Bookwild - Danielle Girard: Far Gone

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

On this episode, I talk to Danielle Girard about her second installment of the Badlands Thriller series, Far Gone.You can also watch the episode on YouTubeAuthor LinksInstagramGoodreadsWebsiteCheck out the book hereFar Gone SummaryWhen a North Dakota couple is shot down in their home in cold blood, the sleepy town of Hagen wakes with a jolt. After all, it’s usually such a peaceful place. But Detective Kylie Milliard knows better.Despite not handling a homicide investigation in years, Kylie is on the case. A drop of blood found at the scene at first blush promises to be her best evidence. But it ultimately only proves that someone else witnessed the murder—and the results are shocking: the DNA reveals a familial match to a crime involving local nurse Lily Baker from over a decade ago. This unveiling stirs new nightmares for Lily as she’s forced to reckon with the most traumatic time in her life.Haunted by their pasts and hunting the killer, Kylie and Lily uncover hellish secrets and impossible truths, finding answers that put both their lives in jeopardy. 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 Danielle Girard, who's the author of tons of New York bestseller, or New York. York Times bestseller list books, the Dr. Schwartzman series, the rookie club series, and the one we're going to talk about today, the Badlands Thriller series. So Danielle, thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Kate. I'm happy to be here. So the Badlands Thriller series is what we're talking about today, specifically the second one. But I read Whiteout, was that a couple years ago when it came out? And loves that one so much. So I was so excited.

when I saw that there was a second one. But let's talk about you just to kind of get it started. When did you know you wanted to write books or like when did you know you wanted to be an author? Well, I did everything else before I was an author. That was not like an option with my family. I was going to either be a doctor or a business person because that's what my parents were. And I'm the first born. So you know, you got to follow all the rules.

unlike my much younger brother who's a film maker and he was able to go to film school. So I did a lot of different jobs. I always loved stories. I always love to tell stories. So I met a woman when I was in finance who wrote romance novels. And I was so enthralled with the process and what she did that I asked her if she would sort of give me some pointers. And she basically said, you know, put your butt in your chair and just, right and I did that I did that three times and it was my fourth book that was published so

after that it just was sort of an addiction I do love it I love to be alone with the characters and and the words and it's a magical place yeah I would imagine because like I love reading it reading stuff for the same reason so I'm sure creating them feels the same way also first born here who is only going to be allowed to be a doctor or a lawyer so I feel That's right. What were they thinking? I know. I know. So you really fell in love with it pretty quickly is what it sounds like. What did your writing process kind of turn into as you were kind of learning how you write books? I wish I could say the process is not, you know, I've got it figured out. I'm, I just finished my, what I think will be my 16th published book. It changes kind of

every time. It changes with the type of book it is and it changes with the, you know, the weight evolve. Sometimes I know the end and sometimes I know how I'm going to get there. And sometimes I just, I really don't and I have to sit with it for a really long time. I know, obviously, that the only thing that really works is to be here at my desk. That's sort of where it works. And I, you know, when I was first writing, I had a full-time day job and a couple of kids. So I just did that. I did a couple hours in the evenings and that's kind of all I could do. And now I have a luxury of doing it full time. So I spend probably at least four and as many as eight hours a day just sitting here.

And sometimes that's thousands of words and sometimes it's negative words. But it just kind of depends on the book and the day. Yeah. Yeah. And where in the book I am. Yeah, that makes sense too. So how do you create your characters? Do you mostly know who they are? Do you plan it out? Do you figure out who they are along the way? It's a good question because in my mind, the character and the plot have to be really well integrated. So you think about, you know, you think about somebody like, well, we'll use Lily Baker and Whiteout, right? And she's, you know, the scenario of waking up and not knowing where you are.

was for her a very personal kind of torture because if you imagine her backstory, we won't talk too much about it because we don't want to get too much away. But I always feel like I find a plot idea or an initial scene idea. And then I think for what character is this the most difficult situation, right?

