Bookwild - Putting the Dark in Dark Academia: R.J. Jacobs Talks About His New Thriller This is How We End Things

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

This week, we talk with R.J. Jacobs about his new thriller This Is How We End Things!   We of course dive into some of our favorite subjects: dark academia and cold weather.Follow us on Instagram:Gare @gareindeedreadsKate @thegirlwiththecookonthecouchR.J. @rjjacobs75 This is How We End Things SynopsisCampus is empty, a winter storm is blowing in, and someone is lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to kill again.Forest, North Carolina. Under the instruction of enigmatic Professor Joe Lyons, five graduate students are studying the tedious science behind the acts of lying. But discovering the secrets of deception isn't making any of the student's more honest though. Instead, it's making it easier for them to guard their own secrets – and they all have something to hide.When a test goes awry and one of them is found dead, the students find themselves trapped by a snowstorm on an abandoned campus with a local detective on the case. As harbored secrets begin to break the surface, the graduates must find out who's lying, who isn't, and who may have been capable of committing murder. It turns out deception is even more dangerous than they thought...   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 

And we are going to be discussing all things, chills, thrills, and kills. Kate and I are going to be talking about our favorite books, TV shows, and movies that are in the thriller or crime fiction genre, as well as some reading habits and other items related to how we met on Bookstagram that will fit in with this podcast. So thank you so much for joining us. And we hope that you have fun and get totally terrified. Thank you so much for coming to hang out with us tonight. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're super pumped to talk about your newest. This is how we end things.

Mine's on here. I love this cover. I'm obsessed with this cover. Yeah. Obsessed. The blown up image you had of it too is pretty cool. I think you posted it on like the day it came out. Oh, yeah.

somebody did that. Oh, really? It wasn't me. Yeah. No, I wish I could take credit for that. Very artistic, yeah. Well, that's even cooler. Yeah.

So do you want to, like, kick things off by just kind of telling people, like, your elevator pitch as to what it's about? Oh, sure. So Kate and I don't end up spoiling anything. So it's about graduate students in. psychology at a university in North Carolina, and they are running an experiment that involves some deception. And when the experiment goes awry, one of the graduate students doesn't make it out of the department that night. And as a snowstorm comes in, they all become suspects.

Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. And it is a hell of a snowstorm coming in. So our fall, winter friends, you're going to enjoy the setting very much. We have been talking about that, like, fall and winter settings and, like, how much, like, we prefer fall and winter over, like, the warmer months. We've been talking about that since, like, May. The warmer months. So, this was, like, the perfect read to, like, kick off fall reading. Oh, perfect.

Yeah, I was in North Carolina kind of looking at little colleges at the time that I was kind of coming up with the plot and I don't know if you guys have ever lived in the south but a snowstorm can be pretty disruptive and so it makes it you know there's just not the infrastructure to kind of make things go or clear the streets or any of that stuff so that was kind of where the idea got hatched yeah how did you like are you like a big plotter or do you kind of like know a few things and then like go along with like whatever sparks your interest. Because this one is very complex. I think it's probably your most complex one yet, in my opinion.

There's a lot of like, you know, we'll just call them like R.J. Jacobs Easter eggs because they're very like Taylor Swift-esque parts of the story that you like give a little nugget of information or a little Easter egg, we'll say, about like what's to come. and to kind of have people leave their jaws on the floor as you're like taking them through this trek. So what was your like inspiration? Like what made you come up with this idea? Because it's very complex and it's very like very well detailed throughout. So I can imagine this is one you've been thinking about for a little while.

Yeah. I actually was a participant in an experiment kind of like the one that's described when I was an undergrad. Oh my god. That is amazing. I was an actor who pretended to disagree with a very obvious like group decision making process. And the participants didn't really know kind of what was going on. And so I sat in on some of the debriefings at the end. And you could tell that they were kind of irked to have the wool pulled over their eyes because basically nobody likes to be tricked. And so I guess I had like thoughts about that for a long time.

