February 29, 2024 • 23 mins
Registered Nurse and Psychotherapist Laurie Elizabeth Murphy draws from her own experience working in the field to create a uniquely intellectual and entertaining mystery in her new book, Dream Me Home.
The idea of one’s real life and dreams intersecting into an interwoven story fascinated me. While I expect twists and curveballs involving the main characters, Laurie Elizabeth Murphy brings the reader into different planes and with this psychological mystery and, dare I say, mind’s adventure.
Ms. Murphy’s background as a nurse and in the psychological field enables her to present to the reader a more unique and thought-provoking journey quite different from the regular whodunnits and love/relationship stories. Many authors have combined the two, but Ms. Murphy introduces us into the minds and motives of the main protagonist through several means: her experiences, her conversations with a therapist and through her own dreams – all realized after a traumatic home invasion which gradually changed her life in several ways. The writer also looks more deeply into our own human emotions, desires and failings through the other main characters.
In Dream Me Home, Ms. Murphy offers the reader not only the thrills of a mystery, psychological drama and unexpected turns, she conveys real-life ponderances about marriage, crime, passion vs. true love, control and finding one’s true self.
Laurie is a full-time author of both non-fiction and fiction books. She previously worked as a Registered Nurse and Psychotherapist with degrees from the Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing and St. Joseph’s College. Growing up, she was a ballet student at the MET in New York City and The Juilliard School of Music and Dance. She currently resides in Florida, and she has four children and six grandchildren. She has published many nonfiction books, co-authoring with her late husband to write In the Best Interest of the Child: A Manual for Divorcing Parents, Eight Strategies for Successful Step-Parenting, and You Don't Know Anything: A Manual for Parenting Teenagers. She has also written and self-published Satori, Wherever the Wind Blows Me, and Cellophane Memories. Additionally, she writes a bi-monthly column for My Living, a local magazine. Her most recent work, Dream Me Home, is her debut fiction novel, a psychological thriller drawing from her own career as a therapist. She is currently writing a sequel to Dream Me Home
The idea of one’s real life and dreams intersecting into an interwoven story fascinated me. While I expect twists and curveballs involving the main characters, Laurie Elizabeth Murphy brings the reader into different planes and with this psychological mystery and, dare I say, mind’s adventure.
Ms. Murphy’s background as a nurse and in the psychological field enables her to present to the reader a more unique and thought-provoking journey quite different from the regular whodunnits and love/relationship stories. Many authors have combined the two, but Ms. Murphy introduces us into the minds and motives of the main protagonist through several means: her experiences, her conversations with a therapist and through her own dreams – all realized after a traumatic home invasion which gradually changed her life in several ways. The writer also looks more deeply into our own human emotions, desires and failings through the other main characters.
In Dream Me Home, Ms. Murphy offers the reader not only the thrills of a mystery, psychological drama and unexpected turns, she conveys real-life ponderances about marriage, crime, passion vs. true love, control and finding one’s true self.
Laurie is a full-time author of both non-fiction and fiction books. She previously worked as a Registered Nurse and Psychotherapist with degrees from the Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing and St. Joseph’s College. Growing up, she was a ballet student at the MET in New York City and The Juilliard School of Music and Dance. She currently resides in Florida, and she has four children and six grandchildren. She has published many nonfiction books, co-authoring with her late husband to write In the Best Interest of the Child: A Manual for Divorcing Parents, Eight Strategies for Successful Step-Parenting, and You Don't Know Anything: A Manual for Parenting Teenagers. She has also written and self-published Satori, Wherever the Wind Blows Me, and Cellophane Memories. Additionally, she writes a bi-monthly column for My Living, a local magazine. Her most recent work, Dream Me Home, is her debut fiction novel, a psychological thriller drawing from her own career as a therapist. She is currently writing a sequel to Dream Me Home
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Welcome to Book Spectrum, where wetalk with writers who aren't necessarily seasoned authors,
but come to us from various professionsacross the spectrum. I'm Chris Cordani,
your host. I enjoy a goodmystery, and I enjoy a good
psychological thriller as well as a deeplook into the meetings of dreams. So
why not read one of those bookswhich has all aspects with me? Is
(00:27):
Laurie Elizabeth Murphy, a former registerednurse and psychotherapist who has become a writer.
She normally writes nonfiction pieces, butthis is different, This is much
different. She served up a rathermentally adventurous story, if you will.
It's called dream Me Home. Thisbook takes the reader into different planes with
the psychological mystery and dare I say, a mind's adventure. Welcome to Book
(00:51):
Spectrum, Laurie. Thank you,Chris, thank you for having me.
I'm glad you're here, and thankyou very much for coming on. In
the past, as I mentioned before, you've really written mostly nonfiction books.
This is a quite different path though. That's correct. I've dreamed books in
my head my whole life, butI only wrote self help books prior to
(01:14):
this. Well, self help booksare tough to write sometimes because you've got
to help people, and I canuse my imagination for self help books.
Well, people always want the easyway out and the self help books.
Sometimes they give them that. Sometimesyou tell them what they don't want to
hear. Oh, that's always yes, but they do help. Yes.
