Bookwild - Amy Impellizzeri: In Her Defense

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

On this episode, I talk to Amy Impellizzeri about her disorienting legal thriller In Her Defense.You can also watch the episode on YouTubeAuthor LinksInstagramGoodreadsWebsiteAmy's PodcastCheck out the book hereIn Her Defense SynopsisIngrid DiLaurio lives in Riversedge, New York, four express train stops from Manhattan. Don't be fooled: With its tree-lined Main Street, and quaint ambiance, Riversedge is only impersonating a small town. While it's a place small enough for everyone to know each other's secrets, few do. The town revolves around the prestigious Riversedge Law Club, where deals are made and cases are resolved and where Ingrid DiLaurio -- a former lawyer turned nationally recognized podcast host - has never once been made to feel welcome.When Ingrid's husband, Peter, is found dead, and Ingrid's former friend, Opal, is arrested as the prime suspect, the press quickly seizes on Opal's past as a single mom and stripper. Ingrid's first priority is protecting herself and her son, Drake, along with her business, from salacious gossip. But when Opal finds herself in desperate need of a defense lawyer, she tells Ingrid she wants to call in a "favor," and Ingrid reluctantly returns to the law for one last case.As the trial unfolds, Ingrid realizes quickly that she has taken on more than she bargained for, including Opal's dark past, a corrupt judge, a blackmailing prosecutor, another dead body, and a black tinted car that follows her everywhere. In the end, it's clear that both women know more than they are letting on about Peter's death, but who will tell the truth first?And is the truth what anyone really wants to hear? Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Hi, my name is Kate and I love to read. Like, I was carrying books around with me before Kindles were a thing. So I decided to start a podcast where I interview the authors of some of my favorite books, ask them all of my questions so that I can read between the lines of the books. Welcome back to another episode of Between the Lines. I'm here with Amy in Pelliserie, who is the author of In Her Defense and also a host of, of her podcast, I know how this book ends. So thanks for being on the podcast, Amy. Thanks so much for having me. This is quite an honor. I'm thrilled. Yeah. So before we get into the book, I did want to learn a little bit about you and your writing. So when did you know that you

wanted to be an author? Or when did you know, like, I have a story I need to write? Well, so I was always a writer. When I was a little girl, I was always journaling. I had a whole bookshelves of journals and diaries. But I was also always going to be a lawyer. And so at some point in college, I decided, I actually had a friend who was a couple of years older than me, who was already in law school, and he came back to visit at college one weekend. I was lamenting because I had gotten a really, what I thought was a really bad grade on an English paper. And it was Lolita. Lolita is like not never never easy for me and um yeah he was like and I said you know oh my goodness I can't write and I'm I can't go to law school and I'm like you know I was just you

know in complete distress and he said okay well wait a minute back up from it he said you're if you want to go to law school this idea you have of like developing your own voice and writing in your own voice you need to get rid of because when you're in law school you're not writing in your own voice anymore and when you're a lawyer you're not writing in your own voice anymore and so instead of being horrified by that I I just said oh okay I can't you both and boxed up all my journals and and everything and proceeded on what I thought was this like straight line path to law school and lawyering and I did do that I went to law school and I was a lawyer for over 13 years and I was working for a really fabulous on-paper law firm and everything

seemed like it had gone according to plan, except that I was feeling really unhappy. And I didn't really know why. I always say I did love lawyering until it didn't. And then I just really couldn't figure out, like, what was the disconnect? I took what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical over 10 years ago now, still on it. And I reconnected with writing. That was not what the goal. The sabbatical was really to catch my breath.

And then I reconnected with writing. and then I never looked back. So I started, I was doing other things during my sabbatical, and then in the years that filed, I turned my sabbatical into a three-year leave of absence, and I kept writing what would become my first novel on the side. I had this idea, probably not surprisingly, about a woman at a crossroads in her life,

and decided to tell it in the context of a love story, and kept putting it down, picking it up, putting it down, picking it up, and finally, you know, four years later, had a book to query. So, yeah, so that's my long way of saying I was always a writer, but it took me a while to return to that path. Yeah, it's such a, like, it seems like it's a scarier path than becoming a lawyer. Well, there's just, there's so much more, yeah, there's no, you know, when you're going to be a lawyer, you take the LSATs and you go to law school and then you take the bar and then you

