Bookwild - Lie By the Pool by Susan Walter: Multiple POVs, Timeline Hopping and Reveal After Reveal

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

This week, I talk with Susan Walter about her LA-based, fast paced thriller Lie By the Pool!Follow Susan on Instagram hereCheck out her website hereLie By the Pool SynopsisBree’s new home is luxurious and private, with a fancy Beverly Hills address. What a shame it’s not hers. Widowed, penniless, living in her car, and out of options, she’s climbed the fence and crashed in the pool house. All she wants is a good night’s sleep. But when Sophie, the absentee owner, finds her, she gets a whole lot more.Sophie invites Bree back for a party. When it winds down, Bree can’t resist sneaking upstairs to sleep in a real bed. But the next morning, she wakes to find Sophie’s dead body floating in the pool. As the resident vagabond, she’s both the only witness and the prime murder suspect.Bree knows she shouldn’t run, but her husband’s death was mysterious, too. If she’s going to clear her name, she’s going to have to work fast. Because the killer is still out there, and she’s next. 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 to one of my new favorite authors who will be an auto buy forever for me. Her name is Susan Walter. And today we're going to be talking about lie by the pool, but I also recently read over her dead body and loved that so much. So I am becoming a super fan of Susan Walter. But lie by the pool is about Bree. Bree's new home is luxurious and private with a fancy Beverly Hills address. What a shame it's not hers. widowed, penniless living in her car and out of options. She's climbed the fence and crashed into the pool

house. All she wants is a good night's sleep, but when Sophie, the absentee owner, finds her, she gets a whole lot more. Sophie invites Brie back for a party. When it winds down, Brie can't resist sneaking upstairs to sleep in a real bed. But the next morning, she wakes to find Sophie's dead body floating in the pool. As the resident vagabond, she's both the only witness and the prime murder suspect. Bree knows she shouldn't run, but her husband's death was mysterious too. If she's going to clear her name, she's going to have to work fast because the killer is out there and she's next. One of my favorite things about both of Susan's books that I've read so far is how insanely

cinematic they feel and they also both have these huge cast of characters where you switch through multiple POVs. Sometimes you're even like really far into the book and I'll always. a sudden you get a new POV. And it's like picking up on all of these little clues to understanding the story through each character's point of view. That combo of really cinematic writing and really complex characters and multiple of them makes the books like so addictive to me and I just cannot put them down. So I was so excited to talk to her about how her career as a screenwriter has influenced how she writes her books. So let's get into it. Today we're going to talk about your most recent release, which is live by the pool. But I did want to get started kind of getting to know a little bit about you.

And so from what I read in your author bio, I was so surprised by how many things you've done. But it sounds like you kind of started off thinking you might want to be a violinist, then kind of switched into maybe newscasting, and then got into, TV and film production and did screenwriting and now you're writing thriller fiction now. But what was like the moment, whether it was like with screenwriting or the books, like what was the moment where you were like, I want to write something. Like I have something in me to write. Well, first I need to say that the musician career and the newscaster career were very short-lived because I was terrible at both of those things. I loved playing the violin and there's a lot of musical elements in Live By the Pool.

Yes. She probably picked up on the lead character is not a violinist. She's a pianist because I thought that's more fun at parties. Yeah. But I was supposed to be a violinist. I went to Juilliard Summer School and, you know, I was already on course to do that. And it just made me really unhappy. although I will say that practicing violence six hours a day was really great training for being a writer

where you are alone in a room just you and your art so yeah it perhaps was formative but I was not meant to be a musician and then when I was in college I got an internship at a news station because I thought I wanted to report the news and they actually they actually gave me a shot they gave me a small story and like 11 o'clock news and i was i was like so bad i was like twitchy and viewers were like legit concerned that there was like i was a medical episode on air or something and so they're like no you're not an on-air person so then i'm like oh what am i going to do so i came out to hollywood and that was a that was a long stint like i did a lot of things i did production and I ran movie sets and I worked with big movie stars and it was exciting and exhausting