(01:36):
What inspired you, however, towrite this mix of a mystery and psychological
thriller. Well, I was apsychotherapist for thirty eight years after my nursing
career, and during that time,you can imagine how many patients I spoke
with, and all of their stories, all of the people that they knew,
(01:56):
all the insights that they had sortof took residence in my mind and
the events that came over them.And on top of that, you know,
we always long for not maybe allof us, but many of us
long for a first love experience againover years later. So I mixed all
that together and I thought, whatif? What if you could reconnect with
(02:20):
somebody from your past that you neverstopped thinking about and yet had all the
different incidents that occurred with patients inreal life. That was a mixture and
a blueprint, and the story justevolved from there. So it adds a
bit of a love story into itas well. Yes, love story,
Yeah, I wanted that to bethe primary focus, but it really didn't
occur until the last third of thebook. First ended up being a psychological
(02:46):
thriller that I didn't anticipate, butit turned out pretty good. Well,
that's funny. You didn't anticipate it, but you did choose to write this
book as a third person descriptive excuseme, not as a person descriptive narration,
but from the point of view ofthe main character, Peggy. What
made you go this rout? Iknew that in order to make this When
(03:08):
I read books, I want thecharacters to be fully developed, and sometimes
even if the plot is good,but the characters are not developed, you
don't care about them. And Ithought the best way to develop Peggy,
who's the protagonist, would be fromher own mouth. Unfortunately, and I
won't give this anything away, becauseon the first page you find out Peggy
(03:29):
is dead, So what better wayto know everything about her and what happened
except through her own voice. Sothat's what I decided to do. I
decided to let her narrate the book. Again, this was supposed to have
been a love story, but shewinds up dead. So the main character
is dead. But it's a lovestory, yes, And it became a
truth thriller and a huge mystery whathappened between when you decided to hand this
(03:54):
thing and say, hey, I'mgoing to write this really nice love story
and all of a sudden it becamea storylory of a psychological ups and downs
manipulation. Again, a lot oflove stories have all of that, but
that's a different story for a differentday, and full on mysteries where you
really don't know what's what, andeven if you try to move along a
little bit and you find out littlethings here and there, and still still
(04:18):
it's a huge mystery. Yeah.Well, nobody likes a cheesy, sappy
love story. I mean, whenyou see what's coming, you just think,
Okay, I don't need to readthis book. I've read thousands of
these books. Were not doing HallmarkChannel reviews here, Yeah, exactly.
So I thought, okay, howcan we make this better? And Peggy
(04:38):
came to life once I put heron the page. All my characters sort
of live in my head after there, I breathe life into them, and
Peggy, really I thought needed totell her backstory, and the backstory has
a lot of unforeseen events cracks inher original marriage to the plastic surgeon,
and she evolves, as we dowith with her, to realize that a
(05:00):
small crack in a marriage can reallybecome a huge event, especially when there's
an unforeseen happening that you expect yourhusband to take care of and he doesn't,
and then she relives all of thismess that she gets herself into,
and that culminates later into a lovestory, but with someone else on the
(05:24):
surface. People are listening right now, and they might have just picked up
or they might have picked up thebook look at the first few pages and
they came Wow. A lot ofwomen it's their dream to be married to
a plastic surgeon. But they getall that they can keep the keep looking
young at no charge and things likethat. That's absolutely fantastic, great idea.
I'm not a big fan of surgery. I'm not a big fan of
needles, so that's a different storyfor a different day. But this is,
(05:47):
uh, this is let's let's askthis question, let's get ask it
this way. I have not hada plethora of mystery writers on book spectrum
Okay, I've had some a few, But I want to ask you,
Okay, as this kind of evolvedinto something different from what it was supposed
(06:08):
to be, how did you goabout writing the mystery aspect of the book
because a lot of this hangs onyour expertise in life experience, but the
only thing you warrant was a detective. Well that's true, but I was
a big ig at the Christy fanwhen I was growing up. Sourt in
my head. But I was marriedto an orthopedic surgeon, so you know,
the front story is people always think, oh wow, it's a dream
(06:30):
marriage and how lucky are you andall that, and yes he was a
great guy. But behind the scenesand in medical meetings and you know,
having lunches and dinners with other professionals, you realize doctors are just human beings
and they have a lot of flaws. People don't see them because when you
walk into the office, they're wonderful, they're fabulous, they try to help
you, and they're kind. Behindthe scenes sometimes not so much. And
(06:55):
then when I was working with mynext husband, I've been married twice,
he was a psychologist, and yourealize all the patients bowed down to him
and thought, oh, he justknows everything and he can calm all my
fears and my anxieties. But behindthe scenes, he's also just a regular
person. So I sort of unveiledthese two professions and let people see.
(07:18):
No, there's a lot of characterflaws that go on behind the scenes.
The character flaws are there, andwe've seen them in the book, and
the readers will, if they haven'tpicked the tome up yet, they will
enjoy the flaws and and of coursethe aspects of each of the characters from
Peggy on forward. However, onthis mystery aspect, again, not what
(07:43):
you're saying is not. A lotof this was preset. A lot of
this went as it was going tochange and things happen. He so what
along you're sort of traveling on thesame journey. The reader will, yes,
Yes, okay, I'm going totell you something that I promise myself
I wouldn't say, but I mightas well tell you you've heard it here
first. All No, now youheard it here first. When I put
(08:05):
a character on the page, Peggywas my protagonist, so she was my
first character. I sort of knewit was going to be a love story.
