Bookwild - Clèmence Michallon's Our Last Resort: Dual Timelines, Cult Memories and a Locked Resort Mystery

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

This week, Gare and I talk with Clèmence Michallon about her new thriller Our Last Resort. We dive into her inspiration for the book, her fresh take on a locked room thriller, and how she crafted a believable cult.Our Last Resort SynopsisInnocence doesn't bail you out; it just makes you easier to trap.Frida and Gabriel arrive seeking a fresh start at the stunning Ara Hotel in the secluded desert of Escalante, Utah. Once so close they were able to finish each other’s sentences, they’ve grown apart in recent years after a sudden, unspeakable tragedy. Now, at the luxe resort, they are ready to reconnect between dips in the pool and hikes on spectacular desert trails. It all feels like paradise—until the dead body of a beautiful young woman who was vacationing at the Ara with her powerful, much older husband is discovered.When the local police arrive and suspicion quickly falls on Gabriel, Frida is forced to revisit memories from their upbringing in a cloistered cult in upstate New York, their dramatic escape, and the scandal that followed. Frida’s belief in Gabriel’s innocence never wavered at the time, but now even she can’t ignore the evidence mounting against him.Alternating between past and present timelines, Our Last Resort builds toward a shattering climax that uncovers the fate of the murdered Ara guest and poses the question: how well do we ever really know those we love? Multi-layered, gripping, and intense, Clémence Michallon’s latest suspense novel is a nail-biter until the last page, cementing her status as a major new talent in the genre. 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 

This week I got to talk with Clamont, Mishalone, and Gare about her newest thriller, Our Last Resort. So good. I burned through this book. I just loved it. I loved everything that she put into it, but this is what it's about. Innocence doesn't bail you out. It just makes you easier to trap. Frida and Gabriel arrive, seeking a fresh start at the studying Aura Hotel in the secluded desert of Escalante, Utah. Once so close, they were able to finish each other's sentences. They've grown apart in recent years after a sudden unspeakable tragedy. Now, at the Lux Resort, they are ready to reconnect between dips in the pool and hikes on spectacular desert trails. It all feels like paradise until the dead body of the beautiful young woman who is vacationing at the aura with their powerful, much older husband, is discovered.

When the local police arrive and suspicion quickly falls on Gabriel, Frida is forced to revisit memories from their upbringing in a cloistered cult in upstate New York, their dramatic escape, and the skate. handled it followed. Freedah's belief in Gabriel's innocence never wavered at the time, but now even she can't ignore the evidence mounting against him. Alternating between past and present timelines, our last resort builds towards a shattering climax that uncovers the fate of the murdered are a guest and poses the question, how well do we ever really know those we love? I really loved how she handled the two timelines and how we learned about what was happening with the cult as well as finding out what happened at the resort and really getting to know Gabriel and Frida as characters. That's been my thing lately. I love some character development

in my thrillers, I mean anywhere, but especially in thrillers. And I just cared so much about both of them and loved how the Indian came together. So that being said, let's hear from Climons. So I'm super excited. I'm with Claire must meet Shalone and Gare. And we are talking about are talking about our last resort, which Gare and I unintentionally buddy red, which is always so fun. So I can't wait to talk about it with you guys. Thank you so much for having on the show. I'm excited to be here amongst friends. Gareth, sorry.

I spoke over you. That's okay. I spoke over you. I'm just so excited to be here. I can't shut up. That might be happening the rest of the show. We have established before we started recording that all of us are a little. Sleepy. So you guys are just going to get some fun versions of us today.

This is a sleepy edition. We are tired. Book sleepy. Not book water. This is your, this is your ASMR episode to like listen to before you go to bed. Yeah. Except we're going to be talking about scary shit. That's true. That's true. Well, since it is your first time on the show, I always want to get asked a little bit about you first before you dive into the book. So what was your, I want to be an author moment or what was your like you had an idea to write something moment either? When I was seven years old, I went to school as usual.

And my teacher that day, this is in France where I grew up, my teacher that day had us do what turned out to be my first creative writing exercise. And until that point, I was a kid who loved to read and who had read early and I had my nose in a book, but it had never occurred to me because I was a little child to wonder where books came from. I had never realized that if books existed, it meant people wrote them. But my teacher put up a poster on the blackboard, and it was an illustration from a children's book. And if I remember correctly, it was a tree, and there was a squirrel in the tree, and a bird flying sort of at squirrel height. And we had to imagine what they were saying to each other.

And I did it, and it was the most fun I had ever had. And I was like, this is amazing. I didn't realize you could just do this, you know, but it like lit up something in my brain. And I came home and I announced I wanted to be a writer, like an author of books. I was promptly informed because I grew up in France, a very pragmatic country, I guess, sometimes.

times it's probably a form that writing books is not a reliable profession and and or a reliable way to earn a living and so instead I became a journalist for a number of years the funny part being that journalism is not exactly a super reliable way to earn a living either but in every area of life the things that interest me only ever lead to unreliable ways of making a living so I've just started to accept it and I'm fine I'm 33 and everything's okay So that was my I want to be an author moment. Obviously, I spent many years just trying and failing to write, starting things, not finishing them, writing poetry. You know, I had every phase until I sort of started getting my act together a little bit more in my adult life.

Yeah, that is like such a cool answer. I love that a squirrel and a bird were like a part of the very, very beginning too. but the other fascinating part is I can't believe that English is your second language. Especially with both of these books, it's like your prose is so beautiful. So were you always writing in English or how did you end up there basically? I'm glad you did. Well, first of both, thank you very much for your very kind words. I didn't always write in English, but I did pretty early on have the idea that I might one day want to write in English.

What happened was I watched a lot of YouTube in my early adulthood, and that's how I found John Green. And I am still to this day a John Green girl, and like he writes it, I'll read it. That's the rule, you know. And it was around the time that he was launching the fault in our star. And the launch for the Fultonar Stars was really this, as far as I remember it, it was kind of a launch on steroids, right? And he went on this book tour and it seemed really fun. And that was my point of entry into beginning to learn about U.S. publishing, about agents and editors and publishing houses and book tours and how promotion works here. And I thought it all sounded really cool and dynamic and fun and like something I would want to be a part of.

but also a lot of my favorite books as a reader were in English. I loved reading in English. I read books and magazines. My family and I, we traveled to the U.S. quite a bit when I was growing up. So, you know, I would pick up whatever magazines I could find in supermarkets and stuff and read that. And so, you know, it all amalgamated my reader's life

and then also the John Green of it all. And just, you know, authors. were like who explained just how it worked online. I read blogs, I read books and stuff and and I thought it sounded really really cool. But before I was able to publish a book in English, I actually have a secret French book, which was, yeah, which is, it's not a thriller. It is a literary novel about a female bodybuilder who has to manage her sister's bakery for a few weeks and it ruins her life. Oh, wow.

