Bookwild - Death of a Dancing Queen by Kimberly Giarratano: Veronica Mars and Jessica Jones But Make it A Book

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

This week, I talk to Kimberly Giarratano about her noir PI mystery Death of a Dancing Queen.Follow Kimberly on InstagramDeath of a Dancing Queen SynopsisAfter her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Billie Levine revamped her grandfather’s private investigation firm and set up shop in the corner booth of her favorite North Jersey deli hoping the free pickles and flexible hours would allow her to take care of her mom and pay the bills. So when Tommy Russo, a rich kid with a nasty drug habit, offers her a stack of cash to find his missing girlfriend, how can she refuse? At first, Billie thinks this will be easy earnings, but then her missing person's case turns into a murder investigation and Russo is the detective bureau’s number one suspect.Suddenly Billie is embroiled in a deadly gang war that’s connected to the decades-old disappearance of a famous cabaret dancer with ties to both an infamous Jewish mob and a skinhead group. Toss in the reappearance of Billie’s hunky ex-boyfriend with his own rap sheet, and she is regretting every decision that got her to this point.Becoming a P.I. was supposed to solve her problems. But if Billie doesn’t crack this case, the next body the police dredge out of the Hudson River will be hers. 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 

One of my favorite parts about this podcast is when I find someone else who loves to talk about books the same way that I do. And that happened this week with Kimberly Giartano, who is the author of Death of a Dancing Queen, as well as multiple young adult books as well. But Death of a Dancing Queen is the one that I read recently and was dying to talk to her about it. And it's about Billy Levine, who, after her mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis, revamped her grandfather's private investigation firm and set up shop in the corner booth of her favorite North Jersey deli, hoping the free pickles and flexible hours would allow her to take care of her mom and pay the bills. So when Tommy Rousseau, a rich kid with a nasty drug habit, offers her a stack of cash to find his missing girlfriend, how can she refuse? At first, Billy thinks this will be easy earnings,

but then her missing person's case turns into a murder investigation, and Rousseau is the detective bureau's number one suspect. Suddenly, Billy is embroiled in a deadly gang war that's connected to the decades-old disappearance of a famous cabaret dancer with ties to both an infamous Jewish mob and a skinhead group. Toss in the reappearance of Billy's hunky ex-boyfriend with his own rap sheet, and she is regretting every decision that got her to this point. becoming a PI was supposed to solve her problems but if billy doesn't crack this case the next body the police dredge out of the hudson river will be hers i could not put this book down i loved it so much and let's get into it so did you always know that she wanted to write

um yes i did i mean it's such a cliche thing to be like oh when i was a kid but it's true when i was in second grade we i remember writing a short story called Superflower. We had to make up her own superhero and I was really, I thought I wanted to be a florist like Janet, I'm the least company. And so I wrote like a short story called Superflower. That's like one of the

first things I remember writing creatively. And in third grade we had to write our own version of Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. This is how Gen X I am right now. And I decide, like we could write two versions. One where he had a horrible day and one where

we as the character had a horrible day and one day had a great day. And I was like, but a great day is not funny. Like even at eight, I recognized that making people suffer was more fun than giving people everything they ever wanted. So I wrote that and I remember we all had to get up and read in front of the classroom. And I remember my teacher, Mrs. Hart, if you're out there, her last name was even lovely, Hart. She was like, oh, I can't wait to hear this one. And I hadn't. heard her to say that about anybody else, but maybe I was a big of a cartoon. So it just, it just was like, oh, she wants to hear what I have to say. So, but yeah, I mean, I thought I was going to be Murphy Brown again, Jen X all the way, because I wanted to be a journalist and write for newspapers.

And so I did for my student newspapers, middle school, high school, college, I was the news editor, but I didn't really have a good nose for news. It's really hard. But it did teach me to write. So I've noticed that when I read books by either current reporters or former reporters that the writing really grabs me. It's incredibly needy, specific. There is great specificity. I'm not saying that correctly in writing by newspapers, reporters. And so it did really teach me how to write. And did I think I was going to write novels?