practice law and it seems very defined. And I used to always say that I have a very non-traditional path to writing until I figured out that everybody has their own path to writing. There is no defined path. So there's no such thing as a traditional or non-traditional path to it. And so, yeah, in a lot of ways, and it used to be, I think it's less so now. I think people are talking about it more. But it used to be that the business of publishing was shrouded and so much secrecy you couldn't possibly figure out how to peek below that veil. But of course, there's been so much disruption to the industry in terms of self-publishing and marketing strategies and TikTok and just things that have really kind of taken the, I think, lifted the veil of publishing in a way that wasn't

the case 10, 15 years ago. And I think those are all good things. Yeah, that's a really. That's a really, really cool point. So you said you've kind of taken, or you kind of used to think you took a non-traditional approach to writing. What's your actual writing process like? So do you start out knowing exactly how the book's going to go or do you just kind of start writing and let it come to you? How do you approach it? So I've done it both ways and I only recommend writing when you know how it's going to end. I have, so my first book I actually, wrote backwards. I knew how it was going to end. I came to, I came up with this idea. And I was like, I think that's a good idea for an ending of a book. And I wrote backwards. And so then,

um, I did that for, um, my first two novels. And then, um, my third novel, my third and fourth novels, I started with the premise. I started with the hook. And I was like, oh, I know how these books start. And those were so much harder to write. Not, not, not, not long, or shorter, but harder. Yeah. And those were much harder to write. And so then I know how this ends, which is my fifth book. And even though all my books are standalone books, but my fifth book, I wrote standalone

books in between my first and my fifth, but my fifth book is related to my debut novel. And so that book, I sort of went back to the idea of knowing how it ends and the book is I know how this is. And so now I'm writing a legal drama series. And this is my first legal drama series, right? So more than 10 years after the law, I finally feel comfortable. The PTSD has finally subsided enough that I'm ready to write legal courtroom dramas. And I've really gotten excited about it.

But these books are probably the most methodically plotted books that I've done. So I've really worked on the process over the last five years. I know I need to know how it ends. I know I need a certain amount, a hybrid amount of plotting and letting the book evolve. Because I really, I am a writer. I have friends who are writers who hate the process of writing and love having written. And I am a writer who loves writing. I love the process.

So if I spend too much time writing out every single scenario and plotting too methodically, I don't, I sort of lose that love. the process. So I've been, I try to kind of keep the, keep the surprises alive a little bit for myself too. But I need a roadmap or I just flounder. That's, I feel like I would need to, um, if I was going to try write something. Like, I feel like I would just have to have some of it plot it out. But that's kind of cool that you have written so many books. So you've kind of had multiple opportunities to kind of tweak your process and try different things out and figure out what does really work for you.

Yeah, I wouldn't say I've like stumbled on the magic formula yet. I don't know that there is one. I was so relieved to, I interviewed Jacqueline Meshard, who for my podcast who wrote the Deep End of the Ocean, which was Oprah's first book club pick 25 years ago. And now she's written her 20-something novel 25 years ago, 25 years later, the Good Sun. And she said the process is still just as hard. And I thought, okay, that's good. Then I'm doing this right because it's still just as hard for me. I feel like I've, I've honed it in a lot of ways, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, there's probably no way around the fact that, like, forcing yourself to sit down and write is always going to be a little bit more. Yeah, yeah. So how do you get to know your characters? Do you kind of get to know them as you're writing as well, or have you done both ways? Like, how do you do them? Yeah, I love my characters.

I have to really dive into them before, you know, As I'm plotting out the initial story, I have to kind of figure out who are the main characters, who are the point of view characters, and get to know them, often in ways that aren't even necessarily on the page, but just sort of write them out, you know, find pictures of who I think they look like, you know, just visually sort of have them in front of me. And then I spend a lot of time talking to them. I really do. I spend a lot of time thinking about them when I'm driving.

I'm picturing them in different scenes. I'm thinking about how they would react. And so I like to write scenes. So I like to think about them. I like to think, you know, sort of map out what scenes, you know, the big scenes. And then smaller subscenes. And then sort of think about that as I'm driving or as I'm riding the bike or just doing different things. And then, you know, when it's time to write for the day, sit down and think about it.

Yeah, that makes sense. So you said that it took kind of like 10 years outside of being a lawyer to even write a book, a legal thriller, basically. But how did your experience as a lawyer impact your experience as an author kind of overall? Yeah. So, you know, it's funny because when I had my first book event from my debut novel, I remember somebody in the audience asking me a question that stumped me, which was, are you a lawyer who now writes or are you a writer who used to be a lawyer?