It came out in September of 2020 with an independent feminist press based out of Paris. And it was exactly what it needed to be. It was an independent publishing kind of book and stuff. And so I did have this experience of putting out some fiction, you know, before I wrote The Quiet Tenant, and then like that became my U.S. debut and also my thriller debut.

yeah I thought you were going to say like the bird the bird said to the squirrel that man has a woman trapped in his shed that would be hilarious yeah the story of the quiet tenant just slowly building from the age of seven until little forest animals yes yeah the little animals are like going to going to save her I like that. I like that a lot. How did your writing process develop for novels? Like, how do you approach them? So I think this comes from being a journalist by trade,

but I live and die by word count. And it's just the only way I know how to do it. And it's because in journalism, whenever you're assigned an article, you're also assigned a certain number of words to go with it. And it can be anything from 200, to 3,000 or more words, you know. And so you just develop a sense for however many words are,

like the length of certain number of words. And so when I started writing my first novel length work, which was in English, it was before the French book, but it had the length of a novel, but it didn't really have the narrative structure of a novel, because I didn't really understand yet how to write an act, narrative. But what happened was I went to grad school in the U.S. for a year between 2014 and and 2015. I graduated in May of 2015. I had a job lined up for August of 2015. I could not leave

the U.S. because I was in the process of renewing my visa. And if you leave while you were in the process of renewing a visa, they consider that you dropped your application. So you really should not do that. I didn't need to job hunt because I had a job lined up and also I was not allowed to work any other job than the job I had lined up. So I thought to myself, I am stuck in one place. I have three months. I have nothing to do. If I don't write a novel now, it's not because I can't, it's because I won't. And so I just had to be very honest with myself and I started writing a thousand words a day. And it was really, the whole challenge was to just get the thousand words done. It didn't have to be pretty, but it could mean just taking like an hour away from hanging out

with my friends in my corner and go on my phone or something and just getting the words done and then returning to the hangout or something. And that's just how I started doing it. And it's still it's still how I work to this day. After this, I have to go write 500 words. Wow. We're keeping her from her reading. No. No, I'm just going. It's kind of like close circle too because I'm somebody who has like left plans early or canceled plans to read your books. So it's kind of like when you're sneaking away from your friends to like write, you find people that are sneaking away from their friends to read. Oh, I'm honored. That is, that means a lot actually.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. What made you decide to go from a story about a bodybuilder who is. working in a bakery to like literary thrillers that are like very dark and disturbing with this like beautiful, amazing prose that you've crafted of yourself. Thank you very much.

Well, so I wrote the bodybuilder story. Interestingly, there is like a slight serial killer reference in that book. It's not like an actual, it's not a proper plot line, but it is just like a pivotal line. Basically, there's a string of murders in her neighborhood and she starts taking self-defense. classes as a result and that's how she meets the man who then becomes her coach. But that's that's that that's just a little but it was interesting to me in retrospect to be like even in my little non-crime literary novel like there was this sort of hint of crime there.

It's almost like I had something in the back of my head that was trying to you know push its way through to the front. What happened was really I had an idea for a story and it was an idea about a serial killer who had a captive victim and who has to move to a different place. And so what does he do with his captive victim? And that became the quiet tenant. But when I had that idea, I thought, I guess I'm writing a crime novel now. And it felt right. It felt like landing in the place that I was supposed to be.

It felt like scratching an itch. It felt like telling the kind of story I was interested in telling. And I felt like I was home. and my weird, creepy, cry me home finally. That's so cool that there's even like a little, a little bit of a reference, even like early on. Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah, you know, we have our little obsessions in the back of our brains. And I should also say, you know, as a reader, my most favorite books were literary crime novels, right? Like I loved Megan Abbott, Jessica and Noel, just, you know, all those books that had taught me, Even Mary against Clark, man, like she, she can write. And so, you know, all of those references also percolated into, you started to write crime. Yeah.

That's so interesting that you say that. That's why she's a favorite of ours. Yeah, that is so interesting that you say that because when I was reading The Quiet Tenet, this was before bright young women had come out. And when I was reading it, I was like, I feel like this is what would happen if Jessica Noel wrote a serial killer, thriller. Because like my three, like best pros and thrillers for me are you, Jessica Noel and Ashley Winstead are like my favorite like pros in this genre. So I'm very happy to hear that. That was someone that you also enjoy to read.

I'm very honored to be in their company. I also love, I love Jessica Knowles' books. I love Ashley Winstead's books. I mean, they're both just powerhouses. Yeah. Yeah. Well, with this one, what was your inspiration? There are kind of like a couple of things going on.

We've got the really luxurious hotel setting, and then also kind of these flashbacks to time in a cult. So what got you going in that direction? So Arles Resort for me started with the location. which is pretty rare for me in terms of coming up with ideas and stories I might want to tell. I rarely start with place, but what happened was this? I finished working on the quiet tenant, and the quiet tenant is a book, as you both know, that is set in the winter in the Hudson Valley.

So it's very cold in that book. The sun sets at 5 p.m. It is often dark, and because it's a captivity story, there are few settings, and they're all very simple, very bare. There's a restaurant, a house, and a garden shed. And that's about it, really. So after working on that book, I thought to myself, I want to go somewhere warm and beautiful.

And I would like to go to a location that people go to willingly and on purpose. And so my mind traveled back to this gorgeous hotel that I went to with my parents, 15 years ago. And it was a beautiful hotel in the desert in Utah. And it remains to this day one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. But it's also super isolated and secluded. There is one access road that leads to it. We missed it a bunch of times.

We like drove past it multiple times. We almost never found this place. We were going to go to the nearest motel because we were like losing daylight. And then we were in the desert. Like there's only so much you can do. And then we get there and it's like this oasis. It's incredible. But it's also a little spooky because you're surrounded by this climate that is completely hostile to human life.

There's coyote around. Coyotes around, sorry, plural. More than one. More than one coyote. And, you know, you just can't make a quick escape. They have your car because you valet it. Yeah. Yeah.

You're very much like surrendering the control of your immediate, you know, vicinity to, to another place and your needs and stuff. And so I thought, wow, that would be a really interesting place to set a murder story. And that was the point of entry for me. Obviously, then I have come up with actual characters and a story. Yeah. That was the next part. That's such a good point, though. I hadn't, I mean, I've never gone somewhere like that.

So I hadn't also thought of how much you're like, oh, I can't, I don't have tons of agency right now. Yeah, I'm very sensitive to that. I actually, I mean, I enjoyed that hotel very, very, very much. But in less fabulous settings, I really don't take quite so well to not being able to leave if I need to, to feel stuck. It's a big reason why I finally learned how to drive because I lived for a few months. and a small hamlet in the Hudson Valley. And if you didn't drive, you couldn't do anything. So that was how I ended up ripping off the band-aid.