I'm sure in my head I was like, oh, I love to write a novel. novel one day. But I thought you needed an MFA or something, some kind of training. So I kind of sat on it for a while. But eventually then I became a librarian and I was like, wait, I can do what these people do. Oh, that's so cool. I love that. Yeah, I mean, oh, I loved my library job. I loved it. I was a young adult librarian. So I read nothing but YA for many years. I loved it. But I did sit down and go because when I became a young adult librarian was when Twilight blew up. And so there was all these great specfic books coming out for teens. Some of them were amazing.

I have a fly. And some of them weren't. And I guess I looked at the ones that weren't. I was like, if they could do it, I could do it. That's a really good point. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's hard. Though, like, even the ones where I was critical of, like in hindsight,

no, I'm like, it was hard to do what they did. Very, very hard. So, but that's really when I started sitting my butt in the chair and working toward publication. And it's still too many years after that. To answer that question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, you totally did. I have like more questions from it. So you did, young adult was the first kind of novels that you wrote as well. So did you kind of, did you choose to be a young adult librarian? Or was it kind of like that was what was available and then you started to love young adult? Like how did you end up writing young adult? The latter. I got my degree in library science from Rutgers and I went to, I think it was my first and only

job interview and it was in Rockway Township, New Jersey. And I remember being in the interview. And they were hiring for a juvenile librarian. And I was a teacher prior to being a librarian. And I worked with kids. So it was a natural fit that I could do that as well. But then they started explaining that they didn't have a young adult librarian. And I had taken one YA class. And I was like, well, you should have that. Like, that's what you should have. Why wouldn't you get a YAA librarian and I sold myself somehow as a young adult librarian and I got the job because they realized they didn't have a YAA librarian and they needed one so they hired me and I to that prior to that point had not read much YA. Oh my gosh. Yeah so I kind of got thrust into the

role which was great and I got a healthy budget and my director was like you know fix our collection so I did and I read every book that came across my desk that I bought. and just absorbed everything. So it was a really fun job. I really enjoyed that. Yeah. And so then what did you enjoy about writing Y.A? Oh, that's such a good question.

So YA to me is incredibly fresh and incredibly emotive, right? You're dealing with teenagers and angst and subversive. I, you know, teenage characters, particularly in Specific. because I thought it was so creative. Like, I didn't read vampire novels prior to Twilight. Yeah. And I just thought it was incredibly inventive in a way that I guess I hadn't seen. Because when I was a teenager in the 90s, there were, with John Green didn't exist because he's only a couple years older than me.

So he too was a teen. And I was reading, like, biographies. I was reading kids books. I would read, really, the gamut. But there wasn't things for me. and young adult literature really is in this incredible era, just of inventiveness. But I always like, I was like, oh, I would sit down and read a YA book and they would get right into the action, right in, there was none, like, there wasn't much buildup. It was always just, and it's so inventive and progressive.

I think, I think the publishing industry changes from YA out. I think YA is where you see so much progressive literature happening. And then adult fiction is like, oh, yeah, we can have trans characters. We should do that. You know, we have queer characters. We should do that. You're right. Because Y.A. is doing it first, I think.

Yeah. I think that's how it's been in the last, I would say, 20 years. Yeah. That's a really good point. I feel like it is in TV as well. When you were saying that, you did see, like, gay or trans or just more. more diversity of characters in like high school TV shows before it was like more mainstream to do it. Right. You know what's one of the funniest things is when I read reviews of adult novels,

like I'll read the reviews after I read the book. I'll read them. Yeah. Let's not not good reads, but let's just take Amazon and I'll see readers comment on things that make me laugh because as a progressive person like the cursing. They don't like the swearing. Oh my gosh. I know. I'm like, What world do you live in? You know, like modern times. Like, who cares? And you never see that in young adult books because teens obviously don't care. But also the adults who read YAA are progressive people who don't care about this stuff.

So I guess I just feel like Y is such an explosion of modernity. And the adult sphere is kind of catching up to that, I think. I love that. I had never thought about that. And now you're making me want to read more YAA, actually. So I still read a ton of way. I was reviewing YA books for Book Page. I think since my son's 13.

He's older than him, maybe 15 years I've been reviewing. And prior to book page, I'd reviewed, because I was as a librarian, I reviewed for school library journal. I reviewed for book list. And my first reviewer job was at Publishers Weekly. And I would review a young adult for them. So I had been in the Y-A sphere and absorbed in it for so long. Yeah.