Yeah. What is she, like what kind of person is she that this will really throw her for a loop and make it really hard for her? And that is kind of where I start with the character. And from then, you know, the plot and the character kind of move and spin together. I mean, it's clear from, you know, if you've read any of my books, I love strong characters. I love strong women characters.

I love strong men characters. I love independent thinkers who makes them sometimes a little stubborn and not always easy to work with. But that is sort of people, I think, that make things happen. And also, I think we're all damaged in some way. So all of my characters have some damage. People were like, can you just give Lily Baker a break? Yeah. And it's true.

She gets a break in the third book. She does. She gets a break. But it's true. I think, you know, I think we're all that. I mean, not to the extent of the characters, of course, but we all have things that that we carry with. So I think that's important, too. No character is all bad and no character is all good.

We're all shades gray. Yeah, I completely agree. Your books also circle a lot around criminal investigations as well from like the perspective of medical examiners and like police officers. So I read in your acknowledgments that you have talked to all kinds of people in that field, just like when you have questions and stuff. So what was that experience like? So I met my first police officer through, I was working in finance in San Francisco. And one of the women I work with her husband did, was on the SWAT team, basically. Special office is what they called them.

And I was like, I need, you know, can I meet him? And, you know, this is before I published my first book. So I, and he was wonderful. And he, you know, he walked me through sort of what their team does. And I did use that in Cameron Cruz in Dark Passage as a swap. She's on the SWAT team. And she, I got help from Scott was my contact there. And from there, I said, hey, I want to write about, you know, I want to write a sex crimes inspector. I want to write a homicide inspector. So I was able to sort of make my way through the San Francisco Police Department. And, you know, especially when I would call it and say, you know, my protagonist, my good guy is a cop. Because now it's hard to be a cop. I mean, not saying all cops are great and not saying it's not, there's not a lot of issues because, of course, we all know that there are.

But I also feel like if we need them, we need police officers. And it's kind of, I feel like it's an impossible job. So I'm really grateful to people who talk to me. And then I met a woman at a conference who was a blood spatter. There's my dogs. Yeah, mine's huge. She was a blood spatter expert. She was amazing.

And I asked if she knew anybody who was in the medical examiner's office because I wanted to write this series about a female medical examiner. So I asked her if she knew anybody who was in the medical examiner's office. And she actually introduced me to my current amazing contact, who's one of the chief medical examiners for the state of North Carolina. And I send him the most outrageous ideas. In fact, recently I asked him if it was possible to strangle somebody with dental floss. So he went through this whole explanation of how if you think, if you have a question about it, take a watermelon.

And if you can cut through a watermelon without breaking the dental floss, then you can choke a person without. You know, it would cut through their skin. Wow. I mean, these are the lovely, like, you know, okay, I got another weird question for you, Craig. And he's great. He's so, and I'm so, I mean, that I think it adds, he, you know, it helps me come up with plot ideas. It adds authenticity.

And it's like to sort of, you know, get a chance to access the kind of people that you write about, you know. Yeah. Sometimes even when I'm reading books that are crime related, whether it's murder or drugs or something, I'm like, I want to Google that and know more about it. And then I'm like, should I Google the book title first? so that if anyone sees my browser history, they see that it was just that I was reading a book. Well, I'm sure I'm on a lot of short lists.