And I was like, I don't know. And I can't remember exactly how I answered that. And I sort of stumbled over it. And the answer to that has evolved. You know, I was still sort of not sure if I was ever going to go back to practicing law at that time. It was only maybe four years out at that point. Now I'm 12 years out. I know for sure I'll never go back to practicing the law the way I did before.

But I'm still a lawyer. But I'm definitely, I am a writer who is influenced by my years of practicing law. I mean, I bring that to the writing process. I cross-examine my, even when I wasn't writing legal drama, I cross-examine my characters, I cross-examine my plot. I'm influenced by the way I wrote legal briefs, which is what's the other side going to say? What are the reviewers going to find? What are they going to pull out?

What are they going to say of the holes? I have to fix those holes. So I definitely was influenced in that way. I never practiced criminal law. So a lot of times I would go to book clubs in the early days of writing, and people would say, oh, why don't you write legal drama? You were a lawyer for 13 years. And I used to always tell people, you know, I didn't practice criminal law.

It's not like I was a corporate litigator. I mean, does not get less sexy than that, okay? I mean, it's not the step of novels. But as I started to really reflect on my time of practicing law, I did have a lot of meat that could be used for novels. You know, I did work on a lot of really fun, interesting cases. I did also meet a lot of, you know, interesting people and a lot of bad people. I mean, I met a lot of bad guys.

And even though I wasn't practicing criminal law. And that is the stuff of the inspiration for good novels. So I started taking notes over the years and I started thinking if I ever, you know, if I ever do decide to actually tackle legal courtroom drama, these are kinds of some of the stories that will inspire that. And so here we are. Yeah. I'm still like stuck on the fact that you were around some bad people and it wasn't criminal law. But yeah, I'm sure you meet all kinds of people in corporate litigation that would be great inspiration for books as well. Yeah. What do you enjoy the most about your doing your podcast or just like anything that's happened in yours.

Yeah. So I, so my podcast is actually the evolution of a project I took on at the beginning of COVID. So my last, my fifth novel, the novel before my legal drama series, before in her defense, was called I Know How This End. And it released on March 3rd, 2020. Okay. So I don't know if you remember what was going on that week. that it was a really crazy week, right?

And so I had a pre-launch event in the Hamptons, this big, fabulous star-stud. I was part of a book festival. It wasn't just my book. So this big, fabulous star-studded pre-launch event in the Hamptons could not have been more fun. And we were all going out to dinner and people were sort of talking about things shutting down.

And I had a friend who said, I have a flight schedule to L.A. next week. I think I should still get on it. And we were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. I'm sure you're going to make it out to L.A. So fast forward one week later, my book launched literally on the eve of the world shutting down.

And my book was set against the backdrop of something that never happened. It was set against the backdrop of a commencement ceremony in the spring of 2020, a crowded commencement ceremony at Carnegie Hall in 2020. Right. So interestingly enough, it's also a book about Parenthood. parallel universes and what could have been, and there's a mystical element to it, which became so much more poignant as it was released. And luckily, I mean, frankly, had it been scheduled to release over the summer, we probably

would have pulled it, but it just released right in time that we just sort of let it go and let it go out into the world and hoped that people would still embrace it, which they did, thank goodness. But it became very tricky to market that book, right? And so I had a lot of friends who stepped in and said that they would help market it. And we're doing that favor for all of us who had books that were coming out then. And so then I wanted to pay it forward. So I started this virtual book club called I Know How This Book Ends.

And I was basically just doing a Zoom book club for friends who had books that were coming out at the time. And then it was sort of taking up because at the time there wasn't really anything. We didn't really know what else to do. Right. And so then there was then, you know, Candice Bushnell wrote, a YA novel that was coming out then and she came on and Sarah Peckinan's new novel was coming out and she came on and so all of a sudden it really it became something that um was really fun and had legs and booktrip called it one of the top virtual events of of 2020 and so then I was approached in 2021 to turn it into a podcast by speak studio and so then it became okay well this is fabulous because

people were still not really doing live events and I was reading a lot um in addition to writing and I thought well I'll just uh have people on you know books authors of books I want to read and books that I'm reading and I'll just tell everyone about them and so that's what that's what it continues to be and now I actually get a lot of publicists and editors send me advanced copies of books so now we do all I do all launch day episodes so I read all the books um and then I pre-reworked record before launch day and now we do all pretty much exclusively launch day episodes, which is, so that is the most fun part is just being able to connect with authors as a reader, which I really do.