If you're an author, chances are high that you just want to spend your time writing and maybe reading, not thinking about social media, what to create, and what to post. And the good news is, I have a solution for you. With just three hours of in-person filming, you can receive 90 days or three months' worth of social media content. The content is a mixture of videos, photos, edited reels, and when you receive the content, you also receive a PDF that's a content calendar that links to all of the content tells you exactly when to post it and gives you an option for captions. And if you've ever felt like you're tired of just talking about your book all the time,

we will help you come up with ideas that are general content for your page that's not just all about your books. If you are tired of thinking about your social media presence and just want to get back to writing, check out the link in the description. It is like such an interesting setting too because you have this like locked room, you know, plot device. But it's one that you don't read about often, right? Like people are either on an island or they're like stuck in this old Gothic mansion in a snowstorm, you know? So like that was very refreshing to like have that setting. that was actually, thank you for pointing that out, because that was actually something that intrigued me

about having this sort of locked room atmosphere, but in a place where it's really bright and sunny, it's almost like the Mitz-M-R effect. You know, like we're like a scary story in broad daylight. Yes. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Like, it was very interesting. It felt like, you know, reversing something, an aesthetic or, you know,

It was really interesting to explore. And then it was also interesting because there's not that much to do in a luxury resort. So it's like, what would my characters have been doing if this murder didn't happen at the hotel? They would have been going to the pool and that's about it. Having a happy hour. Yeah, gone to happy hour. Yeah. Done a spa treatment, maybe.

Yeah. That's it. It's also like unsettling too when you think of. place like this that like people who do not worry about feeling trapped are like there's this sunny oasis i'm going to get my spa treatment i'm going to relax i'm going to read a book and like they're really really looking forward to that experience like the relaxing moment and like finding like a little bit of like happiness and like whatever's going on in their lives and then being like okay well now someone got murdered or being the person that did get murdered you know like oh i'm finally going to go get some

like good picks for my Insta and then like two days then you're just it's a disaster yeah that's exactly i feel like that's exactly what a story needs right it's everyone's expectations need to be subverted um i actually can't think like that sounds so good right now going to that hotel and being a little like i don't know just chilling going to happy hour um i actually did look into going back to that hotel and i even asked my accountant like could i take this off my taxes if I did, you know, because it's for work. And I think the answer was yes. But even doing that, I couldn't justify it.

It's gotten more expensive since I went there. And I just, I could not justify the expense. There was no scenario where it was financially responsible for me to go back. So instead, I just relied on like just photos and Google screenview of the area. And in a way, and that's sometimes that can be just as helpful because, at the end of the day, I wasn't trying to replicate the specific hotel I went to, and it was more about creating a little world for this story. But I wouldn't mind going back.

It's hard to get Clement's back fund. Yeah, right. If the universe is listening, I want to go. If the margaritas are as good there as they were when we were in Montreal, then I would say it would be worth the trip. Yes. were delicious. So the other interesting, I mean, there's a lot of interesting things.

My dogs are just being weird right now. That's why I look distracted. But is like the brother-sister dynamic. And it's obviously like very complex and shaped by their past experiences. But what kind of drew you to writing that really like difficult sibling dynamic? I knew that I wanted to write about two people who were very close, and I knew that one of them would get accused of murder, of the murder that happens in the hotel. And I knew that the other one would have to ask themselves, you know, is this person I love capable of murder? Because the question I keep going back to is how well do you ever know the people you love?

and it occurred to me pretty quickly that I wanted them to be siblings, but I'm comfortable revealing this. It's not a huge spoiler. Like, they're not actually related by blood. We find that out. And to me, that was a way of upping the emotional stakes because I feel like you don't choose your family. You don't choose your blood relatives, right?

But you do choose, well, your chosen family by definition, or your friends or just the people you wealthy, you actually, perhaps. actively invite into your life. And I thought, well, if it's someone that they chose, that they attached themselves to, willingly, then that would make that whole question of, is this person that I, like, built my world around actually a murderer, that much more charged? And I also needed the emotional stakes to be as high as it could be, which is why I decided or I learned that they had grown up in a cult together, because I thought, well, if they had

shared this really traumatic past, this really complicated childhood and had survived it together, then it would be hard for them to imagine a world without the other in it. And it would, again, just heightened the stakes around that situation. I just, we did it. Yeah. Yeah. Did you do any cult-specific research for building it? So I have been a little bit obsessed with cults since I was a kid. It was scroll drawings and cults. That was the whole schedule. I was a kid when I found out cults existed.

I was watching TV and it was like this segment. It was a bit of a 60-minute style segment, but it was on French television. And I think I had to cults the same reaction I had to serial killers when I found out they were a thing, which was like, oh, it would have never occurred to me that this could be a thing, but also it makes perfect sense. Like, it makes perfect sense that it would come out of our world and of our society and of our attempts to exist together, to coexist, which is really hard.

And so for a number of years, I just kind of like kept reading or following various cults from afar and France, where I'm from, is a pretty culty country. Like, I would be a kid in dodging the Scientology people outside of, like, the bookstore, because they were trying to, like, give you the stress test. Oh, my God. I know, we're like, oh, that's Scientology. Hello. Or, like, there's a famous, famous, infamous French cult.

There's a documentary. There's a documentary on Netflix about it, and their leader says that he was visited by extraterrestrials who said that they want to come back to Earth one day, but they will only do so they're welcome. So we have to build them a big welcome center, and so we have to give this guy all of our money to build the welcome center, basically. So all of which is to say, I had some background knowledge about various cults, thanks my healthy hobby.

But then, there are a lot. I did sort of, when a time came to create the cult that was in the book, I decided I wanted the cult to feel real, but I didn't want it to feel like the fictional avatar of a specific cult, much like I did with a serial killer and the quiet tenant. So I borrowed some characteristics from various cults and high control groups. So there's a bit of Jones Town. There's a bit of David Koresh. There's also a bit of nexium, which,

you're in upstate New York, you'll remember nexium, I'm sure. It was that cult that was busted right before the pandemic. And that one I have a weird personal connection to because this is not going to go where you think it's going. But my husband worked for the office. office of the prosecutor who handled the federal prosecution of Keith Renary, who was the leader of that call. And so for weeks in my life, my husband was spending all his working hours, which is most of his waking hours during business, you know, during the week time, with all the protagonists in the nexum story, like in the same room, you know.

And so that case ended up taking up a lot of space in my household and in my psyche. And I also wrote about it as a journalist. And, you know, later on I watched the documentaries. I listened to the podcast. I read the books. You know, it was. And so that was kind of an interesting case study just to understand the mentality of a cult leader. What do they want?