But hopefully, you know, I don't ever do anything that puts me up at the top of the shortlist. But yeah, if I Google, if anybody, if my husband ended up dead, I'd probably have a lot of questions to answer. Hopefully he lives forever then. I still really like him. so that's good so how would you describe far gone in just a couple of sentences without spoiling anything i know right um i you know this is like where if you write a hundred thousand words you're almost terrible explaining anything in less than about a thousand um i would say far gone is a story of um a young woman who witnesses a brutal murder

and for her personal reason she cannot go to the police. And so she's on the run. And behind her are the, you know, are a police investigator who needs to figure out how these people died, some bad guys and an interested party, shall we say. Yeah. How did you come up with the idea for this installment of the series? So, you know, the funny thing is sort of how,

all that, how this young woman developed and who she became, who she was. And it was sort of at the back of my mind when I started the book. But she needed to have her own, not just sort of the circumstances of her birth, but she needed to have her own, um, story. And so I thought about what, you know, what would be, what's the sort of most, you know, hellacious experience for a 14, 15 year girl and, you know, who is who is probably going, you know, going through some stuff of 14 and 15 year old girl. So she's experimenting. And she's not obviously the best behaved 14 year old. Yeah. This is not one for our children. So she's experimenting a little with drugs and hanging out with not quite the right people. And then she shows up to a babysitting job and, you know,

the basically two people are killed in front of her. And she's thankfully hidden. But, So this was the thought, okay, here's a way to make her story front and center. And then the background story that, you know, sort of puts her into this series as a whole, sort of a second thing that emerges. Yeah. So who would you cast for the main characters if it was a TV show or movie? And some people don't have answers. So it's okay. I know.

I think it's really hard. I love, you know, I mean, it used to be like women, like. like Charlize Theron who can play all the different, you know, sort of types of women. I think she, and, you know, Nicole Kidman does it too. But Jessica Chastain, I feel like it could be a good detective. So for Kylie, it would be somebody like that. Lily is a little trickier.

She's, I mean, if I, you know, if it were a bunch of years ago, I would say it could be, Oh, God, I don't forget her name, who was in Silence of the Lambs, right? Because she's just... Yeah, a little diminutive. I figured... But now, of course, lots of these people are too old. And then for, you know, for Hannah, I don't know.

I'm not as aware of the 14-year-old girl. I mean, it could be something like... It could be Zendaya. She's too old, probably too now. But you know what I mean? It could be somebody... It could be a lot of different people. Something like somebody from that generally.

that I just don't know. Yeah, I know like everyone's crazy about the outer banks is like all high school kids, but I don't know anything about it. Yeah, I haven't seen that. So I probably need to start putting more attention. But you know, the fun, I mean, the thing is I've had a couple books option for movies. Nothing has gone to production. And I think I say in any of it would be like so, you know, right, I get to choose.

But, you know, yeah. I think it'd be fun to see the whole thing happen. see the whole thing happen and I'd be pretty happy about that. Yeah. Would you prefer them as TV shows or movies if you got to choose that? Yeah, you know, I think since there's two books now, it would be kind of fun to have them do it as like a miniseries, like maybe two seasons of, you know, when they do eight or ten episodes, I always think that's fun. And I think they spread these, I think they could make white out and far gone in, you know, eight or ten episodes each. But, you know, And then they start to write, like I have my friend,

Katie Barber, Kathleen Barber, who wrote, who's, you know, her show is with Octavia Spencer. And what is it called, though? What is the show? Is that the good girls with, is that good girls? It's, it's, it's not the worst. Okay, anyway, it's, it's Octavia Spencer and the guy who, Adam, Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad.

And now they're like in season three and it's way past what she's written in the book. So it's, you know, it's a kind of fun. She's watching it evolve without her, which is really interesting. That would be a fascinating experience. I didn't know that was based off a book. Yes, it is based off her book, which it was while if I'm sleeping, I think was what it was called originally. Now it's called something about lie or truth.

Does truth be told? Yeah, truth be told. Yeah. So that is, yeah, that's based on Kathleen Barber's book, which is now called Truth Be Told. And it's a great book. So it's fun to watch it evolve past the book. Yeah. That has to be really cool. So now we're going to talk kind of in depth about the book. So we will get into spoilers. So if people haven't read the book yet, pause and go read it. But if you're here because you read it and you want to hear about it, just keep listening. one of the things that I thought was really cool was that Lily was I almost didn't expect Lily

to be in it as well because when there are a series you're so used to like just the detective being the main character so did you know that you wanted Kylie and Lily to be in both books when you started writing the first book was that kind of a plan or did you decide when you started writing the second book you know what's funny is Lily to me is the main character in the first book So Lily to me is a serious character in my head. But of course, you know, it's really hard. It's like the whole, you know, Fletcher, you know, murder she wrote.