but I always wanted to be part of the creative conversation right there's like the production people who actually do the nuts and bolts of getting the TV show or movie made and then there's the story people and I was a production person like really wanting to be a story person so I quit movie sets and I started writing scripts and I had some success. It took me 13 years, but I finally got a movie made, which I also directed. And that was starring Sharon Stone and Tony Goldwyn and Ellen Burstam. And that was like the greatest experience of my life, but it took 13 years. And I'm like, I don't have another 13 years. Yeah. The pandemic came and I had started writing a book. I didn't think I could finish the book

is so many words and I'm like I'm not an author but there was really nothing else to do um we're all home like I was washing my groceries and sitting at a computer right and um yeah finish the book and that was good as dead which is my first book and um I was able to get a book agent almost right way. My movie industry contacts helps. It's a different pool, but they do talk, so like my movie producer friends, no book agents,

and they graciously made introductions that resulted in me getting an agent and then a two-book deal. So, yeah, it's funny because I wrote Good is Dead just, you know, I had started it and put it down and then came back to me. And it worked.

But then when I got a two-book deal, I had nine months to write a second book. I didn't really know what I was doing. Yeah. So that was scary. I bet. And I didn't really know what I was doing. But I have to say, I know I'm not allowed to have favorites,

but that second book over her dead body, it's like, it's zany and it's fun. And I just wrote from my heart. And I just wrote big and bombastic because I didn't really have craft. but it kind of all came together and I'll tell you I learned craft in the process I reached out to other authors and other editors and asked for notes like I worked so hard on that book and probably now I'm working on my sixth book right now but of all of them it's the one I'm most proud of yeah I well I loved that one that was the first one that I read I can't believe you didn't have craft going

into it though it is like there are so many points of views going on you like alternate timelines there's so much going on i can't imagine that like that's that's just wild to me that you're like oh i was just kind of like going at it with this one because the way it all came together was so cool well you want to know the funny thing so i was on deadline so i was like okay i have to make an outline and yeah um otherwise you know because i was nervous and i was like i need to have a plan and I wrote the plan and I was like good okay I know how it's going to end and then I started writing it and I got maybe 20 25% into it and I started to not believe in the plan anymore but I was afraid to veer from it because I was afraid if I took a different turn the pieces wouldn't come together

at the end so I stuck with the plan and I forced it through and I finished the book I had like 78,000 words and my husband read it and I was nervous because I knew that it wasn't great and he just read it and he shook his head he's like no and I was like what and it was due in two months and I realized like

okay this isn't the book I'm gonna just write from my heart write what I love that moment where I felt like I was sticking to a plan that didn't feel fun and true and authentic because it's hard it's hard

It's hard when you're like, you start, you write to a plan, you don't know the characters yet. And they kind of take on a life of their own. And I thought I was being like so irresponsible by not having a plan and just going where my heart was and having fun and asking questions along the way. Like, well, what would she do? And then I would say things like, well, what's the absolute dumbest, worst, most ridiculous thing she could do? Let's do that. And just having fun. and, you know, I was on deadline with two months to go, but I was like, this is how I'm going to get to the end.

But it all worked out, and I was very happy with the result. And then I went to Boucher Khan, the big thriller writers conference for the first time this year. And I met some amazing experienced authors, including like David Baldacci and, you know, others have written like 30, 40, 50 books. Right, yeah. I was shocked. I was like very few. I would say like one in 20 that I talked. to you. Right. And I always ask, like, do you outline? They're like, nah, how can you outline when you

don't know the characters yet? Yeah. That's what, that's what blows my mind, because I've done, I've done quite a few of these interviews, basically, uh, with authors. And that's what blows my mind to is like the people that I'm sure would be outliners are like, no. And it's like, it's actually like a rare few who are like, yep, I outline it all the way. And then I go and I like fill everything in. Like, I feel like it is a lot more people saying, like, I kind of have the idea and I sit down. And then I just follow what happens as I'm writing. So it is. It's crazy.

That's definitely what I do. And also, you know, I directed a film. And when you're directing a film, it's a very specific preparation when you're directing a film. Because you have to take yourself kind of out of it, see the whole movie and put yourself in the seat of the audience who's watching it. And you have to kind of go on the journey with them and ask yourself. with every scene you direct, like, am I delivering for the audience? What does the audience need to know in this moment? What is the audience expecting?