At some point, I didn't knowhow she was going to get there
exactly, because I knew it wasgoing to be with someone she wasn't married
to. But in all of ourlives, we have something that happens,
whether it's by ourselves or or ourextended family or a friend, we know
(08:26):
that's so unforeseen that it turns thetide and we go down a completely different
path than we think, and thenall of a sudden we realize we have
no control over anything. In thiscase, there was such a huge unforeseen
event that occurred to Peggy, andI'm not going to reveal what it is
because I don't want everybody to say, oh, I'm not going to read
the book. Then it changed everythingin her life, And how did that
(08:50):
affect me? I don't really writethe stories anymore. When I bring the
characters onto the page, they sortof take me on the too. I
used to wake up sometimes and sayto my husband, you would never believe
what happened to Peggy, And hewould say to me, well, that's
ridiculous, because you're the but Iam the author. But the characters will
(09:13):
let you know their journey, andif you're not true to that, that's
why people say I have writer's block. No, you don't have writer's block.
You're trying to make the character goin a different direction than they want
to go. So these characters tookme along for the ride, and we
enter into every two or three chaptersthere's a new character, and there's at
least five really not protagonists. There'sonly one, but five main characters that
(09:37):
are pertinent to the entire mystery.And there we are. Similarly to that
last question, similarly, I haveto pronounce that word a lot better.
How did you balance all these twiststhat you wanted in here, the ones
that you had had to move alongto make make things happen with the book?
(09:58):
And then all so take that,and I'll say the word balance again,
But balance that with the idea thatyou still wanted to make us a
love story, and then you stillfound other other things you want to add
to the book. One, yes, that's true. I mean we have
you know, we all want toknow how to detective solve crimes, So
(10:18):
we have a detective in there.That's pretty important. What about psychiatrists?
We have a psychiatrist in this bookwho you know as a psychotherapist, I
know the power that we have whenpatients come in and and are vulnerable.
I was a good a good person, so is our whole practice. But
there are people in the field.I don't know them, but I would
(10:39):
imagine can twist and turn people's mindsinto preszels when you're in a vulnerable state
like Peggy was, I mean shewas killed. When you're in a vulnerable
state and you seek help, you'rehanging on the word of anybody that can
help you. Unfortunately, this guywas not a good guy. So you
see her brain getting scrambled up,and now all of a sudden, she
(11:01):
doesn't know who she can trust.And that's how the mystery evolves. Who
can she trust? Out of sixcharacters, and you made every one of
them look suspicious, Yes, Idid. Well, that's a good thing
because that makes the mystery even morebecause you're trying to find something good about
the characters. But then you're justsaying, well, these people are horrible
(11:22):
or there's something about them that makesthem. That's that cause Peggy all these
problems and all of a sudden,and of course you're thinking, well,
any one of these guys could haveor any one of these people could have
killed Peggy. Yeah. Yeah.And most of the time you have a
preconceived notion that you really like thischaracter or you really don't like this character.
But sometimes they surprise you. Andsometimes the one that you're rooting for
(11:45):
suddenly you think, wait a minute, they're not the good guy anymore.
And the person that you hated anddespised, and there are two people like
that in this book. At theend, you're thinking, you know,
maybe I was wrong in my evalueof this person. So up until the
end, you're always on the fenceabout every chapter is I hope a page
(12:07):
turner, And every time you thinkyou have it solved or you really know
how you feel about this person,you don't. And even after the book
was over, and I mean,I write it so I know how it
ended, people are still arguing withme and saying, I think this happened.
I know you said this happened,but I think this happened. Or
people are saying what happened to whathappened to Rob Peggy's husband. Now I'm
(12:30):
like, I don't know because he'sfiction, and you're like, no,
no, but I know, butI need to know, so you know
that takes me to I'm writing asequel because people want to know what happened
to the characters. So okay,well that's another thing. In reading the
book. I'm sitting here, I'mlooking at it and saying, well,
all right now, I think Ifigured this one out thanks a few pages.
(12:52):
Aha, No, that's the twist. That person did it. Then
you read it a little more.Ah, wait a minute. So you
think you're sure, but the goodthing is you're not. And even as
I was writing it, I thoughtI was sure, but then something occurred
and I went, oh, no, we're going to have to get rid
of this guy. Well then whoelse could it be? So the clues
(13:16):
start to add up, But thenthey so you're saying it was the same
for you too. You're thinking,hey, I got it, this guy
did it. And then you changeyour mind and you think, no,
no, let let's do it thisway. Because sometimes the bad guy really
still had some good about them.And I thought, well, wait,
let me resurrect this character because thisguy over here, you know, we
weren't paying attention to him, butmaybe we should bring him in and see
(13:37):
what he's about. So yeah,I was surprised on the dark. Say
you open up a serious door,something that could happen to anybody being manipulated
by somebody with the power to scrambleone's mind, a psychotherapist, psychiatrist,
psychologist, or anybody like that.Yeah, that's a very real situation.
(13:58):
It is. It is a realsituation. We have had patients that have
come to us after seeing other peopleand they were convinced that they were hopeless,
or they were completely mentally ill,or that they needed to be on
medication when they really didn't. Andyou know, I don't know why psychologists
or psychiatrists maybe think that they shouldhave all the answers, because we don't.
(14:22):
We have to really pay attention andlisten to what the patient is saying.
A lot of times in this professionthere's preconceived notions by the therapist that
says, Oh, I know what'swrong with this person, and you really
don't. You have to dig alittle deeper, and then you go,
wait a minute. You know thesepeople can be helped, and they almost
all of them can. That's agood thing. But again, most people
get the impression that everybody who hasthis power is just like doctor A.
(14:46):
Sidney Friedman. I believe that's frommesh right. A nice guy that sits
by you and says, so Hawk, I tell me about your childhood,
and tell me about what happened withyour cousin. Yeah, I know.