Why do they do it? And also just the power dynamic. inside the cult. Yeah, if anyone hasn't seen the Nexium documentary on HBO, if you're listening to this, you probably are a good match for that doc. It was crazy. Like they also put it together so well. And it's so insane too because what I found wild is just how much footage they had access.

Yeah. Because they- It's like of course they're that audacious to keep that much around. Yeah. the people in nexium just filmed themselves like all the time and so of course it just became a lot of material for the inevitable Netflix documentary yeah I actually have no idea what it is wait really I swear oh yes I because cults freak me out so bad that like if I saw like a documentary about a cult or like anything in the news about it I like have blinders on and I just like move on

because it like it freaks me out so bad with like brain like brainwashing basically like taking people who have had like a completely like normal life and like turning them into like a shell of themselves because of like it freaks me out so bad and like I usually like avoid it and like if there was a movie about a call I'm not watching it like cult books I usually stay away from and so like that's why like and the funny thing is is like with with our last resort I was like okay you have to go in because like you love Clement so much but like you have to like face your fear and do this and when I was reading it like my heart was like beating out of my chest during like the cult scenes but like I was also like this is the most interesting cult I have ever

read about or heard of in my entire life because like I'm also very stubborn, right? So like somebody in Scientology or like any cult member would come up to me be like, do this. I'm like, you're out of your mind. Like nobody tells me like nobody tells me what to do. I'm not doing that. I'm not following your rules.

And like even like a part of me like if like a speed zone is like 30 miles per hour, I'm going to go 33 because like nobody tells me what to do. But like I just like like it freaks me out. But I also know that like I would not get involved in a cult because. I'm so, like, stubborn. But, like, when I was reading Our Last Resort, I was, like, so stressed because I was, like, oh, my God, like, these are just these two sweet little angel babies and this, like, all make sense to them. And then the humans that they grow into.

Thank you, first of all, for giving it a chance despite, like, the fact that we're very specific. I'm like this sensitivity for you. But also, I think, like, this is a very rational reaction to cults. Like, yeah. They are terrifying. They are extremely aggressive. Cults in general are just extremely predatory organizations. And obviously, at the risk of the obvious.

But truly, I mean, they're super vindicated. Like, it's just, and like you said, like they just steal people's time. That's the thing. Even someone who leaves a cult, they just never get that time back that they spend in it. And that's, that's completely tragic. Yeah. Well, like, I also think, like, this is a total compliment to you, but, like, you write such anti-stereotype characters that, like, when you think of the quiet tenant, right? Like, you think of, like, serial killers and, like, probably, like, the stories that we heard growing up, they were, like, the creepy janitor in the school, the trucker who, like, was, like, terrifying from, like, movie Joy Ride or something. You think of, like, all of these stereotypes. stereotypes and then when you meet Aiden and you see him through the lens of somebody else, you're kind of like, this is the guy that like would be charming. Like if I were a woman in this book, I would be a goner because like I could see somebody falling for him. And then when I was reading The Quiet Tenet, our last resort, I was like, okay, like this guy, I can also see his charm not being like, do this, this and this in an abusive way, but like how he could try. them into just listening to him.

And if they don't, obviously there's punishment. But like, I could see the charm in him as well. That was like an anti-stereotype from what you would think of as like a cult leader. Thank you. I appreciate that. Which scared me even more than a regular. Yeah. That's how they do it.

Like the cult leader is in the, in the, within the world of the cult, they always have a form of charisma. love, which doesn't necessarily translate to the world at large, but definitely works within the confines of the cult, which is what I find fascinating, that that was something I ended up up understanding about why, like about the mechanics of a cult, I realize who, you know, why does someone start a cult? And it's like they're trying to create a world where they are the center of the universe, they're universally adored, they're listened to.

and they're the main character. And what I find interesting is, yeah, we all want that. You know, we just don't make it other people's problems. Like something we have within us. Yes. And then one of the first steps of integrating into society is to tame that instant, you know. You're like, it's facing. You don't do that.

Yeah. Yeah, because when you think of like. covert narcissism. Right, right. And like when you think of like cult leaders, like I just always would think of like Charles Manson or like the stereotype of like the guy that has like the long white robe and like Birkenstocks and like the beard and the long like straggly gray hair. So then when I was reading this, I was like, okay, great. Not only did she write like a cult leader that I'm like kind of like, okay, this makes sense now it's like even scarier for me. But like he's a physically attractive like very physically attractive man. so then I was like oh god there's two two out of two two of your books that I would be a goner in

and I'm like oh no I'm very sorry that's my barrage when I write a book I just dare survive the third book I'm probably going to be out too because I'll tell you why if Aidan would have like when I was reading the quiet tenant like I thought of like the restaurant as like

like the restaurant in the show Ginny and Georgia. I don't know if you watch that, but it's like this very like quaint, like cute, like something you would see in like a Hallmark movie, you know, like. And so I was like, if a man came up to me like in an alley, then I would be like, no, sir. Like I am not going to be a victim. But like if you come up to me in a location like that, I would be like, this is how my meat cue it starts. You know.

But then I was like, when I was reading our last resort, I was like, this is the cult that would, this is the cult that would get me. forget you. Yeah. Yeah, we, my husband, I don't know why I'm saying it, like, you don't know who he is, Tyler, and I watched presumed innocent last week. And it was the same thing, though, because, like, I just kept texting Garum, like, he's a horrible person. And I'd be like, why does he keep getting away with it? And then I was like, oh, because he's really hot. So we're all like, oh, I want to forgive you. Yeah. Yeah. That's why. It's a powerful. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's. scary. It's scary because even when I was watching presumed innocent, I was like, I would probably fall for this. I would fall for some of these like lies and things, you know, where you like make, but I mean, Jake Jellenhall could get me to join a call. I know. He just, that's the other part. I was like, it is because he's so good at acting that like, like every now and then I'd be on his side and then I'd be like, no, you ruin so many lives. Yeah. But that is beside the point. That is the beauty of Jake Gillenhall. No, of story.

storytelling. I know. I get having all too well come into my head and I was just like, no, get out, get out. That is the beauty of storytelling, though. It messes with your brain. Like, and it's just, you know, and what I always go back to is I do enjoy writing characters who sort of step out of the mold a little bit. It actually came out of like an edit note. I got super early on when I, for my first short story, I have public. I have public. I've published half of the short stories I've ever written, so I have published one. And it's in French and it's not a crime story. And it was years ago, but I remember that there's a veterinarian in that story. And I had described them at first as like white blouse, white smile, you know, like short hair, whatever. And I remember my editor being like, this is a very standard issue veterinarian. could it would be more interesting the veterinarian didn't like wasn't out of central casting you know

and so then I remember I gave him like long hair and a bun and and just like in a manner that was a little bit more distinctive basically and it worked and I never forgot that like it gave more texture to the story if people aren't exactly who you expect them to be. I love that. we're just fans over here. I know the way that your mind works is like, I know.