That's really cool. Naturally, I'm going to start writing in young adult, which is what I had done. Yeah. Yeah. How did your writing process develop? So you mentioned you thought you needed to maybe have a degree or something to do it. How did it, like, develop on its own? I read a lot of craft books.

So I sort of gave myself, I just taught myself being, I just would absorb. And being a librarian, I was like, all right, just ILL all these cat books on writing. And so that's what I would do. You know, writing fiction for dummies. Okay. Save the cat. The Snowflake Method. Like every craft book that existed, I would, you know.

Yeah. Oh, the story genius. I have that at home. Yes. Everything, like writing killer mysteries. If it existed, I bought it and I read it. took it out from the library. And then one of the best classes I ever took those.

So when I wrote my first novel, which was Grunge Gods and Graveyards, that's my first novel that I wrote from start to finish. It did get published in 2014 by a small press that's still around today. They do great work. They just don't take YAA, I think, anymore. And they had trouble kind of selling it because they were a small press digital, and then they did POD print on demand. And one thing that we've learned,

lives first certainly learned off of the course of my career is teens don't want to read on their phones or their Kindle. They want books. And so I wasn't really selling my work to teenagers to the audience that was intended to go to. I was selling it to adults, which is fine. Tons of adults read WI-A, but that's not the audience that it's intended for. So I was going off track.

Oh, yeah. So I wrote my first book and it was a mess because I think I was pregnant with my second kid at the time. So it was like a race. you know, I had to finish it before you was born. And then after I finished it, I took Holly Lyles How to Revise Your Novel course, which is this self-directed, 25 lessons, class that took me six months to complete. There was a huge forum. It was the best money I ever spent.

And it wasn't cheap at the time and I wasn't working. So it was just self-paced. I remember one lesson took me a month to complete. And I sat down every day in work. on it. I've never been that disciplined at anything in my entire life. And that class taught me, in revising my novel, it really taught me how to write. And then with subsequent books, you know, you just get better. And now I've developed for my sleuth-driven mysteries. I really developed my own structure. It's the four-act structure. I didn't make that up, but I've taken the four-act

structure and really ran with it in a way that that allows me to plot my mysteries for great pacing and also without just killing myself in the process. Right. So do you plot it all out before you start writing or do you pants it? Are you a plotter or pancer? I'm definitely a plotter. So I've plot very intricately and still gotten stuck. Okay. So for the second Billy Levine book that I'm drafting, no, that's done by your pardon. For the third Billy Levine book I'm drafting. Yeah. So there's

there's three books. I've contracted for three books. So if you enjoy a long, I hope you'll read two and three. That's how everybody reads two and three, that's how we'll get in four and five. Nice. I hope so. I loved it, obviously. Thank you. Yeah. Publishing is such a ride because so many things are out of your control. Yeah. And you just want to like force your book on people.

You must read this if I'm to make more of them. I know, I know. Yeah. So after, to answer the question though, I just drafted the first act because I write in four acts. So I drafted the first act. I'll draft it. And then I'll plot the second act. Okay.

Then I'll draft it. You probably hear my dog. I'll plot the third act. So that way I think. plotting all four acts as intricately as I did, I still got stuck. And I didn't allow for some organic movement. So if I plot one act at a time, I think it'll allow for more organic movement. That's my hope.

We'll see how it goes. I like that. That's a really cool answer. So obviously then you did kind of transition into adult fiction. So what made you want, like what prompted this novel being adult? So a couple of things happened here. I was an indie author. Even though my first book was published under small press, everything really after that.

And I had a Kindle Scout book, which is a defunct program by Amazon with crowd sourcing publishing. Long story short, I'm an indie author. So I thought I was going to stay an indie author. But I felt like in order to kind of have success as an indie author, I really needed to write for adults because they're the ones who buy e-books. and so I started writing, I thought, I had this idea for a private eye novel series because I really missed Veronica Mars so badly. Yeah. And my mom has dementia.

So I kind of wanted to explore what that felt like to be a child of someone with dementia and thinking about your own mortality down the way. And so for a main character to kind of be contemplating that, I could not figure them as a teenager. It just didn't work. So I had this idea of a young adult, a young woman. She's pretty young. She's 24, so she's not my age by any means. But I had her in this role, like, trying to start her life, but she can't really do what

she wants to do because her mother has early onset Alzheimer's disease. So that in itself, the idea that I had that I was like, I had her name come to me, I had her grandpa come to me, like things that I just felt really solidified. I was like, she's not a teenager. I don't want her to be a teenager. I want her to have to circumnavigate, like, the real world. Because teenagers can be kind of subversive because they're young. Not that they can, like, in fiction, they can do whatever they want.