And how can I surprise them? And that's what I do in writing a book, is I try to put myself in the seat of the reader, and I'll be writing to where I think. I mean, I always think I know where I'm going, and I'll be like, oh, no, this is too predictable. Or I need something completely unexpected to happen now. A lot of times I'll stop it,

like not enough energy and I'll backtrack a little bit and just say what's the most explosive energetic thing I can add and a lot of times it's it's jumping out of the chronology right you don't always write the beginning middle and in order sometimes you have to pop in and reveal something past a flashback or foreshadow something but it's all very intuitive and it's all like the reader comes first what does the reader need to stay engaged in this story yeah yeah it really what what you're saying reminds me of my experience reading your books because there are so many there there's i think every single one i haven't read good as dead but i feel like i saw there were multiple uh there's a large cast in that as well so there's this large cast of characters and it kind of reminds me of tv shows where like the shows

where you kind of spend an episode with someone and then you switch to someone else's perspective and then like everything means something different because you're like in their perspective. So that was like my reading experience of reading your books was so much like TV shows that did that. And I think that's what kind of made me feel like so much of it is cinematic is it reminds me of the pacing of TV and film and the way that like there's not you kind of have your alpha character. like we kind of do have one character that we are like maybe most concerned with in those stories but like everyone else seems just as important and it all it also feels like um all of the characters have their own story arc as well so when you're writing it are you also writing it um where like

you kind of said like sometimes you have to get right into the middle of it but then like bounce back later do you write it chronologic? or do you kind of like start and then you're like all right now we need to jump back six months is that like how you basically which way do you end up writing it i write from page one to page 300 right so if i'm going to pop back in time i don't know it until i get there necessarily so um again it's all about keeping the reader engaged and sometimes when you're just plotting along saying, you know, this would happen on Monday, and this isn't what happened on Tuesday,

and this isn't happened on Wednesday. It's not as gripping as if you bounce around a little bit. And I don't always know where I'm going to bounce. So it's funny. I love the multiple point of view. I feel like that's, it's come more into fashion lately. Like there's a lot more books with a lot of points of view. One book that I absolutely loved,

was Liv Constantine, the Last Mrs. Parish, which is so interesting in terms of really effectively using points of view, right? You start in one character's point of view. And you're in that point of view for the first, I don't know, 100, 150 pages of the book. And you think you know what the quote unquote truth is. And then you flip-flop into what you thought was her competitor or her antagonist point of view. and the whole world opens up and you realize like oh she was not an omniscient narrator there was a whole sector of this universe that she didn't know and um i learned a lot from that book and just how gripping

it was it almost like you overlap in time right so they're telling the story one day Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Thursday Friday from one character's point of view and then this other character comes in and tells the same story from a very different vantage point with a completely different agenda. That's what was exciting is putting these two characters at cross-purposes. And I learned a lot from that book. And I love the dueling first person points of view. And if you do it well, the overlap is just as interesting as introducing new things.

It is. Yeah, I was just talking to Audra McLeer. I think last month. And she brought up a reference to Vantage Point, which was like a movie from like 2010 maybe, from a while ago. But I remember watching it and just being like, this is so cool.

Like you were seeing almost the same series of events, but you traveled through like eight characters, six to eight characters perspectives. So like every time, even though you kind of know like, this is about to happen kind of over there, but you don't know, like, exactly what happened here. So you're just, like, constantly kind of like, even as the audience member, you're like, who am I pulling for? Like, I don't even know who I want to come out on top of all of this.

And I love that approach to stories. I always think that's so fun. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. So what, so I keep talking about how it reminds me of TV and movies. Was there anything from like your screenwriting time and your time directing that you feel like affects your writing now? So definitely the directing, like I said, when you're directing, you always have to factor in what you're trying, what you want the audience to think and feel. So it's very prescriptive. It's very manipulative. It's very deliberate. So that was definitely helpful experience. I would say for screenwriting, the screenwriting almost worked against me

because my first draft of Good Is Dead was a little thin. And thank goodness I had a wonderful editor named Tiffany Yates Martin, who's also an author. She writes under the name Phoebe Fox. And she's a wonderful developmental editor. and she was assigned to me. And every page, she was like, why does she think this?