There are people that we my husbandand I knew who told couples that they
needed to get a divorce when theycertainly didn't need to get divorce. They
(15:09):
had children and they could work itout. But sometimes the psychiatrists or psychologists
doesn't have the answers, and they'renot ready to say I don't know how
to help you, or let merefer you to somebody that maybe can.
They want to just give the shortanswer, and the short answer is you're
doomed. You need a divorce,you need to start over, you know,
don't talk to your parents again.Those are not the real things that
(15:31):
we should be telling patients. Butin this book, unfortunately, transference and
counter transference, those are terms thatmean we're not neutral, even though we
try to be neutral. We havea bias. When we meet somebody,
they remind us of somebody, orwe don't like them for some reason.
And in this book, this psychiatristhad a bias against Peggy. So let's
(15:52):
put it into other perspectives. Here, you have seen these things. You've
seen the potential of these things haveyes, and you've watched people delve into
the psychological and mental health aspects ofpeople's lives. And I probably put it
into Peggy's character using their credentials toolcredential, credentialed tools around the people who
(16:15):
tell the story. How did you, let's put it this way, perhaps
tell I'm gonna take a step back. How did your own profession and the
people you met along the way inspiresome of the characters or happenings in this
story. Well, I think beingmarried to a surgeon helped because I know
(16:37):
how the rigorous schedules are and howlittle time they have for their family because
their loyalty has to be to thepatients in the hospital. So we have
that aspect. I know how powerful, how vulnerable really people are women more
than men. I'm going to saythat that may not be true. And
when you're vulnerable and you have anxietyor depression, or there's an event that
(16:59):
you really can't come to grips with, you're seeking anything, any piece of
help from anybody that can solve theproblem, and they're looking for the quick
fix. And so Peggy's husband neededto help her, and that wasn't his
field of expertise, so he sendsher to somebody that he believes will have
all of the answers right. Youjust can't lift some wrinkles up a little
(17:23):
bit and solve every problem. Thatjust doesn't happen that way. It really
doesn't, and especially looking for thequick fix a lot of times, you
know childhood. Sigmund Freud wasn't wrongwhen he said childhood impacts your future.
It does, and people don't wantto take the time to go into psychoanalytic
therapy and all of that, andsometimes they don't need it if it's just
(17:45):
a quick fix. But generally speaking, we are who we have experienced and
we can't get away from that.No, we cannot tell our audience a
little more about yourself though, Andlike I said before, you've been writing
non fiction self help books for along time. This is an initial foray
into uh into real life or realfiction, real real fiction and real mystery.
(18:10):
Of course, a psycho thriller,you're going to have a sequel coming
out, But we did say yourexpertise really helped this whole thing out.
Tell tell Er Rodian's a little bitabout a little bit more about yourself.
We did touch on it, butmore if you have so, just so
we can all get a perspective onwhere you're coming from when you write the
book. Okay, Well, Ialways wanted to help people, so I
became a registered nurse, much tothe chagrin of my parents, who wanted
(18:33):
me to be a ballet dancer.But that's another story. So I became
a registered nurse. I loved nursing, absolutely loved nursing, and I worked
in New York City and I workedin Washington, d C. At two
of the finalist hospitals. Then Imoved with my surgeon husband to Florida,
and the hospital here was a smallhospital and they wanted me to work.
(18:56):
If I was going to get ajob there. I had to work evenings
and nights and weekends, which Iunderstand, but I had four small children
so I couldn't do it, andhe was on call, so somebody had
to be home. So I decided, Okay, let me delve into something
else, but still help people.So I went on to school, I
got a degree, and I decided, okay, psychology is perfect. I
(19:17):
met my surgeon husband and I weredivorced very friendly. He's a wonderful guy.
I met a psychologist. He hiredme into his practice. Twenty years
later, I married him, butthat wasn't the reason I worked there.
And I found it fascinating, fascinatingbecause you would you think you know every
story. I mean, I probablysaw hundreds and hundreds of patients, and
(19:41):
yet each person that walked in hada variation on the theme of the story,
and you were always shocked at whatthe outcome would be, or what
the twist or turn was in theirlife, or how one thing impacted their
entire future. And so when Istarted to write the book, I would
actually write a chapter and go,so what happened to her? And then
(20:02):
I had to go to sleep onit for a few weeks, and then
I think, oh, I knowwhat happened. And then somebody else would
enter in and I go, whyis he here? And so those were
how the questions of how the bookbecame its own journey. I actually said
what are you doing here? ButI was saying it in my mind,
what are you doing here? DetectiveHarvey? Another thing and I have with
me on book spectrum. Laurie ElizabethMurphy. She wrote the book a dream
(20:26):
me Home. We're talking about that. One thing we touched on and I'd
like you to elaborate on, isthat you also found a way to make
the other make the reader care peopleabout the other characters in the book.
Because even when patients came into mypractice and you thought immediately, Okay,
(20:47):
I'm not going to like this personor this kid is never going to amount
to anything, you realize after gettingto know them, there's always a side
to them that's redeemable. There's alwayssomething in their psyche that really, if
you read them, are kind andconsiderate. So in my book, there
was always a reason except for onecharacter, there was always a reason that
(21:08):
people in there that you did likebehave that way, and you started to
feel sorry for them, and thenyou started to like them, and the
more you like them is kind ofthe better they turned out in the book.