But, like, she can't really do illegal things because there are actual real adult consequences for it, whereas teenagers kind of can. So I just didn't picture her as a teenager. And I was like, all right, well, maybe this is a sign. I start writing my adult series and I self-publish it. But long story short, yada, yada, yada. I got an agent and Liza, who I love. And she's like, this book's ready to go. Let's see if we can sell it to.

Yeah. Still took almost two years to get it sold. Okay. So for anyone listening who's a writer who's going to go on the submission on submission, it is a long, it can be a long road. And that's just how it is. Yeah. That's good to know.

Um, for sure. The, so I loved the line that said private investigators worked best when they were invisible and unforgettable. Gramps hadn't taught her that. Jessica Jones did. So I was going to ask you if you've always been kind of like a PI noir fan, but if you miss Veronica Mars, I'm assuming you were. But has that always been something that you've loved as a genre? I didn't realize how much I loved it as a genre still. Yeah. Until I watched Veronica Mars. I'm assuming you were. But has that always been something that you've loved as a genre. I didn't realize. I didn't realize how much. I've watched Veronica. Gamars in the early Arly Ops. And I, like, I, like, I love Batman, like, noir, Gotham Batman more than, like, you know, I love George Clooney, but that wasn't to me, like, that hard-boiled noir, like, smoky steam coming off the streets. That city vibe. I was like, I'm like, damn, I'm really into this.

Like, you never know. When you're kind of, like, I was reading so much young adult and you didn't really find it too often in Wyoming and I kept looking for Veronica Mars and all the YA was written. Anytime a book was like, Veronica Mars meets this, I was like, that's my book. Yeah. So, but I love Jessica Jones because it really had that vibe. Yes. You know, and I'm always looking for it.

The Perry Mason show that they revamped Perry Mason on HBO, I ate that up and that was dark, really dark. Yeah. I was like, I don't know when I watched this. I watched it. I love it. So yeah. And I was reading old, like,

Raymond Chandler. I really do like that kind of neo-noir, that vibe that's going. But I want it also for, I want it accessible to me as well and having a female protagonist who's Jewish like myself and who's from Jersey.

I got to play with a lot of things that resonate with me and still have fun with it but still keep that kind of sultry noir vibe to it that I enjoy. Yeah. That's really cool because you do feel everything you mentioned there like that where she's living um her mom that she's jewish like all of that like you really feel

like it's so much a part of her through the whole book um and it sounds like maybe that's also somewhat because it was coming from you so did you ever have to like separate yourself from the character at all were you ever like accidentally just like writing yourself well she's definitely not me because she's right too cool and brave and balzy in a way I would never be Like that's the fun part of writing, right? I can be like, well, she's a badass. I'm not like that, really. But the things that I got to explore that were very personal was obviously how she feels about having a parent with Alzheimer's disease.

Exploring what she thinks her future might look like, felt really personal. And then there's just things I insert there that are fun for me. Like her 90s fashion interest is because I was a teenager in the 90s. And stuff like that I can have a lot of fun with. I have the most fun writing her grandfather. because he's so kermaginini. I like writing homogene old men. I just think it's a fun,

really just a fun vibe. And in the second book, I have some great scenes with Gramps. Oh, that's cool. That, where he gets to just be even funnier. I could just, I love that. I could just write him. Well, I think what I'm going to do one day

is write a short story that's just Gramps. Maybe we can put it in, like, I can't bring this up to my publisher, but I'll write a short story, and then we could put it in a special edition or something. That would be cool. Just at the end of like, watch Gramps solve a piece. Oh, I would love that.

Yeah, I like, I like chrimogeny characters in general, really no matter what age or gender they are. Those are some of my favorites because I can be that way. And because you know that there's an outwarness to them, but underneath they're a marshmallow. Yes. It's a Veronica Mars, right? It is. It is. It's that cinnamon roll analogy, I think.

Yes. I love that one too. Yes. I have a lot of fun. I also have a lot of fun. Writing grumpiness is fun. You know? Yeah.