Like, if something terrible happens to somebody who's not a detective in multiple books, we all think, oh, my God, it's a curse to just be that woman. So Kylie emerged as a fuller character as I wrote Whiteout because I realized I really wanted, if it was going to be a series, I wanted a, you know, detective character that made more sense. But I didn't want to leave Lily behind. I felt like with her, you know, starting relationship with Ivor and, and actually Ivers a point of view character in book three and Lily is not.

But we get, we get, you know, Lily through Iver and also through Kylie because they're, you know, they become friends as well. But I realized to me, it was still Lily story. as much as Kylie's story. And interestingly, in book three, we get a little bit more about Kylie's background. So she sort of, you know, has an opportunity for us to get to know her a little bit better.

Because Lily, really, I mean, it was the first book was really, really hooks on Lily. Yeah. So, yeah, so I did know for sure when I, when I was writing book one, that Lily to me felt like as big a character as Kylie. So I assumed those two women would appear again. And then I was, I ever didn't feel like he had an important role in this book.

So I sort of let him move off screen for a while. Yeah. And gave him something to be somewhere else. And then I brought Hannah in because obviously this was, you know, she's our main character. I mean, she's the character we're sort of, you know, worried about in book two. Yeah. Yeah. That was, because like at first I remember thinking like, oh, it's going to be completely about Hannah. But it also, like just what you were saying, like it just as much as a continuation of Lily's story.

So I totally agree with you. That's kind of what I thought was interesting was normally the detective is the like series character. But in my experience reading these two, it was, I feel like you were always getting more like emotional insight into Lily as well just because she's had so much happen. Right. And her relationship with the coroner, which I had thought I would use in. book one kind of never did that he was her godfather. It had a sort of emerged really nicely and felt organic as a way to understand more about her dad and and what had happened when her mom died and why she was sent, you know, to live with her aunt. So, um, yeah, that, I mean, it's, a lot of that

is it's, it's, it, the whole goal is that by the end of the book, it looks like it was really, you know, created from the get go. You knew all the things. But, Yeah. The reality is I never know all the things. And sometimes I have to, I get to the end and I have to go, oh, God, I got to go back and fix all these things that don't make sense anymore. Right. But it's sort of, you know, it's, if it doesn't emerge organically,

then I feel like the book doesn't feel the character's responses, the story doesn't, it doesn't seem to work as well, I don't think. Yeah, I would agree. There were a ton of twist. at the end. Like there are a couple throughout, but a lot happens at the end. Did you know those big twists when you started the book? Like the big, I mean, I guess I don't have to dance around it, but like the big family, all of the family reveals, did you know that that was going to happen? I did know, I mean, the whole idea, if, you know, if Hannah was not going to be Dr. Visser's

child, then I knew. whose child she would be. The one thing that really took me by surprise, and really one of those wonderfully magical ways, was the scene on the table when she, you know, when she's really forced to make a decision

about whether or not she's going to save this life. And I kind of still get shivery about it because I just felt like, you know, I think everybody in that room was, except for, of course, Mrs. Visser was like, you don't have to do this, you know. And yet I think it was true to Lily

that she did have to do it, that that is who she is. And I'm proud of her for putting aside a really, really horrific situation and saving kind of a terrible person, you know. Yeah. Yeah. The way she's written, I agree, I don't think she could have just let someone die. I think she takes even just the oath that medical people take like I feel like she had struggled with that. Yeah, do no harm exactly. That scene was I remember I was like totally engrossed in it. And then my husband was like walking around like asking me questions. I was like you can't talk to me right now.