Fascinating to me. This works for me. We will help you. We'll be like your cheerleaders that will help you with like any, any word goal. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Seriously, though,

I, all that like positive feedback, the people who connect with the books with the writing and stuff, it really does. power me and I suspect it works for other writers as well through difficult drafts it always has right like it's just the idea that listen like now this draft is a draft and it reads like a draft and it's not good yet but these other things I've written that people have connected with which feels like a miracle every single time they also were once weird drafts you know like it just gives you fair it's very very important so thank you so much so there are two timelines going on hopefully you guys can't hear my dog panting behind me um he chewed his bones i just thought it was tyler who's hot right yeah maybe it is maybe they know um but did you did you go into it knowing the like past and then

did you write it linearly or as it appears in the book so yeah there are two times timelines in our last resort and for people who haven't read the book yet, one of them spans days and follows the murder investigation at the hotel and its consequences on our characters. And then the other timeline spans years and years and follows our characters past in the cult and the fallout from that. And I went into writing this book with an incredible amount of naivete, which I think is needed anytime you start something. But I was like, well, I did multiple points of view for the quiet tenant, so that's done.

I will now do dual-time lines. And we talked about Jessica Null earlier, but Lucky as Girl Alive is really one of the crime novels that really got me into this genre, and it's told in dual timelines, and so I thought here's a great point of reference. And it turns out it's incredibly hard to write dual timelines. because you have to write the adults who would grow out of these children. You have to write the children who would become these adults. You have to have a firm grasp on time, which almost no writer has ever.

That's why we have copy editors who are like, you just said it was February and they're going to the beach. Like, what is going on? Going to the beach in the Northeast in February. Not a good idea. That would be Kate and I. That would be Kate and I. honestly. We're not a fan. Yeah, we're not fans of the heat. So like,

all the bugs are dead. All the bugs are dead. We're like, we're not going to sweat. So like, that's our time to shine. You might lose a coat of frauds fight. Yeah. That's okay. So I thought, okay, I'm going to do dual timelines and it will be, you know, it'll be something I do. It's really hard as it turns out to put them together. And also to make sure that like from a plot standpoint that the past informs the present the present gives more meaning and more weight to the past and you can kind of like do little reveals and plot twists and use the timelines from this direction and all that good stuff um to answer your question kate i wrote the book in the order that it's read so i was toggling between timelines and the course of writing it so i

would write the past chapter i would write a present chapter and just go back and because it helps me keep track of what I've disclosed to the reader. But it also gives me a feel for just the pacing of it and just what would be interesting to find out now. You know, where do we need to go? Like this scene was a lot of this. What does the next one need? I get bored very easily, so I use myself as a barometer for that stuff. So it helps me keep track of that.

In revision, I don't always revise in sequence because sometimes I'll do a pass. and it's all about like make sure Gabriel's love of the Roman Empire, for example, is consistently depicted. You know, so like I can do this like in whatever. I mean, I do usually do that in sequence, but it's not like super linear. But in terms of putting the big pieces together, I do usually write in sequence. Wow. That's impressive. Yeah.

I'm like more fascinated. Like as like the minutes go on, I'm like, wow. was there was there one timeline that you thought was like easier to write than the other that is a very good question I think I did find

the past timeline a little easier to write because the present timeline is really the one for which I would have needed to have like my murder board like my string board because there's a lot going on in this present timeline with a murder investigation

with what is really going on behind the scenes, with what we find out later on, then we're kind of like, you know, there was just a lot of moving parts to keep track of. And I gave myself headache, like literal headaches trying to keep part of all these things. And the past timeline felt a bit more like, I'm going to build this cult, you know,

and then I did have to sort of smooth the edges around big plot points. but it was a bit for some strange reason I guess the atmosphere of it also powered me through it was slightly easier both of them though gave me headaches yeah well that's what I was like that's what I was like thinking when I was like reading it because like you said one timeline spans years and the other one spans over like a couple of days so I was like I wonder if it was harder to like I was with you where I was like if I were writing this book it would be easier for me to write a timeline that spans over years because you have such a tight frame in the present

timeline where you're like, okay, well, how can I like kind of like stretch this out in between like the big things that are happening in the present? But then I was like, but also when you're spanning years, you have to have something happen on one chapter that like could result in changing them as a person as time goes on and make it believable the next time you see them in like the culty past chapters. So I was like, I would assume that both of them would be very hard to write. Yeah, both of them were hard. But yes, there was something about.

So another aspect of it that actually ended up, this is going to sound silly, but it's a real factor. One of the timelines, like you just said, yeah, spans mere days. Yeah. So that means from a pacing point of view, we are with them, like, one chapter is the morning, when chapter is late morning, when chapters early afternoon, et cetera, et cetera. Something new always needs to happen.

On the other hand, it is just one day. Like, it has to be realistic, you know? Right, right. But also, because we are with them almost hour by hour, these people have to eat, sleep, and wash themselves at least a little. You know what I mean? And it's like, it feels like keeping a Tamagocchi alive at some time. I never know.

It's not easy to me to figure. out where to feed, where to fit, where to fit, meal times, showers, and sleep in the middle of a crime story, you know, because it always is trying to sound a little silly, like he's accused of murder, he's supposed to have a sandwich. Well, yeah, yeah. And, well, then that's the thing, too, is, like, making it believable, like, if you're, if you're being accused of murdering someone, like, you're not having a four-course meal like you would if this was a normal vacation. You know what I mean? Like, you're, like, you're, like, forcing down half a sandwich because you're like is my life about to get thrown away.

Yeah, but you also and but you still need to eat. You know what I mean? Like at these, at some point these people are going to need to like have a protein bar or something. Yeah. It's like it's just another layer of things to deal with. Yeah. That's very interesting too because I never like, I never thought of that when I was like reading like if they've bathed enough or what they ate. I would have needed a, I would have needed a nap.

I know that. I've been like, this is the worst vacation I've ever had in my life. I know. Yeah. Time out for me. I have a really random question that I don't want to forget. But with Gabriel, with his name, so anytime there's like cult-related stuff, I'm also like more aware of like biblical names. Was there any reason that he was called Gabriel?

Yes. it is partly biblical, but there are actually a fair few biblical references in the book. So the way the present timeline is presented, it's the fourth day, the fifth day, the sixth day, and then things reach their apex on the seventh day. So that's pretty biblical. The first past chapter starts with in the beginning, in the beginning, I can't speak English today. I can't. I can't.

It starts with in the beginning there was Emil, which is also biblical. I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple. And also there's Gabriel's whole Roman emperors, which harkens back to Roman mythology also. So there's a lot of religious references. Gabriel is called Gabriel for a handful of reasons. One of them is the Bible reference. the other reason is that I tend to use for characters names that I like but for one reason or another will not be using for my potential child in the future.