It's just because it's also levity. There's a lot of levity. Oh, yeah. And I need to. You're right. I always say when I write my Billy Levine, her personal life is tough in many ways. The levity comes, obviously, from her grandfather,

but from the crime. Like I always say the crime is not the most serious. part of the book. I have a lot of... No. Right. I suspect... I think I suspend... I'd like to think people suspend their disbelief when they're reading my book because the crimes are sometimes crazy and outrageous. Right. Which is where the levity comes from. And then I... The serious stuff, the stuff that she really has to face comes from her personal life. And that's where I don't... I don't want to... I don't know what's the word. I don't, like, in book two, for example, like, she...

dealing with a lot of anxiety. I don't really want to, like that I take serious. You know, so. Yeah, totally. Right. And I think a lot, a lot of people reading crime fiction kind of know that.

Like, we're all, we're all fine with it being a little bit, like, pumped up for the fun of it. The crime part. So, I'm sorry, there's like a fly trying to take me out. Did the fly from my house go to your house? Oh my gosh, I think so.

It was reminding me, and you might know this book, since you did read Young Adult. This was published in 1998. But when you were saying, like, there's not as much sleuthy stuff, this was the one series when I was a kid that, like, I latched on to and loved, and it was Sammy Keys and a hotel thief. I loved it so much. And it was one of those things were, like, generally growing up, it wasn't like that I was going to, the way I grew up, I wasn't going to be allowed to go, like, right into mysteries and thrillers. But when I think back on the things I read that, like, I really connected with, like, that was one of those books. And I remember even when I was reading yours, whenever a couple months ago, I was like, this is, like,

reminding me of what I loved about, like, reading Sammy Keys and, like, having a girl, like, actually solving stuff. So I just wanted to mention that. I had it pulled up and I totally forgot about it earlier. Sammy Key, so when I was a librarian, one of the most popular series in our library. loved it. Oh my gosh. My daughter is nine and she I was like oh why don't you read Sammy Key? Yeah. I think she will. She's still real she's into graphic novels right now. Okay. Well yeah, I loved it so much. So if anyone has kids that they think might like mystery. It's so fun. Sammy Keys for sure. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. Um, so Billy, you kind of mentioned it at one point. She's kind of stuck between worlds. So she's like, generally, like, follow the rules, P.I.

But she's also, like, connected to some, like, morally questionable people in the mobster world through Aaron. So how did you, like, handle that tension through the whole book and, like, still make it feel like she was making decisions that felt realistic to her? I don't know if I consciously did anything. Yeah. Sometimes, like, I just, when you, like, when I create these people, sometimes they just sometimes they just feel so real that I'm like, well, what would be the issue here? You know, she definitely

still loves Aaron. He was a big part of her adolescence and she cares about his well-being so much. And but she knows in many ways he's bad for her. Yeah. And so I think when I'm writing, I just have to be conscious of both of who they are as people, as real people and make decisions based on that. And of course, my editor would go in and probably be like, that's probably not something she would do, if I had made a mistake in that case, and then having to make adjustments.

But, you know, also there's something about Aaron where he realizes he is the product of a gangster. And I kind of, like, there are not Jewish mobs that I'm aware of anymore in North Jersey. Like, that's not a thing. So that's where somebody actually reviewed my book. I did not read this. My husband's like, oh, read this review.

I was like, no, don't tell me. But somebody was like, I live in Teaneck and, you know, like, I've never heard of Jewish mobs. It's like, yeah, no, I wanted to bring it back. Like in the 19, you know, like Jewish mobs, by the way, you know, we have like a family connection to Bugsy Siegel. Oh, okay. They're not a thing anymore.

I just wanted to have fun and I wanted to play with the trope. And, you know, so I think of Aaron as this guy who, really just like Billy is stuck. You know, his dad is a mobster. And he is the son of a monster. And he learned criminality at a young age,

which Billy points out frequently. And she paints him with that brush. She paints Aaron with that brush all the time. And he gets upset over it. Rightfully so. So there is that conflict between them where, you know, Aaron doesn't necessarily want to be the son of a monster,

but this is the life he knows. And crime is. what he knows. And for him to change course is going to be a great like sacrifice on his part. So there's that. And then of course

Billy who is trying a career where she does have to follow the rules, you know, in order to solve cases. She's not a police officer. So, you know, in many ways she doesn't you know, she's not looking. She doesn't have to use warrants. But she can't just break and enter. So there's things that she has to do

to stay within the law as well. So just by the two nature of these people, like it just creates conflict. Yeah. And they're both, as you were talking about it, it was reminding me they're both kind of, because like she's kind of taking on a family business because she like feels like it's the right thing to do at the time. And then he's also like, am I going to continue doing what my family did? So they're actually kind of paired similarly there as well.