Adversely, the people that you thoughtwere the really good guys, you
know, you pulled back the veiland you thought, you know, they're
hiding something. What is it?What are they hiding? And then you
(21:30):
start to realize, oh, Imisjudge them too. They're not as good
as we thought. It's just humannature. And then it is you also
said that you were writing a sequelto the book. Yes, is that
going to center on one or moreof the characters. I'm bringing back two
of the characters for sure, AndI'm going to have to bring back Peggy.
(21:56):
I know she's dead, why not, right? That will be one
he came back a few times,right, Yeah, because Peggy still knows
a lot of dirt on her husbandand a few other people. So she's
going to have to come back.Not quite sure how we're going to do
that, but Peggy'll peg. You'lllet me know when I put her on
the page. Aside from the sequel, might this endeavor have inspired you to
produce more mysteries, thrillers or similartypes of books in the future. You
(22:22):
know, I had my original bookwas going to be a three generational book
of people that came here from theUkraine and Greece. But now that there's
all kinds of problems in that partof the world, I tabled that book.
That's going to be a general,a three generational book from for some
other time. I a mystery.I love a mystery. My mind is
(22:45):
now into mysteries. In fact,I didn't know I was as devious until
recently. Well, now you do, I do. Where can our listeners
find out more about the book dreamMe Home? And of course you,
Laura. My website is Lori Murphydot net. It's l A U r
I E. Lorimurphy dot net andthere's a trailer to the book on that
(23:07):
website. There's also all kinds ofreviews that I've gotten from reviewers, which
are thankfully very positive. They canbuy the book. There's a button on
the website to go straight to AmazonBooks or Barnes and Noble. They can
just hit that button and go therewhere they can dial it in. Lur
Murphy, thank you very much forbeing with us on book Spectrum once again.
(23:30):
The title is dream Me Home.The twists and turns are well,
we talked about them, but you'regoing to have to read them for yourself.
Thank you very much for listening thatonce again. I'm your host,
Chris Cordiny, and keep those pagesturning.
Welcome to Book Spectrum, where wetalk with writers who aren't necessarily seasoned authors,
but come to us from various professionsacross the spectrum. I'm Chris Cordani,
your host. I enjoy a goodmystery, and I enjoy a good
psychological thriller as well as a deeplook into the meetings of dreams. So
why not read one of those bookswhich has all aspects with me? Is
(00:27):
Laurie Elizabeth Murphy, a former registerednurse and psychotherapist who has become a writer.
She normally writes nonfiction pieces, butthis is different, This is much
different. She served up a rathermentally adventurous story, if you will.
It's called dream Me Home. Thisbook takes the reader into different planes with
the psychological mystery and dare I say, a mind's adventure. Welcome to Book
(00:51):
Spectrum, Laurie. Thank you,Chris, thank you for having me.
I'm glad you're here, and thankyou very much for coming on. In
the past, as I mentioned before, you've really written mostly nonfiction books.
This is a quite different path though. That's correct. I've dreamed books in
my head my whole life, butI only wrote self help books prior to
(01:14):
this. Well, self help booksare tough to write sometimes because you've got
to help people, and I canuse my imagination for self help books.
Well, people always want the easyway out and the self help books.
Sometimes they give them that. Sometimesyou tell them what they don't want to
hear. Oh, that's always yes, but they do help. Yes.
(01:36):
What inspired you, however, towrite this mix of a mystery and psychological
thriller. Well, I was apsychotherapist for thirty eight years after my nursing
career, and during that time,you can imagine how many patients I spoke
with, and all of their stories, all of the people that they knew,
(01:56):
all the insights that they had sortof took residence in my mind and
the events that came over them.And on top of that, you know,
we always long for not maybe allof us, but many of us
long for a first love experience againover years later. So I mixed all
that together and I thought, whatif? What if you could reconnect with
(02:20):
somebody from your past that you neverstopped thinking about and yet had all the
different incidents that occurred with patients inreal life. That was a mixture and
a blueprint, and the story justevolved from there. So it adds a
bit of a love story into itas well. Yes, love story,
Yeah, I wanted that to bethe primary focus, but it really didn't
occur until the last third of thebook. First ended up being a psychological
(02:46):
thriller that I didn't anticipate, butit turned out pretty good. Well,
that's funny. You didn't anticipate it, but you did choose to write this
book as a third person descriptive excuseme, not as a person descriptive narration,
but from the point of view ofthe main character, Peggy. What
made you go this rout? Iknew that in order to make this When
(03:08):
I read books, I want thecharacters to be fully developed, and sometimes
even if the plot is good,but the characters are not developed, you
don't care about them. And Ithought the best way to develop Peggy,
who's the protagonist, would be fromher own mouth. Unfortunately, and I
won't give this anything away, becauseon the first page you find out Peggy
(03:29):
is dead, So what better wayto know everything about her and what happened
except through her own voice. Sothat's what I decided to do. I
decided to let her narrate the book. Again, this was supposed to have
been a love story, but shewinds up dead. So the main character
is dead. But it's a lovestory, yes, And it became a
truth thriller and a huge mystery whathappened between when you decided to hand this
(03:54):
thing and say, hey, I'mgoing to write this really nice love story
and all of a sudden it becamea storylory of a psychological ups and downs
manipulation. Again, a lot oflove stories have all of that, but
that's a different story for a differentday, and full on mysteries where you
really don't know what's what, andeven if you try to move along a
little bit and you find out littlethings here and there, and still still
(04:18):
it's a huge mystery. Yeah.Well, nobody likes a cheesy, sappy
love story. I mean, whenyou see what's coming, you just think,
Okay, I don't need to readthis book. I've read thousands of
these books. Were not doing HallmarkChannel reviews here, Yeah, exactly.