And then, you know, when I was in grad school, you know, long hours, late nights in a department where probably you're the only person in the building. It's pretty easy to get up in your head. I can imagine. You hear a sound at the end of the hall and you wonder if you're alone up there or you've got to walk across campus at the, you know, kind of late. hours. So some of that stuff I think got stored. And plus there's all this cool stuff in graduate school for psychology. Like there's one-way mirrors.

And we used to have this, what they used to call like a bug in the ear where you could hear feedback in real time. And there's just, you know, it's just sort of unique type of equipment. And then I was, I guess I'd wanted to set a mystery in a psychology department for a long time. So I started to kind of plot it out. well i'm glad that inspired it and you weren't like well i killed someone when i was about studying changed a few characters and no one's gonna find now that's hilarious i do you think of that yeah did you imagine um we're like well thanks for coming um but yeah i just um i absolutely loved it because i love the way that you tell a story and dark academia is like one of my

favorite, like, subgenres of a thriller. So what made you decide, like, now's the time that I'm going to dive into Dark Academia? Because, I mean, you did this at the perfect time, you know, like people are, are finding these books with the campus settings, and they're falling in love with them. And every time somebody reads one right now, they're like, I want more, I want more. So was it just like, I'm finally ready to, like, get this story out into the world? or was there anything that like inspired at? I wish I was that sophisticated of a marketer. But I had just wanted to, my previous book didn't have anything really to do with psychology very much at all.

And I just kind of wanted to get back to what I knew and really had thought about one like in an academic department. And then people started to say as I pitched it and talked about it with my agent. I said, oh, this is dark academia. And my daughter was actually very into dark academia. So I was like, tell me a little bit about what this entails. So it came together pretty loosely. Yeah. Not in a particularly well thought out way, but, you know.

That's amazing. You're like, I just kind of stumbled into it. I didn't know it was a big deal. Yeah. That's how I do. That's cool. That's amazing. Yeah.

Yeah, we're obsessed with it. We talk about Dark Academia almost every week. I feel like we start to find a way to bring it in. I could weasel it into any conversation. Like, you could be telling me what your Taco Bell order is. And I would. Maybe Dark Academia is our Roman Empire. It could be.

It very well could be. So, well, I'm a little bit curious on, like, what some of the, like, advice or what some of the things your daughter told you that, like, you should. Oh, yeah. I, you know, I did. didn't really know that much about it until during the pandemic. She writes too. So she writes too. She writes like fan fiction. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. She's so she's really talented at it. And she was saying that this was a theme that she was interested in. And she wanted to take some

pictures. And so we went over to Vanderbilt's campus and on the old campus, the buildings are this Gothic architecture. And there's this one part of it specifically. called the Scarrett Bennett Center where it's all stone and she was taking these black and white pictures. And I think that was the first time I ever heard the term dark academia because she said, I want this for like a mood board. And so I was like, yeah, cool, I'm into it. Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of like a lot of things where it means different things to different people. But in my book club, it's almost all professors. And I said something about dark academia and one guy said Jake is there any other kind?

Oh, I love that. Very true. Very true. That's perfect. Yeah, I love that. How did you like, so there are five students, I believe. Yeah. How did you like, did you have like five characters that like came to mind or like how

did you settle on having that many? Because you also certainly, we also like go through different points of view throughout the whole book. Yeah, so they say that it's like meeting people at a party where you don't want to overwhelm the reader with too many at once. And one thing that I learned speaking of grad school is that when you're doing a group psychology group, like a therapy group, the magic number is about eight. So because it keeps everybody talking. there's no social loafing but it's not

so you can't have too much diffusion or sort of undue responsibility for talking so that was kind of the idea I wanted to have essentially like a therapy group of characters so that was kind of

and then that's cool kind of like in academics really the university settings really bring out the eccentricities of people. And in fact, yeah, I spent years, of course, like in that high-red environment. And I feel like that's a place where people who are eccentric or unusual kind of thrive.