I love that. It's a delightful way to stake a claim in a name I like. Yeah. For whatever reason that has been taken off the table, should I ever become a parent? Yeah. So Gabriel was one of those. I also think it's a really beautiful thing. I like the name Gabriel. Thank you. It's okay. It's still. I got like nervous for you. I know. I got very nervous.

We heard it. We heard it. I have I have a question for you that I'm very curious about. because I think that if you wrote a book only in the cult setting, it would have been like bingeable, read it in one, you know, one sitting. If you had a book that was just the murder investigation in the present time, same thing. But you add such a different layer to this when you have, it's not the first time that he's been like a person of interest in a death of a woman. Yeah, yeah. So what made you decide that that was going to?

to be something you wanted to, because you already have, like, so much going on. Like, what was, like, what popped off in your head that was like, you know what? I'm really going to just, like, make this the ultimate read. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, a couple of reasons. One was, I think that if you want to write a novel and skip the boring parts, you really need quite a bit of story to make that happen.

You don't have boring parts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. But, you know, like, it, so years ago, I interviewed the wonderful Taylor Jenkins Reed, and she calls it, filling your sandbox, you know, you just have to have, like, enough material, you know, to sustain you for 80,000 to 90,000 words. And, but really the thing that kind of sealed it for me was realizing that the quiet

tenant was two things, two things in one. It's a captivity story and it's a serial killer story. And it's the fact that those two things are put together that created a story that I hoped would be kind of a new, something a little new, a little different, you know, a new take on the serial killer genre or a new take on the captivity story depending, you know, what you're looking at it from. And in this particular case, I thought, you know, it came out of just thinking about the story at first. Sorry, my chair is like making weird noises in the background, but it's a pleasure of sitting on fake leather.

But it came out of following the story. I was like, there's going to be these two siblings. They're going to be in a hotel. There is going to be a death that is evidently a murder. One of them is going to be a suspect. The other needs to wonder if they're capable of it. it needs to mean a lot. Ooh, they grew up in a cult together.

And I guess I could have just had a couple of flashbacks, but it didn't feel like it was enough. I really, I decided that then this would be a cult story and then a murder and a hotel story. It needed to be both, because that way you could just take the interesting elements of both and put them together. And I think also, to me, the test is,

does each part give more meaning to the other? And to me, the answer here was yes. You know, their past in the cult is something they have to overcome. And in a way, their present life has always weighed against their, you know, what happened in their past. And that was interesting to me. Yeah. Yeah. Those flashbacks with Annie were some of my favorite parts.

Thank you. So Annie is Gabriel's wife or people who have? haven't read the book yet. Those I had to work quite a bit on. They came out in edits. It's amazing for me how much of the book reaches its final form in revisions. I always do a ton of work in revisions. And this kind of came out of conversations with my editor where she pointed out and it's so true and I always go back to it. Even in a crime story, you need various flavors. It can't just be relentless. You need to show the happier. times as well. And it was actually, you know, and it was actually really lovely to write those chapters

where Gabriel and Annie fall in love and start making a life together and just have like this minutes of innocence basically in their lives. And I wrote them, I was in Spring Lake, New Jersey at the time, actually having quite a difficult summer. I mean, Spring Lake, New Jersey was great, but it was just a complicated time. And, and, and I decided that I would use my surroundings for those themes of their joy and happiness. And I really loved writing those themes, actually. They're some of my favorites in the book. Yeah, they were some of mine when I was reading it because it's like, you're either,

your characters are like going through the ringer, either like being, you know, involved in a cult and seeing that trauma or being part of a murder investigation. so like seeing them as like their normal selves without you know some of that stuff going on was really like interesting to see too because i feel like it kind of like built on their characters more well thank you and it was interesting for me to write because it was an opportunity to kind of just let's take frida and gabriel whom we have only seen in trying circumstances or in this weird isolated cult and just let's put them in the real world for a second how do they feel going to the beach you know what does it like for them to be in a supermarket to be happy what are these people like when they're happy when they're happy in the country for a minute and what i find interesting i'm realizing this just now while i'm telling it to you but

in those chapters they get the experience they're supposed to have at the hotel in the present right like they go to a sunny location to have a vacation. Yeah. And that time, like in Spring Lake, New Jersey, you know, like, they get to have that experience. Part of it was also inspired by my first experience eating s'mores and my father's first experience eating s'm. There's a big chapter about smores in our last resort. And I was an adult, obviously, the first time I had s'm, we don't really do them in France,

so I had to, like, be taught how to make a s'more and stuff. and I loved it. And my dad, who does not describe himself as someone who has a sweet tooth, but who has a sweet tooth that has its own center of gravity. That's me. I can relate to your father with that. Me too. I have a huge sweet tooth.

And it's so funny. He's like, no, more of a meat and cheese kind of guy. And then he's always the first to order a dessert. It's like, no, you have a sweet tooth. It's okay. Yes. And he had spores. and I remember his eyes whitened and we had three more after.

I don't blame it. They're so good. Oh, I want some. Yeah. I love s'm more. I know. Now I'm sad. I don't have a fire pit.

I know. I know. Me too. Can you make them over like the gas stove? I think you can. I think people do. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully no cooking accidents happen later this evening. Oh my God, I know. You're going to be like What do we do? Charge marshmallow I mean. That's crazy.

Well, I guess at the end, I do always ask if you've read anything recently. Or do you have another question. I do. I have two. I'll be really quick. I promise. Go for it. I'm not going to spoil anywhere. You're not ready to know. No, go for it. I'm not going to spoil what it is, but there is an Easter egg in our last resort for the Quiet Tenet. And I am an Easter egg junkie.

Like I just feel like when, especially when an author does an Easter egg in their books to like kind of show that they're in like the same world. It's like it's very like personal as a reader to have that Easter egg because it's kind of like it just feels like it's like connecting you more with the author. Visible string. Yeah. So like what was like what popped in your mind to be like I'm going to make these like kind of in the same world and have this.

like Easter egg for everyone who love the quiet had it. Well, first of all, thank you for noticing and for appreciating it. I was inconsolable for 20 minutes. I know, it was totally hard and I was like, oh, God. I'm very sorry. It was so effective. I, like, loved it. I love when things make me like that.

You know what I mean? Like, if you depress me, then, like, star. Star power. Thank you. I think for me, just I don't really know where it came from. I think it was just, I couldn't resist it. It was realizing that I, my French book and The Quiet Tenet and now Our Last Resort all takes place a few years apart from one another in the Northeast.