So I thought, okay, howcan we make this better? And Peggy
(04:38):
came to life once I put heron the page. All my characters sort
of live in my head after there, I breathe life into them, and
Peggy, really I thought needed totell her backstory, and the backstory has
a lot of unforeseen events cracks inher original marriage to the plastic surgeon,
and she evolves, as we dowith with her, to realize that a
(05:00):
small crack in a marriage can reallybecome a huge event, especially when there's
an unforeseen happening that you expect yourhusband to take care of and he doesn't,
and then she relives all of thismess that she gets herself into,
and that culminates later into a lovestory, but with someone else on the
(05:24):
surface. People are listening right now, and they might have just picked up
or they might have picked up thebook look at the first few pages and
they came Wow. A lot ofwomen it's their dream to be married to
a plastic surgeon. But they getall that they can keep the keep looking
young at no charge and things likethat. That's absolutely fantastic, great idea.
I'm not a big fan of surgery. I'm not a big fan of
needles, so that's a different storyfor a different day. But this is,
(05:47):
uh, this is let's let's askthis question, let's get ask it
this way. I have not hada plethora of mystery writers on book spectrum
Okay, I've had some a few, But I want to ask you,
Okay, as this kind of evolvedinto something different from what it was supposed
(06:08):
to be, how did you goabout writing the mystery aspect of the book
because a lot of this hangs onyour expertise in life experience, but the
only thing you warrant was a detective. Well that's true, but I was
a big ig at the Christy fanwhen I was growing up. Sourt in
my head. But I was marriedto an orthopedic surgeon, so you know,
the front story is people always think, oh wow, it's a dream
(06:30):
marriage and how lucky are you andall that, and yes he was a
great guy. But behind the scenesand in medical meetings and you know,
having lunches and dinners with other professionals, you realize doctors are just human beings
and they have a lot of flaws. People don't see them because when you
walk into the office, they're wonderful, they're fabulous, they try to help
you, and they're kind. Behindthe scenes sometimes not so much. And
(06:55):
then when I was working with mynext husband, I've been married twice,
he was a psychologist, and yourealize all the patients bowed down to him
and thought, oh, he justknows everything and he can calm all my
fears and my anxieties. But behindthe scenes, he's also just a regular
person. So I sort of unveiledthese two professions and let people see.
(07:18):
No, there's a lot of characterflaws that go on behind the scenes.
The character flaws are there, andwe've seen them in the book, and
the readers will, if they haven'tpicked the tome up yet, they will
enjoy the flaws and and of coursethe aspects of each of the characters from
Peggy on forward. However, onthis mystery aspect, again, not what
(07:43):
you're saying is not. A lotof this was preset. A lot of
this went as it was going tochange and things happen. He so what
along you're sort of traveling on thesame journey. The reader will, yes,
Yes, okay, I'm going totell you something that I promise myself
I wouldn't say, but I mightas well tell you you've heard it here
first. All No, now youheard it here first. When I put
(08:05):
a character on the page, Peggywas my protagonist, so she was my
first character. I sort of knewit was going to be a love story.
At some point, I didn't knowhow she was going to get there
exactly, because I knew it wasgoing to be with someone she wasn't married
to. But in all of ourlives, we have something that happens,
whether it's by ourselves or or ourextended family or a friend, we know
(08:26):
that's so unforeseen that it turns thetide and we go down a completely different
path than we think, and thenall of a sudden we realize we have
no control over anything. In thiscase, there was such a huge unforeseen
event that occurred to Peggy, andI'm not going to reveal what it is
because I don't want everybody to say, oh, I'm not going to read
the book. Then it changed everythingin her life, And how did that
(08:50):
affect me? I don't really writethe stories anymore. When I bring the
characters onto the page, they sortof take me on the too. I
used to wake up sometimes and sayto my husband, you would never believe
what happened to Peggy, And hewould say to me, well, that's
ridiculous, because you're the but Iam the author. But the characters will
(09:13):
let you know their journey, andif you're not true to that, that's
why people say I have writer's block. No, you don't have writer's block.
You're trying to make the character goin a different direction than they want
to go. So these characters tookme along for the ride, and we
enter into every two or three chaptersthere's a new character, and there's at
least five really not protagonists. There'sonly one, but five main characters that
(09:37):
are pertinent to the entire mystery.And there we are. Similarly to that
last question, similarly, I haveto pronounce that word a lot better.
How did you balance all these twiststhat you wanted in here, the ones
that you had had to move alongto make make things happen with the book?
(09:58):
And then all so take that,and I'll say the word balance again,
But balance that with the idea thatyou still wanted to make us a
love story, and then you stillfound other other things you want to add
to the book. One, yes, that's true. I mean we have
you know, we all want toknow how to detective solve crimes, So
(10:18):
we have a detective in there.That's pretty important. What about psychiatrists?
We have a psychiatrist in this bookwho you know as a psychotherapist, I
know the power that we have whenpatients come in and and are vulnerable.