And I actually always enjoyed that about college studies, that differences are celebrated. People can kind of be who they are. Really, it's all about kind of what you can pull off in terms of your work. And people are on their own schedules. I always thought that was really cool. Yeah. That's what it was reminding me when I talked to Ashley Winston about, her dark academia in my dreams I hold a knife um she was talking about how she liked that age like obviously it's a little younger than years in grad school but it's like because you're like kind of an adult but you're also not like 100% sure of anything so she was saying how it's like really fun like it's it's kind of easy to come up with character arcs for people because like the like you are changing so much

at that time of your life and I was like what if that's why I love these books too it's so vivid right? Isn't that like it's a time where it seems like it really stands out to people and people think of it as an important time in their life and probably kind of like you're saying, Kate, there's kind of an experimental piece to it. Yeah. Or identity. You know, everybody probably has pictures from college that they wouldn't want passed around. But like people dress in different ways or they sort of try on a different way of being or a different. even like an accent accents sometimes come out or yeah and so you know that's that's part of the process right yeah i went to i had a girl who lived in chicago on my like i was kind of closer my freshman year and when i came back my mom was like why are you pronouncing that like you're from chicago i was like i don't know i didn't know that i was yeah well at least you got told that i feel like when i went to

college, like, everybody told me that I spoke, like, Kristen Cavalieri from Lucroo Beach. Oh, my gosh. I'm not going to, I'm going to, like, always see that now. Yeah, like, people would have, like, I would, like, go hang out with people and they'd be, like, say, Stephen. That's funny. Like, her thing is, like, Stephen.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. But it's also, like, really interesting, too, because you have all of these people who finally have the freedom from under, like, any sort of guardianship. So like anything that they've ever wanted to do that they weren't allowed to, it's like the minute that they could drive past nine o'clock. It's like here's, you know, this one place where everybody kind of has this like wild freedom and wild shit can happen, you know? So I think that's like why like I kind of like dark academia too because it's like you kind of wonder about people being in that setting and having the opportunity to get away from things because they're not so heavily watched as.

they are, you know, in high school and younger. All right. So this is interesting, guys. We're talking about academia. We're talking about it all in terms of how exciting it is and trying on new identities, pieces and so forth and all the freedom that's intoxicating. Why is it dark? I think that's what happens.

Murder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Murder. Murder usually makes things dark. But I also think that like it becomes dark academia because you, you see the bad. people when they have that freedom, when they have that expression.

That's a better answer than murder. And the murder could be included, you know, like, I mean, you just, you kind of have that, almost that anonymous ability to do anything that you want because these people don't know you. You know, if you go to a high school party and you do something that's embarrassing, everybody's going to know about it the next day. If you go somewhere in front of a bunch of strangers and you do something embarrassing, you kind of don't really give a shit because they don't really know who you are. And if they do, you could be like, my name's Jason. And that's not your name.

So they'd be like, oh, Jason like did this. But then you also have this like opportunity to be anonymous in your darker thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, usually they center around murder too. but I think it's kind of that, I think it's kind of that thing of like, yeah, betrayal, cheating. But, you know, you have that ability to to kind of feel like you have that invincibility to get away with things that you don't normally. Yeah.

And you're like really impressionable, my video. And you're really impressionable with your peers since you're like trying to figure out where you're going to fit in. So that like kind of ups the tension of. at all. Yeah, I think that there's definitely a reason why college and chameleon start with the letter C. Because when you start off as a freshman, you can be anybody you want to be and nobody knows any different. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, so my son just started college. This is his freshman year. Wow. And he went to a smaller school and everybody's from everywhere. So, you know, people were kind of getting to know each other.

It's not like the sort of thing where if you go to certain schools, like people come in and they feel like it's like high school part two. This was like people from all over the country were showing up there. So he just kind of went through that process. It's interesting to hear you guys talk about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is.

It is an exciting time. You don't have that tight parental. Yeah, you don't have that tight parental advisory that you usually do. and everybody is in that same position. You know, like there's a large campus full of people that are all experiencing the same thing and all have the ability to kind of do whatever they want. You know, it's like, it's a wild time. Even like, even not so much like dark academic, like one of my favorite books is Tell Me Lies by

Corolla Lovering. Uh-huh. Yeah. And without being a thriller, it really exposes people going to college. and letting the dark aspects of their personality come out. Yeah. So that's great. You know, but yeah, I mean, you did a fantastic job with the psychological aspect and the characters.