But of course, the point of it is to always to try to do, much like you do, a deep dive into the book, right, to ask questions that not everybody is asking and to sort of try to get a little less sanitized version of the usual book. Yeah. So, yeah. So we're very similar in that way. Yeah. Yeah.

When you were explaining it, I was like, when I got my first advanced reader copy, I was like, oh my gosh. That's it, right? Because I just started, yeah, I just started mine in December of 2021. And I remember telling my husband, I was like, if I get my first arc is like the easier way to say. If I get my first one within a year, I'm going to be shocked. And I got it within like a couple months.

And I was like, okay, this is so cool. The community is so fun. Like, it's fun to connect with people. And then I've always wanted to, like, ask authors questions that came up while I was reading. So I was like, let's see if this can work. And people actually really do respond. It's been awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you're doing a great job. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So in her defense is your most recent book. How would you explain it in a couple sentences? So in her defense is the story of two women, Ingrid Delario and Opel Rowan.

Ingrid is a former lawyer now turned podcast host. Fun fact, I was not a podcast host when I wrote this story. So I sort of wrote that manifested that little dream. So she's a former lawyer turned podcast host. And her husband in the beginning of the story has just been found dead. and the prime suspect in the apparent murder is his mistress, a former exotic dancer turned nurse, who just so happens to have been a really good friend of Ingrid's. And she calls, Opal calls Ingrid from the jail house and says she wants to call in a favor,

and she wants Ingrid to represent her in this case. And for reasons that are very unclear at the beginning of the story, Ingrid decides return to the law for one trial, which is to represent her husband's accused murder. And that's how the story begins. That's all we need. Pre-spoiler. Where did you get the inspiration for it? Or what prompted you to write this story?

So lots of things. So this book is the, I did start to have this idea that I wanted to write a story. I wanted to write a series set in a fictional town. So this is book one of the Rivers Edge Law Club series. And while the series will have different cases, trials, characters in each book, although there may be some overlap. It is all grounded in this town that is a fictional town outside of Manhattan called Rivers Edge, New York. And at the center of this town is the law club, Rivers Edge Law Club, which is a place where a lot of backdoor politics happens. A lot of the judges and the lawyers have a lot of backdoor dealings.

and of course in in her defense ingrid has sort of always felt on the outside of this kind of old boys club and the club and her feelings about it factor very prominently in the story and i liked the idea i really did have this people ask it's the river's edge law club a real place i mean it is not one single place in one single town but it's certainly the embodiment of a lot of old boys network stuff that I experienced over my 13 years of practicing law. And so I liked the idea of putting it in a place and having it be a big plot element. So that was part of the inspiration for this story. And then in her defense in particular, I mean, I love to write about, I love to write about

women. And I think the breakup of female friendship is like one of the most heartbreaking plot lines to follow. So I had this idea of these women who had been friends. Something had happened to them. And what was it that had happened to them? And what would bring them back together, at least for these purposes? And so that's sort of where the story started, the inspiration for the story started. But I will tell you, I also did have a friendship of my own that went awry that was just tangentially inspirational for the story.

I was, when I moved to town, I moved from New York to Pennsylvania, and when we first moved to town, my son was in this preschool program, and we were new to town, we didn't know anyone, and he would come home and talk about this particular boy in his class, and I ended up meeting the mother, and we became fast friends, just like our boys became fast friends. And we were friends for a long time, like six months before she revealed to me that she had a secret.

that she wanted to tell me about, which was that she had been, that her husband basically managed a very well-known exotic dance establishment in town, and that she worked there as well. And she said that she really usually never told anyone that at the school because, like, a lot of the dads recognized her and would, you know, sort of like stay away from her. And she just always felt kind of on the outside looking in. And I was very honored that she had shared that with me. And I said that to her at the time. Like, you know, I'm so glad you shared that with me.

Like, thank you so much. Nothing's going to change between us. We had been friends for a while. Our boys were friends. But something did shift between the two of us after the revelation. And it was really, it was hard to pinpoint, but it was really upsetting, I think, for both of us. Yeah. And we lost the friendship.