I was a good a good person, so is our whole practice. But
there are people in the field.I don't know them, but I would
(10:39):
imagine can twist and turn people's mindsinto preszels when you're in a vulnerable state
like Peggy was, I mean shewas killed. When you're in a vulnerable
state and you seek help, you'rehanging on the word of anybody that can
help you. Unfortunately, this guywas not a good guy. So you
see her brain getting scrambled up,and now all of a sudden, she
(11:01):
doesn't know who she can trust.And that's how the mystery evolves. Who
can she trust? Out of sixcharacters, and you made every one of
them look suspicious, Yes, Idid. Well, that's a good thing
because that makes the mystery even morebecause you're trying to find something good about
the characters. But then you're justsaying, well, these people are horrible
(11:22):
or there's something about them that makesthem. That's that cause Peggy all these
problems and all of a sudden,and of course you're thinking, well,
any one of these guys could haveor any one of these people could have
killed Peggy. Yeah. Yeah.And most of the time you have a
preconceived notion that you really like thischaracter or you really don't like this character.
But sometimes they surprise you. Andsometimes the one that you're rooting for
(11:45):
suddenly you think, wait a minute, they're not the good guy anymore.
And the person that you hated anddespised, and there are two people like
that in this book. At theend, you're thinking, you know,
maybe I was wrong in my evalueof this person. So up until the
end, you're always on the fenceabout every chapter is I hope a page
(12:07):
turner, And every time you thinkyou have it solved or you really know
how you feel about this person,you don't. And even after the book
was over, and I mean,I write it so I know how it
ended, people are still arguing withme and saying, I think this happened.
I know you said this happened,but I think this happened. Or
people are saying what happened to whathappened to Rob Peggy's husband. Now I'm
(12:30):
like, I don't know because he'sfiction, and you're like, no,
no, but I know, butI need to know, so you know
that takes me to I'm writing asequel because people want to know what happened
to the characters. So okay,well that's another thing. In reading the
book. I'm sitting here, I'mlooking at it and saying, well,
all right now, I think Ifigured this one out thanks a few pages.
(12:52):
Aha, No, that's the twist. That person did it. Then
you read it a little more.Ah, wait a minute. So you
think you're sure, but the goodthing is you're not. And even as
I was writing it, I thoughtI was sure, but then something occurred
and I went, oh, no, we're going to have to get rid
of this guy. Well then whoelse could it be? So the clues
(13:16):
start to add up, But thenthey so you're saying it was the same
for you too. You're thinking,hey, I got it, this guy
did it. And then you changeyour mind and you think, no,
no, let let's do it thisway. Because sometimes the bad guy really
still had some good about them.And I thought, well, wait,
let me resurrect this character because thisguy over here, you know, we
weren't paying attention to him, butmaybe we should bring him in and see
(13:37):
what he's about. So yeah,I was surprised on the dark. Say
you open up a serious door,something that could happen to anybody being manipulated
by somebody with the power to scrambleone's mind, a psychotherapist, psychiatrist,
psychologist, or anybody like that.Yeah, that's a very real situation.
(13:58):
It is. It is a realsituation. We have had patients that have
come to us after seeing other peopleand they were convinced that they were hopeless,
or they were completely mentally ill,or that they needed to be on
medication when they really didn't. Andyou know, I don't know why psychologists
or psychiatrists maybe think that they shouldhave all the answers, because we don't.
(14:22):
We have to really pay attention andlisten to what the patient is saying.
A lot of times in this professionthere's preconceived notions by the therapist that
says, Oh, I know what'swrong with this person, and you really
don't. You have to dig alittle deeper, and then you go,
wait a minute. You know thesepeople can be helped, and they almost
all of them can. That's agood thing. But again, most people
get the impression that everybody who hasthis power is just like doctor A.
(14:46):
Sidney Friedman. I believe that's frommesh right. A nice guy that sits
by you and says, so Hawk, I tell me about your childhood,
and tell me about what happened withyour cousin. Yeah, I know.
There are people that we my husbandand I knew who told couples that they
needed to get a divorce when theycertainly didn't need to get divorce. They
(15:09):
had children and they could work itout. But sometimes the psychiatrists or psychologists
doesn't have the answers, and they'renot ready to say I don't know how
to help you, or let merefer you to somebody that maybe can.
They want to just give the shortanswer, and the short answer is you're
doomed. You need a divorce,you need to start over, you know,
don't talk to your parents again.Those are not the real things that
(15:31):
we should be telling patients. Butin this book, unfortunately, transference and
counter transference, those are terms thatmean we're not neutral, even though we
try to be neutral. We havea bias. When we meet somebody,
they remind us of somebody, orwe don't like them for some reason.
And in this book, this psychiatristhad a bias against Peggy. So let's
(15:52):
put it into other perspectives. Here, you have seen these things. You've
seen the potential of these things haveyes, and you've watched people delve into
the psychological and mental health aspects ofpeople's lives. And I probably put it
into Peggy's character using their credentials toolcredential, credentialed tools around the people who
(16:15):
tell the story. How did you, let's put it this way, perhaps
tell I'm gonna take a step back. How did your own profession and the
people you met along the way inspiresome of the characters or happenings in this
story. Well, I think beingmarried to a surgeon helped because I know
(16:37):
how the rigorous schedules are and howlittle time they have for their family because
their loyalty has to be to thepatients in the hospital. So we have
that aspect. I know how powerful, how vulnerable really people are women more
than men. I'm going to saythat that may not be true. And
when you're vulnerable and you have anxietyor depression, or there's an event that
(16:59):
you really can't come to grips with, you're seeking anything, any piece of
help from anybody that can solve theproblem, and they're looking for the quick
fix. And so Peggy's husband neededto help her, and that wasn't his
field of expertise, so he sendsher to somebody that he believes will have
all of the answers right. Youjust can't lift some wrinkles up a little
(17:23):
bit and solve every problem. Thatjust doesn't happen that way. It really
doesn't, and especially looking for thequick fix a lot of times, you
know childhood. Sigmund Freud wasn't wrongwhen he said childhood impacts your future.