Like, what I really enjoyed about this one is that you have all these characters that are pretty much going through the same thing. You know, if they're not in the morgue. They're pretty much going through the same thing. But they all have different other things. going on in their lives on top of it that are adding to that stress. You know, so I really enjoyed that aspect, too, because it made them feel very realistic to me. But I really enjoyed that along with, I kind of wanted to talk to you about the fact that you

had a very police procedural aspect in this one that was very believable. So did you just like binge a lot of like law and order or like did you like have any like advice from anybody in law enforcement when it came to. Yeah. There's there's a metro cop in Nashville that I call all the time to try to get stuff right. And in the beginning, you know, well, I mean, I will say that like to some degree it's just practical that if there's a crime. it's going to be investigated. You've got to figure out how that's going to happen. But

I haven't really had a police officer character very prominent in the story before in my other books. But yeah, I was talking to my friend Matthew a lot about you know, gosh, okay, so this would happen and then this would happen and

trying to get that part right. Yeah. I think you nailed that because I was really expecting, I mean, the story's like very focused on, on these students. Don't get me wrong. But when Larson shows up in the book, I was just expecting Larson to kind of be somebody who like popped in here and there through the other character's perspectives. So having her be such a large character in the book, I was like, you know, we've got the dark academia, we've got the police procedural. And then there's like the dark cloud going over all of this murder where it's like,

there's a storm coming. So it was very much like scream meets like Agatha Christie for me with like a little bit of Luther. Oh, nice. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I wanted one thing that I was thinking about as I was writing Larson's character was how insular and bubble like colleges can be and how there's sort of that ivory tower

mentality sometimes and how there's like, you know, what they call like, town and gown and that division. And I wanted to highlight that a little bit because she really doesn't know very much about what's going on. In fact, she hasn't even lived in the town for very long. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

So she's seeing it all with fresh eyes. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that kind of like loops us back around to, you know, the things that people think they can get away with in college and why, you know, they. they kind of go into those like darker desires because I think there's also like a little bit of a safety

when you're in college that there's you know if you do something bad the people that have witnessed it or the people that were around chances are they did something bad too so it's almost like this like very large secret society in which like nobody's ratting on anyone you know so when she kind of goes into this situation it's like in her this is just how I took it too. If I'm wrong, then, you know, so be it. But it's almost like when she went into it, she was more skeptical

than she would have been in any other situation because it almost seemed like they were all like kind of like protective of one another. You know, because of the experiments and all of that good stuff.

So my dog's trying to make an appearance. I don't know if you guys are hearing wrong with this, but. My dog is suspiciously quiet, so I'm a little, I know, I'm nervous, but. I don't know which is worse. Yeah. One of my favorite things in a thriller is any sort of inclement weather. I don't know what that says about me.

Just like the, I think there's like this contrast in having that mentality of like, inclement weather's coming let's like hunker down and be cozy and like people look forward to it and then when it's a story like this it's like it's very isolating and like scary you know compared to that whole let's hunker down and be comfortable and like watch movies and things like that and then with with this sort of situation it's like you know if something happens to me the police are going to take longer to get to me sort of like isolation. So, I mean, even without the storm, this book would have been, you know, a great, entertaining and fast-paced read.

So, like, what was your decision in, like, being like, you know what? I'm just going to throw a snowstorm on top of all this, too, to, like, really make it, like, the trifecta of what people want a thriller. Well, so there's a couple of things. So one was just sort of the practicalities of it making it more difficult for the characters to get around and get in and out of the town. So I really wanted to be essentially like a locked room mystery. And there was a time where I thought, gosh, would they just call for backup? You know, or would police from other precincts or other jurisdictions be coming in to help figure this out?