And I always like to think about, wait, in the North, and in Utah, obviously. But like, they all have ties to the northeast of the United States. States. They do, right? Yes. And so I just was thinking, you know, it means that the characters in our last resort exist in the same universe as the characters in the quiet tenant and in the same region. And so I like this idea of just having this extended, you know, cinematic universe basically where where they kind of correspond with each other. I also. I also. liked the idea of sort of the previous book passing the torch to the next one. Oh, I love that. That makes me more emotional. But it is true. Like you always leave the previous book to write the next one, but they feel connected to me.

Usually I'm promoting one while I'm writing the next. Like they literally overlap for me. And so it just felt meaningful in that way to just have a little bit to infuse our last resort with a little bit of the quiet tenant yeah and like i intend to keep that going oh good good good oh i can't wait because for me like i i love like bleak and like sad aspects and stories like that and like for me when i was reading it i just thought like Frida and Gabriel are like thinking about everything good outside in the outside world outside of this call and like leaving you know all of the like toxic things behind and then like there was just like something in there that like prove that like the outside world that they're like dreaming of almost is like just as scary you know i know it was a little cool on my part it was so

it was so effective it was so like i like rocked my world like i was like i was like kate did you get to this part yet you have to like tell me as soon as you did and like i can't tell you anything else But like you have to like tell me as soon as possible. Eight text messages in a row. I was like, this is amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Well, you know what else? I love when authors do it. So I'm a big, seriously, I'm a big reader of Salinger. And so in his short stories, you know, you always find because they're all about, well, they're pretty much all about this glass family. And so you will find out in one story what happened to this character from the previous one. And I remember as a teenager, which is finding this very, very exciting. Yeah.

I think Jennifer Hillier does it a lot, too. I was thinking of her in Catherine Ryan Howard. Oh, God, yes. Oh, yeah, she does. She's so good at it, too. And I think Stephen King does it. I was going to say, then there's Stephen King. He's got, like, dairy all over the place.

Right, right. Is it dairy? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Derry mean. It sounded wrong after I said.

said it. I knew it too easily. Okay, if you have a second question. Yeah, I do. Because I just think it's very interesting that you've already talked about, like, as you were, like, growing up, you were, like, fascinated by, like, serial killers and cults. And so now that you've explored those, like, tropes and thrillers, are there any tropes that like you are dying to try out and are there any tropes that like you're like I'm absolutely never going to write that. Oh, that is such a good question. Those are my only two questions like going into this and I was like I have to remember these.

And so like, they're a good one. I mean, I will say that so without revealing too much RLES Resort is a book with a twist. And I was not intending when I started it to write a book with a twist. I had no intention to write a book with a twist for another 15 years because that sounded too difficult. I'm going to learn how to do something else. A trope that I would like to explore. What are some jokes? Do you know what I would love?

Like, I would be obsessed if you did Dark Academia. Yeah. I could just see you, like, absolutely killing that. Thank you. Yeah. I would dip my toes. I would dip my toes. I also love cold case missing people.

Yeah. Or like something that happened like 15, 20 years ago and they're like, we have, we have the man that committed this crime or the woman that committed this crime. And then like 20 years later being like, we think we like screwed up. And maybe we don't have the right person or there's this like shred of evidence that like maybe we can solve this decades later. I just think those are like so much fun. Those are all very interesting.

I will take all of these ideas. Thank you very much. And I don't think there's anything right out where I'm like, I would never do it. Actually, I think some really interesting ideas can come out of thinking like, oh, there's this joke. I'm not a huge fan of. And it's like, well, how would I do it? Yeah. Well, I kind of got the idea because when we were in Montreal, when you were on the panel with Samantha Bailey.

And she was like, she's someone who like, I love her stories. I think she's such a phenomenal storyteller, but her stories always have this, like, darkness to them, you know, like, there's always something that's, like, really dark that happens in them. And then when she was talking to you, she was like, I think I'm brave enough to finally read The Quiet Tenet because I usually veer away from serial killers. And I was just, like, fascinated with that conversation because I was like, you have so many dark things in your books and, like, reading about a serial killer is what terrifies you. So that I just, like, always, like, I always like wonder, you know, like, one day I'm going to like try to like nail it where I'm like,

this author is like, like, I think this is going to be their next trope and thrillers. So I'm always like curious as to what. Yeah. And that's true. By the way, how much fun was Montreal? It was like, I'm still like thinking about it. Like, you know how you get like the blues when you come back from vacation? And you're just like, oh, back to reality.

I'm, it's like two months later and I'm still there. You're like, I want to go back. We have like a group. chat of like Sunika Candace and Aaron and I who like I hung out with like 24-7 when I was there and I was like okay like 10 month countdown to like we can like go back it was so much fun I loved that I want to go back too it was so fun great people great panels great books great food yeah everything was so good it was so good it was great every everything the panels were delicious the food was delicious the everything was great loved it yeah it's so funny too i took so many selfies when i was there and like

the only one that came out good was ours really yeah like everybody else i had like one eye shot or like someone's like someone's like forehead was like blurry and i was like oh my god like you literally spend half of your time posting pictures on the internet and you can't even take a selfie and then i came across ours and it was like i was like oh thank god perfect it was perfect I'm very happy. I love Montreal. It was so nice to see you and hang out. It was so great.

Those drinks at the end were really fun. If anyone is listening to this and like wondering if they should come, absolutely you should come to Montreal Mystery Festival. It was really great. And the organizers were so, it was so well organized. Everyone was so kind, really well-bbed. And it wasn't like overwhelming. No, it was awesome.

I even had time to explore the city just a little bit. Did you have time to walk around a bit? Um, no, I didn't. I didn't. I, um, I, I, I felt like it was like pretty jam-packed. But like, the things that I wanted to do, because I'm, I'm very close to Montreal. So, like, the things that I wanted to do, I was able to do. Like, I wanted to go to the bookstore. I wanted to go to Harry's donuts and, like, little things like that. So, like, I did get to do them. But, like, there wasn't a lot that I got to, like, pack in. Um, just because, I mean, the, the, the, the lineup was. amazing. So there were like a lot of like people that I wanted to like see and you know like listen to their panels and stuff. So that was like a good thing because it means they like did a good job of like setting everything up and organizing it. But like I just didn't have like a whole ton of time in between. But I get that. No, I get that. But the food was great. The drinks were great. Great. I was very excited because we went. My husband and I went to a big bookstore at one

point and I saw all the books in French. Was it Indigo? I don't remember. I went to the huge Indigo and I was like, it was so, so nice. It was so great. And I always feel like, so French editions of books are this, you know, some of them are the same in France and in Quebec. And it just felt so strangely like I was at home, you know?

Oh, yeah, yeah. And then I had a funny moment. So now this is a total tangent. Let me know if we need to. I have this stuff, but I had a funny moment. Obviously, in Quebec, I speak French, right? Whenever I go places. But some words are really different.