It does, and people don't wantto take the time to go into psychoanalytic
therapy and all of that, andsometimes they don't need it if it's just
(17:45):
a quick fix. But generally speaking, we are who we have experienced and
we can't get away from that.No, we cannot tell our audience a
little more about yourself though, Andlike I said before, you've been writing
non fiction self help books for along time. This is an initial foray
into uh into real life or realfiction, real real fiction and real mystery.
(18:10):
Of course, a psycho thriller,you're going to have a sequel coming
out, But we did say yourexpertise really helped this whole thing out.
Tell tell Er Rodian's a little bitabout a little bit more about yourself.
We did touch on it, butmore if you have so, just so
we can all get a perspective onwhere you're coming from when you write the
book. Okay, Well, Ialways wanted to help people, so I
became a registered nurse, much tothe chagrin of my parents, who wanted
(18:33):
me to be a ballet dancer.But that's another story. So I became
a registered nurse. I loved nursing, absolutely loved nursing, and I worked
in New York City and I workedin Washington, d C. At two
of the finalist hospitals. Then Imoved with my surgeon husband to Florida,
and the hospital here was a smallhospital and they wanted me to work.
(18:56):
If I was going to get ajob there. I had to work evenings
and nights and weekends, which Iunderstand, but I had four small children
so I couldn't do it, andhe was on call, so somebody had
to be home. So I decided, Okay, let me delve into something
else, but still help people.So I went on to school, I
got a degree, and I decided, okay, psychology is perfect. I
(19:17):
met my surgeon husband and I weredivorced very friendly. He's a wonderful guy.
I met a psychologist. He hiredme into his practice. Twenty years
later, I married him, butthat wasn't the reason I worked there.
And I found it fascinating, fascinatingbecause you would you think you know every
story. I mean, I probablysaw hundreds and hundreds of patients, and
(19:41):
yet each person that walked in hada variation on the theme of the story,
and you were always shocked at whatthe outcome would be, or what
the twist or turn was in theirlife, or how one thing impacted their
entire future. And so when Istarted to write the book, I would
actually write a chapter and go,so what happened to her? And then
(20:02):
I had to go to sleep onit for a few weeks, and then
I think, oh, I knowwhat happened. And then somebody else would
enter in and I go, whyis he here? And so those were
how the questions of how the bookbecame its own journey. I actually said
what are you doing here? ButI was saying it in my mind,
what are you doing here? DetectiveHarvey? Another thing and I have with
me on book spectrum. Laurie ElizabethMurphy. She wrote the book a dream
(20:26):
me Home. We're talking about that. One thing we touched on and I'd
like you to elaborate on, isthat you also found a way to make
the other make the reader care peopleabout the other characters in the book.
Because even when patients came into mypractice and you thought immediately, Okay,
(20:47):
I'm not going to like this personor this kid is never going to amount
to anything, you realize after gettingto know them, there's always a side
to them that's redeemable. There's alwayssomething in their psyche that really, if
you read them, are kind andconsiderate. So in my book, there
was always a reason except for onecharacter, there was always a reason that
(21:08):
people in there that you did likebehave that way, and you started to
feel sorry for them, and thenyou started to like them, and the
more you like them is kind ofthe better they turned out in the book.
Adversely, the people that you thoughtwere the really good guys, you
know, you pulled back the veiland you thought, you know, they're
hiding something. What is it?What are they hiding? And then you
(21:30):
start to realize, oh, Imisjudge them too. They're not as good
as we thought. It's just humannature. And then it is you also
said that you were writing a sequelto the book. Yes, is that
going to center on one or moreof the characters. I'm bringing back two
of the characters for sure, AndI'm going to have to bring back Peggy.
(21:56):
I know she's dead, why not, right? That will be one
he came back a few times,right, Yeah, because Peggy still knows
a lot of dirt on her husbandand a few other people. So she's
going to have to come back.Not quite sure how we're going to do
that, but Peggy'll peg. You'lllet me know when I put her on
the page. Aside from the sequel, might this endeavor have inspired you to
produce more mysteries, thrillers or similartypes of books in the future. You
(22:22):
know, I had my original bookwas going to be a three generational book
of people that came here from theUkraine and Greece. But now that there's
all kinds of problems in that partof the world, I tabled that book.
That's going to be a general,a three generational book from for some
other time. I a mystery.I love a mystery. My mind is
(22:45):
now into mysteries. In fact,I didn't know I was as devious until
recently. Well, now you do, I do. Where can our listeners
find out more about the book dreamMe Home? And of course you,
Laura. My website is Lori Murphydot net. It's l A U r
I E. Lorimurphy dot net andthere's a trailer to the book on that
(23:07):
website. There's also all kinds ofreviews that I've gotten from reviewers, which
are thankfully very positive. They canbuy the book. There's a button on
the website to go straight to AmazonBooks or Barnes and Noble. They can
just hit that button and go therewhere they can dial it in. Lur
Murphy, thank you very much forbeing with us on book Spectrum once again.
(23:30):
The title is dream Me Home.The twists and turns are well,
we talked about them, but you'regoing to have to read them for yourself.
Thank you very much for listening thatonce again. I'm your host,
Chris Cordiny, and keep those pagesturning.
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