So I wanted more of a sense of isolation. And also with inclement weather or a big storm like this, it's the ultimate lack of control. It's the, it's Mother Nature's Trump card that you can never undo. It reminds you that

for as much as you're trying to control the circumstances, there's a layer of it that you won't be able to. Yeah. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, did keep him from leaving,

too. That makes sense because like since they all probably live elsewhere, they're kind of like stuck there instead. Yeah. And there's also, like there's also like

what I'm trying to say this without having a spoiler. There's like one scene two where in the storm someone was like very adamant about going somewhere and like realized later that they

didn't have their cell phone with them. And to me that added like such a level of panic because like I live in upstate New York like I go to Canada to get my groceries. So like, oh yeah. Snowstorms

are no stranger to me and like I have had to call people. I have gotten in car accidents and snowstorms. I went off the road like more times than I can count and like that whole panic of being anywhere in a snowstorm without your cell phone just adds like such an insane level

of like horrifying. So that was like one part that I was like, I know what I like I know where you're going with this and like why you're doing it but like even like on another level I was like this is like terrifying like even if there wasn't a killer and it was a romance that you were writing just that alone yeah just that alone I was like don't know well I grew up in southwest Florida and I had never seen snow before I moved to Tennessee and

all it which it's kind of an interesting thing when you know you live that far south like all of like Christmas stories, holiday stuff. It's all really hypothetical. You know, like building a snowman, Santa coming down a chimney. It's very unrelatable as a kid. And so I didn't really have a sense of even how it worked until I moved here. And, you know, in a place like Nashville, you know, a snowstorm will shut your city down for a couple of days until it starts to melt. And I totally got in my car the first year I was here and just slid right to.

down a hill. I was lucky I didn't cream anybody because I had no sense of how to drive in it at all. And so I think part of it was like my own fear that I had a respect for the weather after an experience like that. Yeah, I can imagine. My first time driving in the snow, I like gave it like a little like test run and I was like, oh, I'll be fine. And then the next thing I know, I was like spinning in the middle of the road and my car like landed between two trees and like like in between two trees that like neither door would open. Oh my God. Like I was like and now I'm like well into my 30s. I'm not going to say how old I am. I'm well into my 30s and I'm still like if it's snowing, I'm not going kind of like. Yes. Yeah my dog's wait, you're a dog owner now though. So that might have to

change a little bit for you. for what you might have to walk in the snow I don't mind walking in the snow I'm not driving in it I'm not driving in it okay I'm not I cannot drive in it because like I just have like PTSD but no I will walk him in the snow

but I don't worry about it but he's like a sensitive little guy so I'm assuming maybe he won't want to he'll probably go out there like I turn into the like animal yeah you really needed the video for that mine start hopping around like rabbits in the snow so I'm not as lucky Yeah, yeah. We'll see. We'll see. But yeah, I mean, is there anything else that you want to say about this gem? I'm very proud of Kate and I because we didn't say anything that was like spoiliery or that like gives anything away. We like, we end up reading books at the same time. And then we get so invested in the conversation that like we almost need like a safety word to kind of like you're going to.

to say something that's a spoiler. So that's kind of like one of the things whenever we have someone on is we're like a little nervous about saying anything that could be a spoiler. So, but yeah, is there anything else that you want to add in about this gem? Oh, gosh. Just that it was a ton of fun to write, you know. I can imagine. It was a ton of fun to read. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was fun to talk with my old friends from grad school. You know, I had a friend of mine who's a psychologist, proofread part of it to make sure that I was getting like the procedural part for like an institutional review board. I borrowed a friend of mine's forensic report for that introduction part so I could make sure that I got all the headings correct and the format correct. and it would look authentic.

So it was one that I had fun talking with my friends about and even like just kind of brainstorming as I was coming up at the plot about some of the elements of it. So it was that part was fun. Yeah, I can imagine. That's really cool. What's your writing process like? I'm a little curious now.

I just imagine like a wall full of people. of like postets. That's pretty close. This has to be like in here. That's pretty close. Yeah. In the beginning, the toughest part is the beginning for me

because it's just, you just have a blank word document. And so sometimes I get, I have to have postets to get the sequence right. And then I'll have even like pictures of how I picture the characters, almost like you do at the end. Oh, yeah.