And we, and then our boys ended up being at different schools the following year for reasons that having nothing to do with her revelation. but I always felt like a pang about that. And so when I started to put this story together, I did have this idea that in a sense it would be a little bit of a love letter to that friendship gone wrong. And so that was definitely in the back of my mind. That's really cool and personal. So thank you for sharing that.

That's fascinating. That's a way you can kind of weave stuff in to what you're right. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly not her. she's not the character it's not based on her but that's just that's sort of like idea yeah for sure so we are going to get into spoilers so i always tell people if you haven't read the book yet just pause and read it and come back yes but if you're here because you have already read it then you can obviously just keep on listening so ingrid kind of reflects on her journey um towards being a lawyer kind of just

throughout the whole book, actually. And when she's reflecting on it, she kind of remembers how going to law school was an attempt to redirect her quest for fairness and justice that seemed stilted in the wake of her mother's death. And so, I mean, people have already read the book, so I guess I don't really need to get into her mom dying. But later, when she does defend Opel successfully,

she feels like she's now more like her mother than her son. So did you know from the beginning when you were writing it that Ingrid's character arc would be centered around kind of like making her freedom fighting mom proud or did that kind of come to you as you wrote it? Yeah. I definitely, I knew that her mother's death, her mother's champion a cause that her mother had conflicted feelings about, that they all had conflicting feelings. feelings about was going to be a big factor for Ingrid. And so as I was writing the story, the finer points were sort of fleshed out. But I knew that Ingrid's mother and the fact that she was motherless, you know, for all of these really important crises points in her life later on, was going to be a big factor for her.

That was going to be a big part of her internal conflict. So, yeah, I really, I think though her mother became a more prominent character, if you will, in the story, even though her mother is not in the story, she did become a more prominent figure in the story as I continue to write Ingrid's story. The kind of, along with her mom, the book really examines helping selflessly versus helping selfishly. So Ingrid even thinks back about how her situation isn't the same as her mother's in her mind at that point and is thinking my mother died defending women she was fighting for even as she disagreed with them and I'm just fighting for me. So do you think that Ingrid really was entirely selfishly defending Opel or does she also kind of see that like Opel deserves justice since she knows she didn't do it? Yeah, I do think Ingrid has a lot of nuanced rationales for what she does. And she's hard on herself and rightfully so because she's made some different, you know,

she's made some difficult decisions. She's made some gray area decisions. She hasn't always been kind. And she hasn't always been selfless. But she, she's like all of us. She's not all one thing. And she certainly feels bad about the way the friendship went wrong. She feels bad about her part in it.

And she clearly she knows Opel didn't do it. And she feels badly about her taking the fall for it. It's not easy for her to just look away. And I think there is a part of Ingrid that is, still that person who thinks justice is a black and white thing. And you don't just walk away from something when you know that someone's being accused of something they didn't do. And so there's a part of her that wants to because it's just going to be hard.

But she can't do that. But of course, what helps her, because it is hard, what helps kind of push her over the edge is that she has some personal reasons for wanting to make sure this case. case and the optics of this case go in a different direction. Definitely. That was definitely the case. So we've kind of talked about how their relationship ends because Opel tells her that she was an exotic dancer in her past. And kind of even as Ingrid's judging her in the moment, she's even aware of the fact that like her mom wouldn't have judged her. Her mom probably would have even loved her story. But like mostly Ingrid's like, I don't want to be associated with you anymore. So were you

kind of like using that to show anti-feminist is a strong word for it. But it was at least reminding me of like how easily even women judge each other for stuff like that. And were you kind of using that as like a vehicle to show that part? Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I think, you know, I think breakups, romantic breakups, are, you know, really like, we love to talk about them. We love to read about them. We love to deep dive into them. But like the breakup of female relationships and the nuances of what goes right and wrong between in female relationships, I think is just so fascinating.

And yeah, we're so hard on each other. We're so hard on each other. And Ingrid is, of course, a character who has a lot of trouble with forgiveness and second chances, a lot of trouble, as we see with her relationship with her father. She's a lot of trouble giving people another pass, another second chance. She does it with her own husband. She does it with Opal. She does it with her father.