Yep. Yeah. And that was a deliberate choice for sure. Yeah. Cool. Nice. But yeah. And then of course it just creates sexiness.

It just feels sexy. Right. Yeah. He's like an actual bad boy. Yeah. I know. I'm doing legal things. I was like, yeah.

Sometimes I text my friend if we're like buddy reading or something and I'm like, the way I'm attracted to men that I shouldn't be feels alarming in books. But that's why they're so great. Books are such a safe space. for us to just observe people doing things that we would never do in a million years, never wanted to do in a million years. Like, that's why I enjoy TV so much because it's other people's drama. Like, I watch something like, this is amazing.

I wouldn't want this to be my life. I mean, the stress, but I will watch it. I like spy girls. I love spy thrillers. That's what I was going to bring up. And my husband and I, I was like, who knew we would be spy junkies? Yes. It's so stressful to watch what's going on.

on for them but that's on my life like i get to sit back over here and enjoy this but i man i i'm obsessed with mick heron's slow horses series on apple tv and i read all the books okay i need to review i i love it it's a spy thriller british spy thriller my five yeah but it so the books are the books are incredibly well done they have a lot of dry british humor oh my gosh this is up my alley. Okay, so Mick Heron, R-R-H-E-R-O-N. Okay. And a ton of humor, but action, they're incredibly, he's such a great writer. The voice is brilliant. I love that. Mick Heron's supposed to be at a writer's conference next year in Boucher Con next year, 2024, and I'm going, and I'm going to fan girl hard, just fair warning if the man's out there. I mean, I feel like I'm going to start

reading them and I'll be right there with you. Please, if you do, please have me back on and we can just talk about making parents for as long as you want. I'm totally down to do that. I love, I love meeting people and they're like, like, sometimes I'll be like, oh, what are you watching on TV? Because I'm like, hoping everybody watches television. And when they're, I'm watching the series.

And so I'm like, oh, let's talk about it. You know, I want to be that person. I just. Me too. I'm that way, I'm so much that way about spy thrillers, too. So I loved your point about like, you're experiencing things. that you won't experience in your regular life because my friend Gare reads a lot too, but he doesn't necessarily read spy thrillers.

And so there's even a clip of it from early on in our podcast where he was like, you were just an adventurous woman. And I was like, from my couch, sure. Like if I'm sitting on my couch, you can call me adventurous, I guess. Yes. I love them for that reason. They are so fun. I got obsessed with Eva Glass's Alias Emma series last year.

the first one came out last year and then i actually just got the arc of the second one and i was like i could read like 10 of these books like i just love them so much that's that's i binge read mccarran and i haven't been here like that because normally i've become fan a series i got to wait for the books you know what i mean right but the books were all out and i read them all like just one after the other. In fact, I think it kind of seeped into my writing for book two because I was reading so much of them while I was drafting. I'm getting my edits back in a week.

I'll be interested to see what my editor says. She's like, well, it seems a little different here. We'll see what she says. But he's such a great writer. Just the written word in his hand was like beautiful. I am so excited. Please. Then we'll talk about it.

Yes. Yeah. I'm totally down. I have a whole conversation. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's, it's my favorite. Like, if when, especially because like, obviously you're really passionate about it. But I love that when it's like, when you both read something that you're just absolutely obsessed with. And then you can talk about it for like an hour or more. Yes.

