that that we in America and
maybe maybe the West, generally small w West, we are
discouraged from these sorts of experiences. We're told to kind
(33:18):
of kind of don't follow our intuition, don't follow our gut.
But sometimes the the gut has a message or there,
or there's a peep in one's thoughts, there's there's something
and and logic doesn't explain it. Science doesn't explain it.
(33:43):
Religions can take us there, Faith can take us there.
I sort of don't mean to wander from this whole
topic that may come back to my character Cassie. She
has psychic powers. I'm not, but I keep an open mind.
(34:03):
And she is a very close friend of of Val
and of Roddy. She sticks with them. They have other
friends who also are are our good friends. The Harriman's
and that's a real that's a real couple. UH. And
I have memoirs UH of of people who can be
(34:26):
in the novel and be good friends. But there are others,
the social queens they're called and have been called UH,
and some of them are ready with their razor tongues
to slash and cut UH. And so there's always, you know,
(34:47):
sort of the the maze to walk through uh in
the novel and find out who's true blue and who
will turn on you first chance they get. And of
course that's part of part of the story. Who comes through,
who turns against and Val and Roddy have to keep going.
(35:11):
Let me mentioned they did not start off deciding to
be Fluth detectives. In the very first novel, which is
titled A Gilded f and it is set in Newport,
the summer playground of the fielded age rich, they are
trying to protect Cassie, who I just was talking about,
(35:35):
whose life is threatened, and they team up to protect her,
and that's where they find that they then have this ability,
and then on and on they're called upon their reputation
precedes them. We hear you helped with that case in Newport,
(36:00):
could you help us? Here's what's going there. And of
course they do need they need a policeman to help them.
And there's acquaintance with a New York detective and he
comes into the into the action from time to time.
(36:23):
He who used to be a merchant marine sailor. So
his language though he's a detective at New York, he
talks nautical talk. He'll talk about the ballast and the
decks and the full sales billowing and that sort of thing. Uh,
let me just mention along these lines. You know it.
(36:45):
As a writer, I know it. All writers know it.
You have to give your readers little presents along the way,
little surprises, a word that they weren't expecting it. It's
a little turn of phrase. Uh, something gifts all along
(37:06):
because because you're asking for some serious time where it's
just a few what you know, and and everybody's busy
and and and and and what have you got to offer? What?
What have you got to make it worthwhile to open
up your book? So so always to have your reader
(37:30):
in mind, that's so important, you know it. All the
writers know it. Okay, there we go, now, thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I wanted to ask you next is. And we may
not get to all your books, but I definitely want
to get to the murder Murder Murder and get essential part.
But for the next question, is a is a deadly
Gilded free Fall for our listeners? Is this a sequel to? Uh?
Is this? Are these books like would you have to read,
(37:59):
for instance, a faded gild at high Note to understand
and follow what happens in a daily guild of Freefall?
Are these sequels? Or are these standalone books where somebody
can fully understand what's happening in each book without having
read the previous story.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, that's such an important question. They are standalones. They
are because I never like it when a writer makes
me go back to book number one so I can
get the book number four. I find that irritating. So
so they're all standalones. But of course there are some
you know, there are some threads that run from one
(38:38):
to another, and readers will find will find those threads
and be pleased. You know, there're their friends who show
up in the different books and and and I hope
people are glad to see the friends come back. But
they are standalones. Now for a writer, you and you
(39:00):
we're well aware of this. You've got to be able
to set the book up each time, and to do
it in a way that will offer some interest to
readers who have seen it set up in the previous
book or books. So each time, for the writer, for
(39:21):
it's a stand alone and you've got to introduce those
characters where they came from, who they are, why they matter,
And you've got to do it a little differently every time,
not in contradiction, but in a a kind of smooth
partnership each one. So they are standalones, and you can
start anywhere and then go forward, go backward. There they are. Yep.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Now what's going on at the start of a deadly
gilded free fall?
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Well, at the start, Val is really irritated because she
spent a lot of time and effort into a farewell
formal dinner and the chef she hired has burned the
dinner and it was just a mess and the footman
(40:15):
dropped the platters and it was just terrible. And she's irritated.