And so she is a person who, you know, this book is about second chances and about what, you know, who are the people that we give second chances to? who are the people whose redemption stories we celebrate and who are the ones that we that we don't and and so I really wanted to ingra to sort of be the like uncomfortable part in all of us she really represents that uncomfortable part in all of us who doesn't always see the the new chapter of people it definitely it comes up that she has a lot of righteous anger throughout the book actually and when opal is realized she needs to call Ingrid for the favor.

She, or Opel thinks, she needs Ingrid and her righteous, indignant, arrogant anger. She doesn't trust her, but she sure as hell needs her. So were you also kind of showing, because in this case, her righteous anger actually kind of was used for good instead of for judgment? And was that kind of your plan, like, as you were writing it? Yeah, and she surprises Opel too, right? because Opel really isn't sure all through the story how big of a role. Opel knows she didn't do it, but she's not sure Ingrid didn't do it, right?

So she's not sure, exactly, but she knows that Ingrid isn't going to want people to know or to think that she did it. She thinks that, you know, Ingrid's going to want to wipe the slate clean of her. And so that's the part she wants to use. But, but yeah, she really, I mean, Opel is playing a dangerous game because she really, Opal doesn't know what happens. And Oprah's taking, she's taking a risk all along. But of course, that's who her character is.

Her character is a person who will take a risk to save herself, save her son. And Ingrid knows exactly what happened. So her path is less risky until the end, until the trial. And so she does, she takes the ultimate risk of putting Opel on the stand. And then we see how that works out. Yes, that was a very cool moment. So we've kind of been discussing, too, how black and white, Ingrid at least wants the world to be, which I understand as well.

That is something that's really difficult for me. It was a big focal point of my therapy for years was I just wanted to be black and white. Like it feels like it would be so much easier. I relate to that so hard. That's what I wondered. That's kind of where I was headed with it too, because there's a point at the book when Ingrid thinks, I just wanted to sort the world into categories. It seemed there were right answers and wrong ones and that appealed to me.

But when I started working at the firm, I saw how utterly gray everything was. So a couple questions. How do you feel like that kind of reflects on the whole book? And then as we've realized, like both of us seemed to really like that idea. So how was it kind of writing something that maybe like you've been working on as well? Yeah. I mean, I, this is a very, you know, Ingrid is not autobiographical at all, which always seems, you know, funny to say, the, you know, the former lawyer. But she's not. I mean, she has a lot of, she is her own character, as all my characters are.

But this thing I relate to, this thing is a familiar thing for me. You know, I started out wanting to be a lawyer because I thought there was right and wrong and justice. and I wanted to be on the side of justice, right? And then I did. I started to understand, okay, wait a minute. The law is actually so much more complicated and more nuanced about that. And so, like I said, I always say, like, I loved being a lawyer until I didn't. And so there was a lot about that, that sort of evolution and that grayness that I started to kind of embrace.

And then, and I also started to have children while I was practicing law. And once you start to have kids, I mean, the world is like, it's like a mess. And all of a sudden, everything, you have zero control over anything and you start to really like question your sanity. And so I definitely, like as I left the law and started to really kind of lean into this idea that, okay, I can't so easily control things. as I would like, ironically, or maybe not ironically, maybe completely understandably, I started writing stories where I could control what happened and I could control the characters and the story arcs. And so my novel writing is my own form of therapy or my response to what I have also worked on in therapy, which is, you know, my need to control things and my need to sort of

put things in nice, neat categories, which is so antithetical to the way the world works, I can do it in this little tiny corner of my life and it helps us. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I love that concept. Like, I feel like I can't remember who was I. It was Jessica Payne actually was on the podcast last week.

And she was kind of talking about how, like, write what you know to her. just means like write the emotions, you know, and then like amplify them. And I was like, that would explain how like each book could be so different because you have so many different things happening between books too. I say the same thing. I love that. I love that. I love that.

That's such a more eloquent way of saying what I've, what I've realized I've done because before I started the legal drama series and I had these five novels and they were like the first decade of my, of my sabbatical and my sabbatical, right? I won your spatical. But they are, I always say like I'm too, the reason I write fiction is because I'm not courageous enough to write nonfiction. I mean, I write nonfiction about leaving the law, but it's different, right? To write like a memoir would be like outrageous. But those five novels, when I look at them now, those first five novels that ends,

and they sort of are my memoir at that time, but only because not because characters are autobiographical. But exactly that. Each one is dealing with an issue or two that I was really grappling with at the time, author, authenticity and reinvention and redemption and so those things are, we're very, my books are not autobiographical, but they're very personal.