What letter to this point? You need to go deeper. And I think I added, this manuscript went from about 70,000 words to over 80,000 words. So I added 10,000 words, which was a lot, you know, considering it's like 15% more book.

But all of it was deepening. Like, because as a screenwriter, brevity is king. If you can say it, in like a few words and leave a lot to the imagination. There's no room for backstory. You never go into inner monologue, right? What a character is thinking.

Right. And it took some practice to learn how to do that and know when to do that. So again, that was another learning process and the screenwriting. Like I had to kind of forget a lot of the rules of screenwriting and indulge some of that inner monologue that's that you leave to the actors, frankly. Like when you write a script, for the actors to come up with the backstory. There's no room in a script for a backstory. And you may have one in mind, but you don't put it on the page. And you certainly never tell the actors. It's the actor's prerogative to come up with their own backstory that they believe that will get them to where they feel they need to

be. So yeah, the screenwriting was not so helpful in that regard. But the directing was really, really good. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I had never thought of it that way. So another thing that I love about your books, I'm like a sucker for books that take place in L.A. or are near Hollywood. So that happens in both that I've read so far. I'm pretty sure the third one as well. But do you think you'll ever write a book that doesn't take place in L.A.? Or is that kind of like a big like inspiration point? for you as well. I was really glad you asked that because I wrote the three in LA. They're kind of like my my triumvirate. I did definitely the first one is a is a Hollywood adjacent story. I would say you haven't read it yet. But yeah, one of the characters at six points of you and one of them is a screenwriter. One of them is a big Hollywood producer. And it sort of takes place on the edges of that where a woman is kind of plopped into a neighborhood where all these fancy Hollywood people live, and she's not like them at all.

And that immediately raises questions. Like, one of these things is not like the other. And sure enough, like, she's really not supposed to be there. She's there under very dubious circumstances. So there's tension in the fact that she doesn't fit into this kind of slick, artistic world. And people are scratching your head, like, who is this woman? What's her story really? And she's sitting on a story that is explosive and she doesn't want anyone to know.

So that's definitely a Hollywood, I would say, adjacent story. And then the one you read over her dead body. I mean, the main character is a screenwriter. The antagonist is a casting director. So it's definitely deep, deep in that world. And I had so much fun sort of exhuming some of the bodies from Hollywood, like the, the, the corpses that I left behind when I left that world and be able to sort of snark about some of the injustices really that happen, especially to women.

Like I enjoyed being able to say that and I could say it passionately and honestly. So those two books are definitely have flavors of Hollywood. And then the third one does take place in Beverly Hills, but no movie people in it. My old film agent said, stop writing about Hollywood because Hollywood producers don't want to make movies about themselves and I want to sell your books in the movie. So we left the Hollywood world behind and we took the book number three live by the pool takes place in Beverly Hills when a homeless woman takes up residence in a pool house behind a Hollywood mansion. I mean, sorry, Beverly Hills Mansion, not Hollywood. See, I can't even stop saying it.

Rodeo Drive. Rodeo Drive Mansion, exactly. Yeah. But then for book four, I just something completely different. And that comes out this fall, fall 2024. And it's called Running Cold. And it's about a former Olympian who returns to her roots

in the Canadian Rockies. And I don't know if you ever saw the movie The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford. Yes. Yeah. A while ago. Yeah. It's an older movie with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones in which Harrison Ford is accused of murder. murdering his wife.

He didn't do it, but he's still got to go on the run and sort of put the pieces together while he's hiding from the police to solve the murder himself so that he can exonerate himself. And so I love that movie, but I'm like, it should be chicks and they should be in the mountains in a snowstorm. Nice. So a woman wrongly accused of a crime goes on the run in the Canadian Rockies in a blizzard with the police and the actual killer on her.