And here comes one of Roddy's old law school classmates
from Chicago to visit them this very afternoon after that
disastrous formal dinner, and the last thing she wants is
to be entertaining a visitor who's come from Chicago. The
(40:37):
visitor's wife died suddenly just a few weeks ago. She
died in a fall from her stairway in Oak Park,
outside of Chicago, Chicago, very high end house. It's been
(40:57):
rumored that she was pushed down the stairs. A detective
is sure of it. And the the visitor, the former
law school classmate of Roddy's, asks would Val and Roddy
please come to Chicago sort this out? The suspicion is
(41:23):
hanging heavy over him, over his brother, over another woman
friends who has would they please come to Chicago? And
it turns out that this, this man's family business is
highly profitable on a health a health medicine, a tonic
(41:50):
that is toxic. So, so, Benias, what I'm able to
to to also bring into into the book is the
problem that even is in our own time, what medicines
can we trust and what medicines might wreck our health?
(42:12):
So who killed this woman? If in or did she
just fall accidentally? How did that play? What does that?
And so, just as in in a high Note, they
go to Palm Beach. In free Fall, they go to Chicago,
and so I have the chance to and they stay
(42:35):
at the Auditorium, which is the first combination of hotel
and commercial of space, and was it one time the
highest building in Chicago. So I get to, you know,
do a little Chicago there and say.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, yeah, Oh my goodness, God. Now you got me
curious on this. When you say the Madison, it sounds
like it is an accidental But I'm going to assume
that that is not. Actually it sounds like it might
be accidental in your stories. It's just popped into my head.
Do you have like court scenes that take place in
(43:15):
your stories where the reader gets to see this is
who did it? Or or they discover who done it?
Just through vow and Roddy's work.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
I have not done a court scene that may come up,
you know, the Perry Mason or or baw in order.
I mean, I believe I've left that to TV so far.
In the movies. I might send them out to Los Angeles.
(43:51):
There was a famous defense attorney named Earl Rogers, and
he became the model for Perry Mason. His daughter, Adele
Saint John Rogers. Saint John was was a She lived
on and was on TV night shows the famous journalist.
(44:15):
So you can see where my where my uh, you know,
my little brain goes here, there and everywhere. But I
have not done a court scene. I report on Roddy's
uh uh cases. Because the Temperance ladies, you know, and
this was true, you know there there they would come
(44:37):
to a often often these were church women, and and
their families had been ruined by by men drinking, drinking
away their wages after after work.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Large families unable to unable to keep to keep a
roof over their heads. And the mouth said, and this
was real. So the temperance movement had behind it a
lot of anguish because of of men who just drank
(45:20):
away the family income. So they would sometimes come to
a you know, gather kneel in prayer before a tavern,
and then go in and and raise heavoc havoc uh,
smash the bottles.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
There was a woman, Carrie Nation, she was called, and
she she had hatchets, and and she called her her
her little campaigns hachetations, and would go in and smash
the kegs, the kegs and and the beer and the whiskey,
(46:01):
I mean, all of it would just be a mess.
So I have Roddy dealing with the damage from from
some of these zealous groups. Not that he approves of
drunkenness at all. The cocktails, and let me just just
(46:24):
get in here a bit. We think of cocktails as
sort of forever and whatever. They just are. The fact
is they were inventions of the Gilded Age. Before that,
whiskey was straight, poured from the bottle to the shot
(46:47):
glass and drunk only by men. And no one knows
who first added ice. That was the first adulterant. And
people liked it. It cooled whiskey. They liked the sound
(47:08):
of the ice shining against the glass, and that started,
that started to break through of of fruit juices and
syrups and bitters and guards. Oh really, And but the
whole idea was to sip first, to be to be
(47:32):
delighted by the look of it, you know, in a
in a stemware glass, maybe a slice of orange or
lemon as and the cherry in there mar skino chair,
and so look at it, enjoy it from visually, then
sip it slowly. These were not to be chunned or
(47:58):
swallowed down. The whole idea was a very careful sipping
over a long period of time. Uh. And so the uh,
the the invention, Gilded Age invention. We mentioned this and
I'm bringing it up in the in the I've just
(48:19):
started the newest one vow wants to order a cocktail.