So, and that's why, yeah. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Kind of speaking of past lives, when Opel is thinking about the strip club later in the book, she wonders why a place that she has largely tried to erase from her memory has suddenly become all that defines her these days. So how hard

do you think it is for some people to convince others that they have changed that they aren't their past selves anymore? Yeah. And I talk about this so much because I do work with transitioning lawyers. So I have written a nonfiction book called The Lawyer Interrupted and I have a new second nonfiction book coming out in the fall called How to Leave the Law. And they are, they're not memoirs, but there are books that synthesize research and stories of lawyers who have used their JDs for good, I say, but use their JDs for other paths, right, and have left the practice of law, big law, to do other things. And I find those stories so fascinating. And I say, and a lot of lawyers, and I find this with a lot of transitioning professionals, say that it's

really hard to give up when your identity is really tied to something you've done for good or bad. It's really hard to give up that identity. And I was definitely sort of working with that as I was telling Opel's story because the reality is, and what I say to transitioning lawyers, is that, you know, you don't leave that behind. You bring that with you. You bring those pieces with you. And I think that's true of Opal, right? There were lessons learned. And I wanted to write her as a strong woman who was taking, I mean, she was certainly taken advantage of. And there were, bad people in her life. But I also wanted to write her as somebody who was taking control of her life at every pivotal

landmark. And so she learned a lot about herself. I mean, she really, she came from a place that was not, she came from really dark. Her origin story was really dark. And she really lifted herself up and she was for sure self-made and self-propelled. And I really wanted her to bring, you know, those were the pieces of her that. she didn't have to leave behind and she eventually came to realize that she was still she had brought all of those pieces with her and that's why you know she didn't need to leave that that that

that opal behind there weren't different opals there's all the same opal yeah it's just that she had improved her life situation yeah it's kind of the arc of like reintegration with your past self even if you have changed a little bit and acceptance right And that's where the acceptance comes from when you don't have to be ashamed of where you've come from. But you can sort of embrace it and accept it. Then, you know, that's where acceptance comes from. Self acceptance.

Yeah. And both characters kind of had that happening for sure. And there kind of became a theme of getting to know your true self as well. And so when Ingrid is kind of looking back at her mother's legacy at the end. end, she's realizing the goal of the finish line is to know yourself. So did you know going into the book that you wanted to have a plot so centered around like learning and accepting your true self? Yeah. Yeah, that kind of evolved too. And I, you know, I have her named after Ingrid Bergman's daughter. And then, you know, I was like researching her because I was, I've always been intrigued by her

and her story. And she wrote a book called Know Thyself. So that just started to kind of really become like, a theme in the story and yeah and as I was writing ingrid and as the story was progressing I was like this is what this is what ingrid's going to do she's going to figure out who she is opal is going to figure out who she is but opal has come to that I feel like opal has come to that realization much sooner and she's going to bring ingrid along with her and so that's of course then there then there's the the peripheral but very important character of jane who kind of helps So it will come to that along to that place too. Yes.

It was really cool seeing like both of their characters' journeys and also how it ended. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. So where can people follow you so they can keep up with all the books that you're putting out? Just kind of plug whatever. Thank you so much.

So yeah, I know my name sounds hard. Amy and Pelliserry. Very phonetic. And so my website, follow me on my website, amianpalliserie.com. I'm active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Amy Impelizari. On Facebook, I'm at Impelizari, Amy, but on Instagram and Twitter, I'm at Amy Impelizari. And if you sign up for my newsletter, you'll be the first to know about chances to win advance copies of my books.

And I will be probably later this summer, there'll be chances to win advanced copies of the second book in the series, which is called Bar None. If you get a copy of In Her Defense, in the back, there's an excerpt from, from, from book two so I'm very excited like I said it's a different set of characters um but it will there's a the law clerk who is um oh my goodness that's so cute is that little person there it's a dog actually I've got one over this shoulder and one over this shoulder I can't tell yeah she's so cute oh let's see oh look how cute um yeah yeah So, yeah, the law clerk in the law clerk in her defense, whose name is Carly Jenner, becomes the main character in the second book. So it becomes her story.

Nice. I'm very excited about that one. So I'll have all those links in the show notes, too, so that people can just find that really easily. And thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you so much. And I will make sure that you get an advanced copy of Barnet. So thank you so much. Yes. I'm so excited. Thank you so much.