And for example, I went to Starbucks and I got two drinks. And the wonderful woman behind the counter asked me if I wanted a cabaret. And I was like, sure. Who doesn't want a cabaret? Like right now? Ten minutes on the Sunday? And it turns out a cabaret is a tray in in in in in in in but but it's the French word or cabaret and that means cabaret. Like it's like if I told you do you want a cabaret for your drinks.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, because I mean, listen, if they were serving cabaret and Starbucks and Montreal, I'd still be there. I'm like this is where I live now. I was a little disappointed that it was not. Yeah. Yeah. Farmer.

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I need to go next year. Yes, you do. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

I know I want to go back. Yeah. Also, it was a big moment for me as a driver because it cemented my ability to drive on the highway. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was pouring down rain when I went there.

And I was like, but like the ride back was so like sunny and perfect weather. So. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah. back but yeah that should um I am going back next year and I will be moderating again so that should sell everybody that they if you were able to go to Montreal go to Montreal everybody and if we're vouchercon is going to be in Calgary yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm going to try that too yeah let's all go yeah I know right that would be so fun anywhere anywhere anywhere anywhere but here. Yeah. True.

True. I know. Every time I go to Canada, they're like, oh, you're from the States. And I'm like, yeah, I'm from the States. And they're like, ugh. They're like, what's that like? And I'm like, what do you think? I do like the idea of like the border agent be like, so what's it like?

Yeah. Well, when I go into Canada. like I live so close that like I get my groceries every weekend in Canada. So I go to Canada like every weekend or like twice a week. And when I go, they're just like, oh, like, what are you doing? And I'm like, oh, I'm going grocery shopping. And they're like, okay, like, have a good day. Like, we love it.

And then like when I'm coming back, like to get back into the U.S., they're like so, strict. And I'm just like, the Canadian customs agent like couldn't be like any like kinder and like welcoming me. And then like the U.S. customs agents are like, why would you go out of Canada? Canada instead of here. You know, and I'm like... Oh my gosh.

For groceries. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, why do you think? Yeah. Like, I can go to like a farmer's market or like these like nice like farm boys. Like my jam. I love it there. It's like the best grocery store in the entire world. Or I can stay on the state side and end up with a bunch of people wearing red hats at

Walmart trying to get my groceries, which is like not what I want to do. No. No. That's not how I'm going to go out. Uh-uh. We know how he feels about colds. that is not a call I'm joining. Thank you very much. Like if I go out, I hope it's by like being abducted by Jacob Allorty and like I've never seen again. That would be completely fine. I died happy.

It would be an interesting set of circumstances. Could you imagine? That could be that could be your book, right? Like celebrities always like, celebrities always like worry about like their fans but like what if the fan had to worry about the celebrity? Why is a fan had to worry about a celebrity? Yeah. That is, That would be very interesting. This is how novels get written. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you'll write it.

It all starts with a life. Do you imagine I'm like he was short and kind of rude? How did mini golden do it all? That is not how I would write it. That is not what I would choose. It's not how I would describe you. Were we about to talk about books we read recently and loved? Yes.

And you loved recently. Yes. I was like, it's perfectly possible I made this up. No. I recently read and loved the bombshell by Darrow Farr. Okay. It is a perfect novel. It is a debut.

It is a literary, I cannot describe it any other than a literary crime novel. Like, it has to be characters. as such. It is about a teenage girl in Corsica who one summer in the 1990s gets abducted and taken hostage by Corsican militants. And she ends up kind of joining their cause, but it's complicated. And it's kind of a take on the Patti Hurst story. But it's also entirely its own thing. As a person from France, it's one of the best portrayals I've read of, well, France and Corsica. and just the summers over there and politics and the men and the vibes. And it is beautifully written.

The prose is amazing. The story is great. It was one of those books I just, I didn't want it to be over. And it was great. I adored it. The cover is so cool. I love the cover. That sounds really good.

I'm going to have to check that out. It was great. I'm going to have to check that out. I love that. I know. I'm going to need it. I can't believe I hadn't seen it anymore. I know that cover is so cool too that like definitely would have noticed that yeah oh it's so good

what about you guys have you read anything lately aha I'm turning the questions around um I just finished listening to Junie by Eric Crosby Eckstein it is so good um I'm like currently on an audiobook hang up right now because of how good it was The narrator is really fantastic too. But it's about an enslaved girl in the 1860s, Alabama. And her sister has just passed recently. My dogs are coughing right now. She is an enslaved girl who lives in Alabama in the 1860s.

And her sister passed recently. And one night when she goes to her grave, something she does basically bring. her sister back as a ghost. And so then there's kind of like, it is not a thriller and it's not a mystery. However, her sister is like her unfinished business does kind of unfold like a mystery. It's more coming of age, but it was so good. I like really loved it.

And the narrator was fantastic for it. So that's my current recommendation. I have to pick up two bucks. Adam. I have like 50 pages left of when you disappeared by John Mars. I am like feverish over this. It's not like as like fast paced as his other books, but like it's so good. So it's basically like this man and this woman are married.

They have three very young children and he just like walks out one day and decides to like leave everything and like not tell her where he's going. what he's doing. He has no plan whatsoever. His wife wakes up and she's like, why is my husband missing? Like, she thinks that like he was like abducted or like killed on a run and everything. And you follow this timeline 25 years. So like he comes back to his house 25 years later to his wife and says, this is what happened. So you're following like what she's going through as her life includes and like what he's doing, going all of these places, like living all of these different lives and like they're like, you're reading it at the same time. So like one chapter is like her 24 and a half years later and then it's like 20 years later. And it's so addictive for both of their

storylines. Like there's like a lot of it's kind of like unraveling Oliver meets like the talented Mr. Ripley. Oh wow. If that makes sense. You know, like it's just I can't. put it down and I'm just that's half of why I'm tired today because there's just like little like bombshells that he like drops that I'm like like eating them up like I'm what was that what's that thing called that game yeah I'm just that's me with John Myers going right along falling for it all I love it so yeah well they both sound really good yeah we'll read both yeah so now everyone has four books they need to read basically Yes. Well, yeah. Where can people follow you to stay up today about everything?

Well, if the past few days are an indication on the highway really closely. Look for the bull talking. People don't leave space anymore behind you on the highway. They just just get in there. But people can follow them. me, Instagram is my home on the internet as a writer, so for better or worse, it's what works for me.

So it's Clermont-Michelon, all one word, no accent on the E. That's my handle. And then I also have a newsletter, clemence-Michelon.substack.com. And I also have an author website, which also has a portfolio of my journalism work, clemencemichelon.com.

Yeah. It's selected works. Oh, I love that. You're just everywhere. Yeah. I try. Actually, should be. Well, thank you for talking with us.

Oh, my gosh, and everything else. Thank you. This is so fun. It's so fun.