Whoa. So that one's definitely a movie. Are there any movie producers listening? That was definitely a movie. It has a lot of action and a really great leading role. I want Margo Robbie for it. I'm just going to manifest him. My gosh.

Yeah, let's manifest that for sure. Especially I just saw she did an interview where she was like, I don't need to do it. Like, I think everyone has seen enough of me like this year. So I'll be looking at. for stuff for like next year so like maybe that maybe the timing will just be perfect for margot to margot to do that the book to tv or book to her door hey i got the movie for you want to play an olympian yes totally totally tanya harding so she she likes oh you're right oh man that movie was so good so good um

so i don't know how much you can answer this without giving spoilers but what was your like initial inspiration for lie by the pool. It's one that I tell people like so much of it changes by the end of it that you're like, wow, I wasn't even like predicting this going into it. So I don't know if I don't know if you can answer without spoilers, but if you can, what was like your first like moment of inspiration for that? You know, I'm really glad you asked that because with every book I write like I want to learn something. And look, I have no. experience in law enforcement. I'm not an attorney.

I do know a lot of attorneys and I know a federal prosecutor. And I was just really interested in a specific area of criminality. It's something that's on the fringe of the news. If you're kind of paying attention

to what's happening with some of these big, big lawsuits that are being reported in the news about like racketeering. I was like, what is racketeering? What is that? Yeah. Kind of racketeering has to do with organized crime. So mafia.

Yeah. But not the mafia we've seen like Sopranos, you know, jumping fingers off in a back alley. Like what are the more sophisticated ways that the mafia operates? So that was a arena that I wanted to sort of dive into, but I knew nothing about it. Of course, I took on this book and I pre-sold it and I had a deadline. I was like, well, I know nothing about.

organized crime or how these big like money laundering and how money is moved and and all these more sophisticated crime syndicates work but i mean i was like well i got nine months i'm go figure it out so i definitely i wanted to create a human story um yeah the lead character finds herself widowed and unhoused and alone and how did she get i mean the big mystery is like how did she come to be this way. And she's talented and she was a concert pianist and she was happily married. And like how did it all fall apart? And what did her husband do? Like you get these ominous foreshadowing that her husband was maybe either not a good person or got caught up with bad people, but you don't really know. And I was like, what kind of world can I suck him into? We're all learned something and it's not something

we see in a lot of books. So I guess I wanted to challenge myself and challenge a reader and hopefully you learned a little bit about a world that is fascinating, but that you may not have read about in very much fiction. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. And the end of it feels like an action thriller. Like I would say like the last 20% of it feels, which I love. Like I love an action thriller or even like a spy thriller. It's not a spy thriller necessarily. But like the ending sequences were so much fun because of what I'm trying not to talk about right now. Yeah.

I totally like the beginning, right? It's really hard. It's also really scary when you're when you don't have an outline and you get to 50,000 words. And you're like from 50,000, most of my books are around 80,000 words. And I'm like, okay, I need rising action now. It needs to get bigger and bigger and bigger until the explosive climax, which is like at 75,000 words. And so, like, I always kind of take a deep breath when I get to 50,000 words, which is kind of the calm before the storm. And I know I have to build and it has to be relentless.

And I don't want you to put the book down now. Like, we're going. Right. It's like the horse running for the barn. We're going. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully I've laid enough groundwork by that point.

Yeah. But yeah, thank you for saying that. It's my fourth book, running cold, it's definitely, I mean, it's an action thriller. And when she goes on the run, hopefully you'll have the same experience. It's like freezing cold and blizzarding and the power goes out. And she's all alone and holy moly, people are chasing her. The good guys are chasing her and the bad guys are chasing her. And her world is getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

She's going deeper and deeper and deeper into the wilderness. And that's amazing. The very last scene, you're going to hopefully be holding your breath the entire time. Oh, my gosh. I was like sitting up finishing lie by the pool. I was like, leaned forward and like, what is going to happen right now? I can't afford to be laying down and reading this. Yeah, yeah.