And unfortunately, I don't often get that interaction with a lot of people. Like, my husband's not a reader. You know, and friends will, I, it's fun when I read a book and I'm like, you should read this book. One of my friends will just read whatever I recommend her. because she's such an avid reader and then finally like then i'll be like ah um yes but i don't always get to do that so it's so fun when you run into people like that's why i know like when i meet strangers like oh you know you're making chit chat and small talk you're like oh what do you watch i'm tv i know i like always assume people are like people will have something they watched recently

that they could talk about definitely with tv it's like the easiest thing to go to if i don't want to do like small talk about the weather yeah but then some people are like i don't know i just don't watch watch. I'm like, do you read? And they're like, no. And I'm like, what do you do with your life? Or they only, sometimes like they'll just be watching reality television, which is fine, but that is the one genre I do not watch. Yeah. I used to watch a lot more of it. And then I started reading more and it just completely fell off. What was the other thing that was making me think of? Oh, that's been my favorite part about like bookstagram and like talking to more people on there is, because I've noticed it's like people.

directly near me. First of all, I'm an introvert to begin with. So it's not like I have tons of in-person friends either, but it's like I wasn't running into people in my like literal town or the people I'm geographically located next to who had read a bunch of the books that I did. And so then, but it's like I've always wanted to talk about them. So that was part of why I started this podcast even. And then you get to know more people on like books to Graham. And then you're like, oh my gosh, I'm reading that one right now. And that's been my, my, literally my favorite part is that you find people just anywhere in the world who are reading and like watching the same things yeah i love it instant connection yeah that's exactly what

it feels like like it just doesn't feel awkward because you're like actually talking about stuff you both really love 100 so what would your do you have any recommendations for books have you loved anything recently? I'm throwing the question back at you. What have you loved that you've read and watched recently? So TV I could, well, TV I definitely recommend slow horses on

Apple television. Yeah, if you have Apple TV. What else would vibe in? So I've been reading a ton this summer. I've been reading a lot of historical fiction or trying to get my hands on on historical fiction because I'm working on another project that's historical. Wow. Well, I have a bachelor's in history, and as a librarian.

Research isn't really too far out there for me, but I'm reading right now. So I was talking about newspaper writers as being really, newspaper reporters being really strong writers. Yeah. So I'm reading, not that Jake Tapper needs help selling his books, but I'm reading the Hellfire Club by Jake Tapper. That's the first of history. And it's set in 1954. Oh, wow. in DC.

So I've been reading that, and he's very good. He's good. He's great. Another newspaper reporter who's a great writer is James Keely, Q-U-E-A-L-L-Y. He wrote two novels set in Newark, New Jersey, and they're fantastically written. Nice.

If people want to learn out to construct a sentence using specificity and, like, me, oh, so great. He's a great author, too. What else? I read House of Good Bones to Kingfisher. That was fantastic. I really like her work. I also read What Moves the Dead.

Just they're short and they were perfect. I felt very accomplished. I was like, oh, I'm done with the book. Can I return it to the library? I swear, reading takes me a while now because I also can't read anymore for enjoyment, I feel like. I can. I felt like for her, not a problem. But when I read a really great writer, I'm like,

trying to dissect and reconstruct how they write to see if I can pick up something and it really it's just ruined me. It's ruined me. Oh no. I know. I recently read Save the Cat. You mentioned that earlier and I read Story Genius a few months before that and it hasn't taken the enjoyment but what I do find myself doing is like marking all the parts of the pacing and I'm like okay this is how she broke into too and like it it does make it more it makes it a different experience though too that's genius so when I tell people who are writing for the first time they're learning I'm like deconstruct your favorite book yeah like map it just be like all right I'm reading why you have to get really meta about it you have to think about your thinking and then yeah you know you have to deconstruct the novel

my favorite author in the entire world is holly black holly black is my favorite author is my favorite author We don't write in the same genre. She is brilliant with her narrative voice. Like she's just, have you read Holly Black? I have not. This is the cruel prints, right? I've seen it all over book talk. She's been writing.

So she and I, I've met her at book signings. When I was a librarian, I was like, if I ever meet Holly Black, we have so much in common. What do we have in common? We're both from Monmouth County, New Jersey. We both went to, um, the college of New Jersey, it's undergrad. We both went to Rutgers Library School. Wow. That's what we have in common, three things. But I was like, that's my icebreaker. If I ever meet her. I did meet her, and that's what I started with. She's so lovely in person. But her writing, the woman

never fails to just capture, like, I am stuck in a, like, she is an auto buy. An auto by this woman. And I don't buy books anymore because as a librarian, I'm a library user. I also know a shelf space. and like my library my shelves in my house like house are kind of pathetic somebody would be like you're an answer I was like listen but I mean I just filled mine in for the aesthetic because otherwise I'm an e-reader so I too am an e-reader because I can make the font super big and yes that's how I feel I like opened one of these recently and I was like how are people reading like this all the time like I make a large huge I'm going to be reading books like Sherlock Holmes yes I have to I I read on my e-reader or I get from the library.