Ladies were not permitted to order cocktails. Only the gentlemen.
The ladies could have as much champagne as they liked,
as much wine liqueurs after dinner. That was fine. All
(48:43):
these drinks were approved in the etiquette books. But the
etiquette books said nothing about cocktails. So the ladies dare not.
It's so crazy to think of that, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
And in these guys.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
It wasn't till the twenties when the flappers, you know,
the were just sort of up to the bar and
put their little boot up on the brass rail and
order but and mostly and speakeasies because that was prohibition.
But during the Gilded Age, it was a no no
for a lady to even gesture. Here's what they did. Instead.
(49:29):
Here would be the rolling bar. Let's say, at the
Waldorf Astoria in the in the great dining room, and
there was a rolling cart and it had tea kettle
and cups you hear what's coming. And it had liquor
bottles and ice in a in a ice bucket, and
(49:49):
the waiter would come up to the table and the
lady would say, wink, wink, I'll have a Manhattan cup
of tea. Her cocktail in disguise, would be served in
the teacup. He would get the stemware or the crystal,
(50:12):
you know, with a slug bottom. He would have the glass.
She would have the teacup and they would sip along,
but it was in disguise.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
My goodness, yeah, can you can you with uh? And
we have like ten minutes left? Can you introduce us?
You said you're working on the latest one. What is
the title? Can you give us a brief synopsis and
let us know when it will be published?
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Coming out at the end of January? And it is
a gilded redwood coffin. Whoa a gilded would often mmmmmm.
Now there is a character who has who has been
(51:01):
in is a friend. He's one of the true blue friends.
THEO is his name. He's the gentleman man about town,
very stylish and he's from Boston. But he's been adopted
by society, unqualifiedly adopted. He's in like Flynn, as a
(51:22):
saying used to go Suddenly he has family troubles and
Valen Roddy are called upon and they discover issues in
his family that never would have been dreamed about. So
a gilded Redwood Coffin. And it's an easier title to
(51:46):
I think than some of my other titles, So Redwood Coffin.
And it's at the end. I think it's January twenty eighth.
You know, I have to say, I think during this
action season, Uh, it's been so so involving, uh that
(52:07):
that end of January, I think people will be ready
to read something.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Oh yeah, yes, and you got the guilded with Coffin
is not an stories are set in? Uh eighteen ninety nine?
Is this? Is this story set in that year or
near somewhere near that?
Speaker 3 (52:31):
Yes, well ninety nine and I have just just started.
And here's what I'm doing, and this won't be for
a couple of year and a half or so. I'm
moving Here's what vow. Vow sees a horseless carriage at
(52:57):
an event and she's interested, and she's thinking, I want
one of those horseless carriages. In this one I've just begun.
I'm moving them up to nineteen o two and she's
been driving. She's been, she's learned to drive. She's driving
(53:18):
this little eight horse power Fiat and she has reason
to want a much more powerful motor car. So there
that's gonna But that's all my in the distance. And
I don't have a title, and I don't know, but
Redwood Coffin is about to pop in twenty twenty five
(53:39):
at the end of January.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Oh my goodness. I love that in the history piece,
and how you stay true to the history in the
in the story you don't come but modern times you
stay with that generally that year eighteen ninety nine, but
then now you say the latest nineteen oh two. As
we wrap up, can you please share three to four steps.
Let's just say that you you have personally found to
(54:04):
be effective at getting the word out about your books.
Speaker 3 (54:09):
Well, you know this is friends and family. Ask them
to recommend. Ask friends and family when they really like
a book, would they not? Please? Would they not? If
they have the actual bound paper book, Please suggest that
(54:33):
others actually acquire the book, whether whether on kindle or
or order the paperback. You know, here is a here
is a problem I think people readers aren't really aware of.
Unlike works of art, which have a lot of legal
(54:59):
whether you an entanglement or or you know wise uh laws.