This is a clinical moment right now. A lot of stuff is happening. It was it was great. I really, it was just so many things came together and then like so many decisions were still having to be made and like this like the intensity was up since like he could have bled out. Yes. We'll probably remember that scene for a long time. Yeah.

Thank you. That's the goal, right, is to have something be really, you know, especially at the end, really tense and scary. Mm-hmm. And it's nice, like, it's nice because I think we all. want to think that we would still be a better person than someone who hurt us. So it was kind of like she got to do that too where it's like just because you're a terrible person doesn't mean I have to be too.

Right. I thought it was very cool. Although I think Kylie might have shot him. Like I, you know, I just think it was, I think there's a lot of good reasons. Especially knowing sort of the family and then he might very well get away with it. Yeah. Yeah. So she was pretty mad. And not a, not a medical practitioner. No, she's yeah, she's got a she's much edgier than than Lily. I mean, she's got a very different take on things. Yeah. So. Yeah. There's a lot of focus on memories and like how our mind distorts traumatic experiences to kind of protect us.

So Lily and Iver have both struggled with that. Iver kind of in the first book, but then and Lily in the first book. And then even now, she has like, doesn't have the whole memory of having a daughter. And then Hannah is also questioning her memories at the time of the murder, kind of the whole book. She's like, did I actually see that? So how did you kind of get into the mindset of like trauma and memory for those characters? So before, before I wrote Whiteout, I met with a neurologist here locally. And we talked about sort of traumatic brain injury as well as, you know, this new concussion. BSTTE.

Yeah. And also kind of what drugs can do. Like in Hannah's case, it's very much, well, it's a PS, she's got a little bit of PTSD, of course, from what she saw. But also she's on, you know, she's taking a little bit too many drugs. She's not, she's, you know, doesn't have any experience with that. I'm so sorry. It's okay. She doesn't have any, you know, experience with drugs.

I mean, that much experience with drugs. And she's been through some real trauma. Plus, I think that, you know, her journey makes her, you know, she's sleep deprived and she's disoriented and for Lily and, you know, and it was funny because I, the first time somebody read those first few chapters are white out. They were like, I'm not sure you can do two characters who have no idea. They keep, you know, either of them has like firm memories. Yeah.

And so it depended on Kylie to be the one point of view who was like at least knew kind of what had happened, when it had, you know, as far as at least in her experiences. Yeah. I did a lot of research on on memories. And you know, it's a trope, obviously amnesia. Who authors use it as a way to make something as scary for, the point of view character as it is for every you know for the reader and also because i there are books that do that um that thing where they you know the the point of view character doesn't

confess everything she knows you know they hold that the unreliable narrator well even and that or sometimes they actually know um and they just don't you just don't think it but my characters are always close third person and so like if i knew um that i mean if my character if little knew she'd had a baby or she knew she'd been, you know, what had happened the night, um, in, you know, the first night in white out. I couldn't hold that back. I sort of feel like, and I love, I love, I know books that do this that I've loved, but I sort of feel in my mind, it's a little cheating. You know, if the character knows it and you're in their point of view, you, you have to say it. Unless, you know, you can misunderstand it or they can misrepresent,

you know, they can misremember or they can take it for something. else but you can't just hold it back. I know. You know, that to me is like the, well, what? That character knew that the whole time. That doesn't. So I use so, you know, and then amnesia gets the, you know, sometimes it gets a bad route because of course it's been used a million times. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but it's fun. I mean, I have to say I really, um, I enjoy it. And it just, it just is what happens with trauma as well. Like you do record memories differently. but have you seen there that was making me think of Netflix has I can't even remember what it's called it's like the woman across the house it basically is making fun of with Kristen Bell

yeah is it it's making fun of the woman in the window it's making fun of how often um of the trope of just using amnesia or like oh I'm drunk all the time like I think it's doing it lovingly because obviously they produced the movie for a woman in the window, but it's kind of like satire on the tropes of the genre for fun. Okay, that's funny. Because I thought at first when I've seen that, I thought, is this the woman in the window? But I don't really understand why she's called this whole thing.