And right now I'm reading the Hellfire Club on the Libby app. Nobody has a Libby app. You should have the Libby app. Yes. And so, but she's incredible. But yeah, Cruel Prince, you can start with the Cool Prince. That's a great series. If you want to go back to her first book, Tyth, that's wonderful.

Okay. It's a great Halloween read. Tithe is like a great Halloween read. I read it like every October. Modern fairy tales. Oh, she would. So good. That looks really fun.

It's wonderful. And it's, that's like, that's how she started. I could just talk about Holly Black all the time, too. I love that. She's, yeah, we don't, like, but I, I'll read her work. And again, I will pick up things like, she has just great word choice, like the right adjectives and verbs to convey things without having to fluff up the work, so to speak. I like the efficiency of the way she uses. Because she described things.

You can picture everything clearly. She doesn't like gloss over that. You know, she's not a lyrical writer. I mean, I don't, but she's just such a, there's so much of meat in there that I just feel like it. I mean, you've sold me. So my TVR is just growing a million miles long this summer. So I can't even imagine because my,

I don't have a TVR. too because you know friends books I want to read and yeah they want I need to read for research and there's just not enough time in the world to read I know there's not and then to read back lists that's what happened to fall in love with a writer you're like what else have they yes that just happened to me with like two authors Julia Heberlin and someone else where I read there a book that came out this year and then I was like oh my gosh they have four more books I need to read. It's so easy to have it happen. Yep. Well, where can people follow you so they can keep up with everything, especially since they're going to be more Billy Mysteries? There are. So,

um, so I think, do I have a book up here? Oh, look, I do. I can even show it. Nice. How pretty it looks in the light. It's so pretty. I love that cover. So we're working on the cover art now for book two and I'm being a pain of the butt I'm sure to my publisher I'm like but the book one is so beautiful we have to make sure book two is equally beautiful because I went into barns and nobles in New York to sign some stock when I was in the city and yeah the staff were like yeah when we saw the book we thought the cover was gorgeous I was like beautiful um so book book two is going to be called devil and profile and it'll be out in March of next year book three does not have a title

I'm drafting it now and that'll be out I think in March of 2025 which is so weird in the future but you can all find me under my name Kimberlyjjaratano.com and then you know everything's

all my social is on the website so you can find me there you can Google my name you can Google a book if you forget how to spell the last name I married in Italian so yeah hence the law name very Italian last name.

Yeah, I was like, there's so many, I mean, my maiden name is so phonetic. And then I married in Taratano. Yeah. Yeah, and then you can just, you, I, like, if you forget, I spell, just Google the title. Yeah, definitely the dancing queen. But yeah, so Devil in Profile will be out next year. And that has, that was a lot of fun to write. So I hope that comes across.

There's a lot of funny scenes in there. There's a Hanukkah scene. that I wrote that I had a really lot of fun with. Yeah. There's a lot, that, that books a little, it's a little bit more Jewish than the first one because I got, I got a rabbi making an appearance. Although I shouldn't say all this.

My, my editor can come back and be like, you know, I'll have to cut that scene with the rabbi. Oh my gosh. I don't know, yeah. I haven't got my edits. So I shouldn't be talking my good game until, until it's out there. But, yeah.

I'm sure it's going to be great. Yeah. So if you are, if everyone's interested, if they like that, of a dancing queen then I hope they'll pick up book two and then book three because the only way I'm getting a book four and five is to come we do that go pick it up yeah yeah awesome well thank you for being on the podcast thank you so much for having me I had a blast I love I'm an extrovert which is rare for writers so I'm like I'm an extrovert when I talk about books so

that's true you're right but there are moments probably where we're more extroverted I hope you enjoyed this episode of Between the Lines. And if you did, the biggest thing you can do to support the podcast is to go rate and review it on whatever platform you listen on. You can also follow me on Instagram at The Girl with the Book on the couch. And if you still need more thrillers in your life, check out Killing the Tea. My other podcast where I talk to my friend Gare about literally everything we read.