Also, I'm in Indiana where it is very much storming. in blizzarding right now. So hopefully hopefully my story does not turn out anything like your fourth book. But as far as I know, no one's coming after me. So it should be good. So at the end,

I've been asking people what they've read recently that they loved. And I know some people don't read while they're writing. So that's the case. That's fine too. But have you read anything recently that you really loved? I read constantly. I I'm having a love affair with Lisa Jewell.

I've read four of her books in the last. I'd never read her before. Yeah. And I don't know why. It's just like her name kept popping up in my like on my Amazon page. Like if you like this, try this. And I don't know. I just finally I wound up buying the family remains.

Oh my gosh. Yes. I posted on Twitter. I tweeted a picture of the book cover. And I was like so excited this arrived. I'm going to start it tomorrow. And guess you tweeted back at me, the Lisa Jewel. She was like, thank you for buying my book.

Just in case you didn't know, that's the second book in a series. The first one is called The Family of Stairs. And I was like, oh, my God, Lisa Juel tweeted me. That is so cool. So, of course, I went out and I got the, I wound up getting the audio book for the family upstairs and I listened to it in like I don't know 24 hours it's still one of my all-time favorites yeah and the readers were so good that I still have the family remains as a bookbook hardcover but I'm like no I want to listen to the audio book so then I bought the audio book for the family

remains and I listened to those two books back to back in like five days wow yeah I would be the same way course had to read two more of her books. Yeah. New one. None of this is true about the podcast. So crazy. And then I went back and I read the kidnapping one. I can't remember what it's called.

And, and there. The night she disappeared. The night she disappeared. Oh, the night she disappeared. Oh, my God. Yes. I love about her writing. You know, some of the thrillers that I read,

okay, you can kind of read every other page. They're a little bit like, oh, yeah. You know. I know. I know what you're talking about. They have great twists, and I'm totally in awe of some of these twists. I just read one of Riley Sager's one.

The only one left. Yeah, so many twists. Yeah. People pretend it's other people and identities and fake deaths and like so many twists. But they're very, they're very plotted. I mean, it's masterfully plotted. But it doesn't, you know, you don't know what's,

somebody had for breakfast and that, you know, as a kid, they love pancakes and whatever. Right. They don't go into, Riley Sager especially, doesn't go into that. It's not characterized. Yeah, the characterization isn't as big. Right. But Lisa Jules, like the opposite. I feel like her plots are actually fairly simple.

But by the end of her books, you know so much about the characters and such an intimate detail that they could do anything. And you're going to believe it. because she's made them so real. I totally agree. I would even call her literary. Yes. In a way that is rare and wonderful.

So I'm having a little love affair with her. Yes. I still read lots of other stuff. Just to know what plots are out there because I can't do what other people are doing. Like I just won't. Like the whole trope about the woman who won't talk. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just like.

There's already eight wonderful books about a woman in a room who can't talk. I mean, the, like the ladies one, the silent patient was the first one I read. Yeah, the silent patient. Yep. Brilliant. But then I read like six more. And I'm like, okay. Yeah.

I can't do that. Yeah. Because it's already been done and I can't do. I can't. I can't keep that. I have his other one right here, the one that's about to come out. So that's crazy. I'm dying for that.

You got an arc. I did because my co-host, my co-host on my other podcast, he got blurbed in it. So he's like right here as blurb and sent me a copy. And I was like, oh, you are the best. I have it up for your order. I'm dying for that one. Yeah, I know. I'm about to read it.

Right? Yeah, I think the 16th. Yeah, so like four days from now. I know. I love the silent patient. I did too. It's still, it's another one of my top favorites of all time for sure. But yeah.

Yeah, there were a lot of people that did the silent woman after that. right there's so many i won't name yeah you know what they are yeah right another woman who won't talk okay yeah yeah totally and then there's like the notes but did she write the notes or did somebody else like yes and like i said there's a lot of ways to do that and some of them are really brilliant i just like i can't i can't match that brilliance i have to do something else that somebody else wouldn't dare do like right racketeering if you read a book that has racketeering send it my way because it's yeah right that's not like a FBI agent or something like uh from that perspective yeah yeah but yeah I'm constantly reading and I'm going to be now following your Instagram looking for

recommendations because um oh yeah I've been disappointed I had a couple DNF lately I didn't too I had a I had a bunch in December. And then I actually lie by the pool. It was my first read of 2024. And then I read, it was an Amazon first pick deal. Why am I, the real deal? Yeah, first reads. And it's like a, it's billed as like literary, not even literary fiction, like chicklet, contemporary.