But like I'll have like in the very beginning, I'll have like just so I can kind of keep everybody straight and I'll tell you guys this is like a slight secret but I named these characters after the actors in the Marvel movies so that I could keep them all straight in the beginning when I was so there's a scarlet and a Robert and a Chris awesome that is so crazy I didn't pick up on that I mean it's a very common name so why would anybody but that was my original way of just kind of because like I'm kind of a space cadet

and I work all day so right you know it's like sometimes it's like wait well what is that or where was I with that so I've got to have these little heuristics or demonic devices at times and that was how I got started. I love that it's also really funny

so like I have this like lady crush on Zazzy Beats. She was the she was the neighbor in the Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix. Mm-hmm. And

she was like the neighbor that I don't want to spoil the movie. She was the neighbor that was in the elevator and it basically made it seem like in his mind that they were dating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yes. She's also a Deadpool.

if you're a Marvel guy. Oh, yeah, I can picture it. Yeah. So she's going to be playing a detective in the adaptation of Lars Kepler's Junalina series. And I just like, I think she's so badass. I think she's so perfect. I absolutely love her. And like I just like always want her in something.

So when I was reading how badass Larson was, I was like, I was like, I want to see Zazzy beats, like, just like taking control. So like that was my, that was my pick. But the funny thing is when I wrote down her physical description, I wrote her name and I wrote, looks like Brie Larson. Oh, that's funny. So I was like, when you said that, I was like, oh, my God, because I almost, I almost like wanted to say that to you. But, you know, similar to you, like, work got carried away today. so I almost sent you a DM to be like, it was between Zazi Beats and, and Brie Larson.

Would have been very on the nose. I know, I know, because I'm waiting for the time that I like get it right. You know, like when somebody's like, yes, like, this is who I was thinking or, you know, fingers crossed that, you know, we could see this on the big screen someday and maybe. Yeah, fingers crossed. It'll be, we'll see who wins. Maybe it'll be either Brie Larson or Zazzy beats. that would be cool yeah yeah so but yeah that's really interesting that you say that now i want to go

back and and read it again and try to try to picture these marvel characters yeah i know morphed over time uh i'm terrible at naming characters they all sound so made up so a lot of times like i'll just borrow names of like my friends or something like that oh cool like in my last book um uh rick plumber and lexie plumber and camp these were people i grew up with and so i was like you guys mind if i you know because it doesn't if i make up names it just always sounds so made up yeah yeah i can see that yeah i can see that that's really cool though and it's also like really fun too for like your friends you know yeah you know i asked them like because you've right a first draft and it's like nobody's ever going to see it but you it's like this little private world but then

you know as it gets going and like your editor's looking at some point I realized I'd better call them up and see like is this going to be all right like are you going to think this is weird or and they thought it was fun so it's still yeah I love it I love it I like have this like Sarah Michelle Geller is my favorite actress and I used to read um you know like any interview that she did and she always said because she was committed to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, whenever she did a movie, she would always have to, like, tell the director, like, if I do this movie, I have to die in it. Like, you have to kill me in the most, like, brutal way so that, like, I can't come back

and I can still do Buffy and do your movie. So that's kind of, like, this ongoing thing about why she, like, Sarah Michelle Geller is, like, this badass Buffy, but she also dies in every movie she's in. So like I have this joke with Greg from EG Scott where I'm like, I want you to Sarah Michelle Gellar me in one of your books one day. Like that is like my dream is to have like one of my friends who is a writer like just like kill me in the most like gruesome way. And bleak. If it could be bleak, you'd really love it too. Yeah.

If it's like really sad like I'm like just like right about to survive and then I like go out with like a blaze style. The bleak or the better. Yeah, because being an introvert, like I know that when I die, it's not going to be anything very exciting. I want to go out on like a blaze of glory in someone's book. So if you ever need to use my name, just... Noted it.

He's offering it. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. The next book's going to be about like two podcasters. That's funny. You're careful what you ask for. Yeah, right. Oh, my gosh. That's funny.

Yeah. Well, we've been asking people at the end what they are reading. So have you read anything recently that you just loved? I just finished a book from my book club called The Wager. It's nonfiction. David Gran wrote it, and it's about a shipwreck in the 1700s. And he writes for the New Yorker. And it's nonfiction, but it reads like a novel. It's fantastic. Oh, that's cool. Oh, cool. Highly recommend. Nice. Yeah, I'll have to check that out. Do you find that you don't like to read a lot of thrillers when you're writing?