I have not seen that yet. Yeah, it's not out. They're just promoting it. But it is kind of like all around the idea of like being super unreliable, like just because she like drinks or something like that. So I think it makes fun of all. all kinds of tropes. So it should be pretty funny if you can be open-minded to it, but we'll see how it is because all I read are thrillers. So yeah. Yeah. So in Far Gone, there's also, especially by the

end, an examination of family and choice and how that can be even stronger than your biological family. So after everything that has happened, um, for Hannah and basically learning that like the family she grew up with she's not actually that it's just not what she even thought it was and here there's another person who's actually my mom um but at the end she's with all these people that actually feel like family to her was that an arc that you were kind of wanting to go for from the beginning or did it just kind of fall into place it's you know themes are not something that I generally think about while I'm writing a book I feel like they emerge and sort of then at the end I think, oh, wow, look at this.

There's a theme here about family and choice of family. And, you know, as a mom and a woman, you know, wife, mother, sister, daughter, all those things. I think, you know, I think the way that our, you know, biological family sometimes supports us and sometimes fails us. This is not a dig it in my family because I have been all great. But you know what I mean? I think, you know, and whether by distance you don't live close to them, so you, you know, you create a different type of family. I think, I think that's, I think it's super interesting. And I think it is something that we learn.

And Hannah's probably a little young to learn it. I feel like most of us sort of get there in our 30s, you know, maybe 20s and 30s or, you know, or even later. But for Hannah, I think she never really felt understood by her mother in particular. And her relationship with her brother was weird, and now we understand why. And her father, I think, was distant because his relationship with his wife wasn't great. So he didn't sort of recognize how much she needed him until later. So I do think, you know, in looking at my books, there's often sort of this, in fact, the book I just finished is motherhood. is it's really about different types of motherhood.

And that's not just to say, you know, biological mothers, but all sorts of mothers. And that also sort of made sense. It sort of thought this could be a theme in the beginning, but, you know, really emerged sort of midway through the book. And then I was able to, you know, to sort of tie it in more strongly. And I like to hope that the themes are, you know, they're natural. They're not like, I'm hitting.

you over the head with family can be what you want you know how you make it it's more like oh wow this is the story about family yeah it didn't feel that way because it was mainly that end scene that was making me think about it and it was just so sweet i think i even dmd you when i finished i was like i'm joked up she's just so happy thank you yeah it is great to have like i'm fine with a not as happy ending but it's nice when there can be like a little thread of happiness at the end so I did love that I'm a little sunder for some happy at my end yeah I mean not that any thriller doesn't end up exactly happy right I mean no not typically yeah exactly so yeah I loved it so you there are going to be more in this series there is yeah there I'm actually working on the third

one now I was supposed to start on the third one and then I got super distracted by a book I idea I had to write so I wrote that as a standalone first and now I'm back to Hagen. Okay that's exciting yeah so where can people find you to follow you and stuff just kind of plug whatever you want thank you why um my website is daniel gerard.com that's got um everything and also links to all my other social media. I'm most active on Instagram, um, which is Danielle Gerard books. And then I'm also on Facebook a lot and that is author Danielle Gerard. Um, terrible Twitter and as somebody recently asked me if I do TikTok, I'm like, I think I might be a little old for TikTok, but my daughter, maybe my daughter can teach me TikTok.

Yeah. Yeah. It's very, it's very new for sure. But I'll put all those links and the show notes so if anyone does want to go check that out they can go check that out bruce is trying to say hi to you got a little another dog interruption but um yes i know but thank you for being on the podcast and i'm super excited for the next book thank you so much and yeah i look forward to posting it and again thank you so much for having me and yeah i really appreciate that you enjoyed the books that means so much