But it's, it's the story of like a girl who, well, it's two timelines. So when she was 12, she got cast on a docu series that's like very similar to kind of like dance moms where like she and a group of girls were going to like be under this woman's like tutelage and they would get careers from all of it. But then something really ominous that we don't know what it was happened in the fifth season and it went completely off air. And then in the present timeline, she just got asked to come back and do a reunion show. and so you're like bouncing back and forth trying to figure out what happened so it read like a thriller or at least like a mystery suspense to me so i loved it so i had your book and kately devlin wrote the real deal and so i had two five-star books that started off 2024 so i was so happy because i was dnffing a few in december and i was like oh no do i not know how to pick a book did you read shiver

shiverr. I'm sorry, Ali, I can't remember her last name. S-H-I-B-E-R-1 word. It's a similar concept, only they were Olympic snowboarders on the team. And they have the union up a snowy mountain. And same kind of thing. I don't know what happened those 10 years ago.

Yes. And that if you really like the real deal, like that sort of dual timeline thing. I do. I recommend shiver. And also if you like... Amazing. Yeah, that's true.

I think it's like Chamonnie in France or something. Nice. Yeah. What's your name? Allie. We have to say her name out loud. It's Allie Reynolds. Shiver by Allie Reynolds.

And the cover says they didn't know what I did and I intend to keep it that way. So that sounds very fun. Ooh. That was an inspiration. When you get my arc for a running cold, you'd be like, Oh, she was inspired by Shiver. I see the... That is so cool.

The homage. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to be... I have so many that I want to read right now. I'm like, could I just like not work with that. That would be nice if I didn't have to work anymore. But we'll get there. So where can people follow you to keep up with everything?

All these other books that will be coming out as well. I would say the best place is at Susan Walter Author on Instagram. I try to post both what I'm reading and I'm not a like books to grammar. I don't do reviews. It's kind of awkward for authors to do reviews because you can't say anything less than five stars. Yeah. I mean, you really can't.

You have to support your fellow authors and not all books resonate with all people, but it's a five star read for someone and to give less than five stars. I feel like it's just. Yeah. I don't know. I get it. Like I don't post about books I don't like. I'm just like I don't, I just want to post about the books that I like.

even as a book Instagrammer. Yeah. So if you see big blank spaces where there's like, wow, she hasn't been reading. It's like, no, it does not post it about that. That's the same thing that happens to me. And also have a website, Susan Walter Rider.com. And that one's just like for general information if you want the synopsis of my books. I do have a newsletter that you can sign up for on Susanwalterwriter.com.

But Instagram's a great place. And I love reading. I love reading what people are reading. You can tell when someone's really passionate at a book, and it lights me up to see all you guys listening about the books you love. Me too. I think readers are really special people. We know so much more than other people because we read.

Right. You experience so much more just through like other perspectives and stuff. That's like one of my favorite parts about it. And I'm not adventurous as a person, but I can be adventurous through what I read. But a good writer can take you there. Yes. can have empathy for people that you otherwise wouldn't have. And I just think, man, since I got back into reading, my life has opened up in so ways. My heart has opened up in new ways.

Yeah. So I don't just read thrillers. I like to read biographies. I'm reading Britney Spiritbook right now. I have not read it yet. It's like on my radar. That's one where I think I could listen to the audiobook while I walk my dogs. I feel like I could. Oh my gosh, that is beautiful. It was expensive. It was a splurge. I think it was like $22 or something. Yeah.

But I don't know. I got to support the Britters because she took me some dark times for me. Totally. Totally. That's what I love that. Well, I will put all the links that we just talked about in the show notes so people can find that. But otherwise, thank you so much for chatting with me about books. No, thank you for having me.

It's so nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy. 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.