Or, like, do you stick to nonfiction because you write fiction so much? Yeah, I try to read a mix. That's actually one thing that I like about the book club is that we rotate picks. So I read a bunch of stuff I wouldn't normally. But yeah, I have to be sure that I'm getting out of my genre at times just because there's a lot of similarities. And in some ways, it's good to know what's out there so that you're not replicating anything. But at the same time, it can be kind of indulging to read the same types of things. Yeah.

So nice to have a mix. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, now everybody can check out the wager after you check out. This is how we end things by our new bestie, R.J.J. Coss. So thank you so much for hanging out with us and giving us, you know, like the behind-the-scenes secrets of this one. And I look forward to what you do next.

Thanks. Guys. Awesome. Awesome to see you both. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Yeah. Kate, last time we did this, I was in Indiana. I know. He was my first podcast for anyone on killing the tea that doesn't know about between the lines. And he drove all the way up to Indy.

It was the night of like a big weird electrical storm. Yeah. And we met in that, that brewery. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a brewery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was upstairs.

And like there was like lightning in the background. Yes. It was moody. It was real moody, but awesome. Yeah. And my original, like, GPS had taken me, like, to a dead end road. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

Right before I showed up at the podcast, I was completely turned around. You were in, like, a neighborhood, right? Yeah. It was kind of spooky, but, like, great to get there. And then, you know, we'd never met her anything. And so there was so much uncertainty. It was great. I know.

I know. I like, how, as a super. mega introvert. My first one was in person with someone. I don't know. I don't know how to have. But it but it turned out well. Yeah. Yeah. It was very fun. So coming full circle here. So I'm very happy for both of you that Kate did not lure you into a trap and that my co-host is not some like diabolical. Maniacal. Right. Oh, that would be great. That's agree. That's the story, right? Like, here's this aspiring author. He's he's taking a trip to somewhere. And it seems like it's not quite adding up.

And then there's like, yeah, this, geez, could this directions possibly be right? Am I about to be on a podcast? That actually happened to me. So I like being part of Bookstagram for like so many years when I first had met, I not met, but like, you know, eMet, like I was DMing. and texting a lot with Teresa Sorkin who lives in New York City

and we were talking about her book tour and she was like, you know, like you have been along with me like since the book came out like you were one of the first people to read an arc of it I would love if you came down to visit me in the Hamptons and, you know, like was there for the first night of my book tour and like just like hang out for a couple of nights, whatever. And so I was like that would be so much fun. And this was pre-COVID. So like, you know,

like I was wild back then. And I like told my friends, I was like, well, I'm going down to meet this author in the Hamptons. And they're like, who you're going with? And I'm like, I'm going by myself. And they were like, what if this is a trick and you get murdered? You have good friends. So my friends were like checking on me like every hour on the hour to make sure that like this author didn't lure me into an untimely death. Did you share your location? I don't know how to do that. Oh, okay.

Well, let's teach you how to do that. I don't know how to do that. I am not, I am not tech savvy in the least bet. I know. Nickname is techie, Becky, because she like knows all of it. And I am like internally the 80 year old grandfather who's like, Kate, how do I do this? Yeah, that's true. So yeah.

So now we're just like a trio. Now we know what the next book's going to be about. Yeah, we're a trio of survivors. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. We've all escaped death. And we talked about our snowstorm fascination.

And yeah. All the good thing. And dark academia. We checked off all of our special interests. We truly did. Next time you're around. and we'll have to talk about food. I love it.

Eating is my favorite hobby. Mine too. Scott, I love it. Yeah, I could do it all that. Mine too. We always find a way to like incorporate food in a conversation.

We do. Usually it's me that starts. The AI that summarizes our podcasts was like two really close friends have a, have a jovial conversation about books they read and food they ate. I'm like, oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, awesome.

I'm glad. Thanks for... I've got me covered all the bases. Yeah. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Yeah, anytime.

Let us know when you're ready to come back. Yeah, yeah. It's scary your way. Talk to you guys.