Books once they are once they go into a used
used book market, the author earns nothing. And and so
(55:22):
what can so I would say, please suggest, as you
did at the very at the very beginning of the show,
give the gift of a book, and that book should
be a new book, just purchased so that an author
has the opportunity to to to to get the royalty payment.
(55:46):
Unless you're Stephen King or Louise Penny, uh, you're not
chances are going to earn much of a of a
living through your royalties. Uh. But but when you see
that a book is purchased as an author, it's just
it's so heartwarming. You see that there's somebody out there
(56:08):
who cares enough. So I would say, please, don't just
pass the book on to your to your friends, or
your family, or or or one of those little neighborhood
uh sort of voluntary libraries that pop up. They look
like little dog houses on stilts. Uh. But but suggest
(56:32):
that the person pulley up. Uh yeah, share it with
a couple of people, but but don't don't keep circulating
the book that one person bought, and that the author
has no idea that others are enjoying and and just
so so do that. And of course there's Facebook, there's Instagram. Uh,
(56:58):
there's well, Denise, there is off the shelf here you
are talking to you podcast too. So so. But it's
a crowded field. We all know this, and people are busy.
Uh and and and and let me also here's another
(57:20):
piece of what I'm I'm going to say, advice, uh
to to to readers, try a new writer. Uh. Maybe
it's maybe it's me Cecy books, maybe it's you. Uh.
Here's here's something I found very discouraging. Louise Penny has
(57:41):
a has a wonderful long time series. She's probably got
twenty five books out now, and I on her on
her face. Here was here was a reader saying, oh,
now that I've read every single one of them, I'm
going to start and we read everyone from the beginning.
(58:03):
Now that that is I mean, that is a tribute
to Louise Penny. But it's crushing, uh for anybody who
thinks trying me, try try.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
So that's sort of sort of a closed loop. And
uh and so so uh I about to break out
a little, a little little outside that, outside that familiar zone.
So I would say, you know, so get out into
a free rage zone and go there. Give it a try.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
Yeah, yes, all right, yes, where can listeners on that note,
where can listeners get copies of your books? And are
they in ebook? Print, audio book? What kind of very
kind of formats are they available in? And where can
are they are? Pretty copies of your books?
Speaker 3 (59:01):
Okay, they are in e books and they are in paperback.
Uh and they are They're right there on on Amazon
on it either way you can can have the or
at a bookstore, and if the bookstore doesn't have them,
you can order them uh through Barnes and Noble has them,
(59:23):
has them all uh and and uh bookstore orders. Uh
They're but they're available and of course if you're an
e book person, you get it immediately on your kindle
uh through from Amazon. So so there they are, they're
out there. Get them okay, okay, Oh, we have had
(59:45):
a pleasure of speaking with uh uh uh Cecilia t G.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
T G and her website. Please visit her online c
E C E b oh oks dot com. Again, that's
C E C E b O okay s dot I'm
skipping it so so so simple. If you came in
midstreams or you were busy this morning, you came in
at the end of the show, no, no worries. Once
the show finished the streaming, you can go back and
(01:00:11):
listen to it. It's an entirety and share it, share it,
share it with as many people as you like. We
really really thank you, Secilia for taking time out of
your day to be well here with us on Off
the Shelf. I loved the way you talked about your stories.
Oh my gosh, you would be if you got to
a place where you could do readings or talk about
(01:00:32):
your stories like you did on Off the Shelf. I
could see where you if you had the I could
see in person you're doing that. You're selling lots of copies.
You talk about that time period and your story so
so well, so engaging. So thank you for being here
with us us today and to our listeners, please come
back next Saturday, eleven am Eastern Standard time or New
(01:00:54):
York City time, and when we will bring you another
awesome guest right here on Off the Shelf Books, Cecilia.
I thank you again. When the show finishes streaming, I'll
send you or your representative a link to the show
to our listeners. Remember you are awesome. You are incredible.
Go out and create a fabulous day for yourself today
(01:01:18):
See you back here next Saturday. Bye for now, lady,
you are top chelf
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