Bookwild - Rea Frey: Secrets of Our House

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

On this episode, I talk to Rea Frey about her thought provoking domestic drama Secrets of Our House.You can also watch the episode on YouTubeAuthor LinksInstagramGoodreadsWebsiteCheck out her company WriteWay at her website as well!Check out the book hereSecrets of Our House SynopsisDesi is the mastermind behind her dream getaway house. Nestled high into the mountains of North Carolina, it is a sleek place, a luxurious place, a dark place.A place full of secrets.Secrets about the man she longs for, a man who is not her husband. Secrets about the roots of her family that must never, ever, see the light of day. When Desi and her family arrive from Chicago to spend the summer in the mountains, the seeds for the tumultuous months to follow are planted—her marriage on the rocks, not knowing which way they’ll go. Her seventeen year-old daughter Jules, falling in love for the first time with a local boy—and forging a new path that will take her to uncharted places. And Carter—a man Desi knew long ago, before she expunged him from her life for good.All hurtling toward events none of them can undo.Engaging, propulsive, and with a dramatic, heart-pounding final act, Secrets of Our House is a dazzling novel, richly-drawn, that shows no matter how hard outside forces may shake you, the bonds of family are stronger than the harshest winds. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Hi, my name is Kate and I love to read. Like, I was carrying books around with me before Kindles were a thing. So I decided to start a podcast where I interview the authors of some of my favorite books, ask them all of my questions so that I can read between the lines of the books. Welcome back to another episode of Between the Lines. I'm here today with Ria Fry, the author of Secrets of Our House, which was just a... fantastic, I would almost call it domestic suspense novel that I read here recently. So Ria, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. So before we talk about secrets of our house, I did want to get to know a little bit more about you. So when did you know that

you wanted to be an author or when did you kind of know you wanted to write a story? Yeah, you know, I grew up actually with that stereotype that I feel like so many people had were writing as a hobby. It's not a profession. You're never going to make money at it. But even knowing that, I was always writing stories. My dad is a fantastic writer. He really introduced me to journal writing and poetry. And I was just always a reader. I will say I was a reader first before a writer. But I actually wanted to be, I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. I was very into sports. And so I never thought about being a writer, what that would look like. But as, as a I kind of grew up, I stumbled upon the fiction writing department at Columbia in Chicago and decided that I was going to give it a try. So I actually did end up going to college for creative writing. And I had a book traditionally published when I was 22, in fact. And it was a total disaster. So much so that I was like, I don't know if I want to do this. I just didn't know what I was doing. and I didn't, I wasn't yet ready to enter that world because I had not done my due diligence. So I kind of learned the hard way through a lot of trial and errors about what it actually even means to be a published author. And from there, everything kind of spiraled.

I got into nonfiction. I had a bunch of nonfiction books published, learned the importance of author platform. And then I really didn't turn back to fiction until around the end of 2017. and that's when I started taking it seriously and looked at it as a profession. My book is a product to sell and this whole industry as a business. So it was almost like, it almost took me 20 years to finally really believe that I could make it into a profession. That's like quite the story. But I feel like everyone gets to it differently.

And it's hard when it is something that is like a hobby that you love to really like make the jump that like, oh, I really could make money doing this too. Right. What is your writing process like? So do you typically know where a story is going to go when you start or do you surprise yourself while you're writing? Yeah, you know, I know there are so many writers out there who are just like beautiful outliners and like absolutely are so organized.

I'm a little bit more organic with it. I'm somewhere in the middle between a pants or and a plotter, but I am a really fast writer. I've had to be because I run a business. I homeschool my child and time is just very valuable. So I have learned to really write in a very, very narrow window. And often before I even start writing, stories luckily kind of come to me start to finish. This last one that I wrote after Secrets of Our House, I've written another one. And it came to me within five minutes, just standing there kind of processing, and the whole story came to me. And then, that's happened a few times where it's just almost like an out-of-body experience. It's so cool.

But typically, I allow myself, even if I know what's going to happen, I allow myself to be surprised on the page. And when you're working with an editor at a publishing house, they often have their own set of ideas or what should happen. So I've learned not to get too married to the plot or concept because nine times out of ten, it's going to change anyway. What about characters? So do you flesh them out with any sort of outline or do they kind of come to life like as you're writing the story as well? Yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit more of a character driven writer. I write a lot of like very flawed, unlikable characters, but I want them to be somewhat realistic and we can't always have like the happy, perfect character on the page. I don't think that's very interesting to read about. But I don't, I don't do like, again, pages and pages of context about who this person is. They really come to me fully formed and fully fleshed out.

And then I always want to make sure they do go through some sort of journey or some sort of evolution on the page from start to finish. And, you know, I really go through and get to know them during that writing journey. Yeah, I was very like apparent in this book that you are trying to take someone like through something that changes them. a little bit in the process as well. I also saw that you started a business where you help writers get published or even just like figure out how to write.

So what inspired you to start that and what do you love about it? Okay. So my business really takes the forefront in my life. So I have been helping writers for well over a decade, almost, well, probably close to 20 years. As long as I've been a writer, I've been helping. writers and I think that's just part of my journey is to advocate for writers to you know there's no one out there telling us how to be authors like this is the one way you're going to be an author

and going to be successful at it there's so much that we don't know there's so much that's hush hush it's such a private antiquated industry in many ways a lot of people don't know how they get paid they don't know how to get published they don't know what the right path for them is so I've always worked with writers on the side to create nonfiction book proposals, to edit their books, to go straight, to get them agents, to figure out how to navigate the landscape of this world. And at the top of 2020, I did create my business right way, where we do mainly primarily help first time authors, specifically in the nonfiction space to create their book proposals, pitch them to agents and editors and get them published. And I do, So I started this business right at the top of the pandemic and was like just absolutely terrified that I just ruined my life. Like, oh my God, I went all in on this business. And now the world's shutting down.

But what has happened in the past two years? We've had 70 first time authors, land agents and book deals using our proprietary methodology, working with us. A lot of people call me like a book doula where they're coming to me with a concept. I'm really helping them birth this book and get it out into the world. So I love when clients come to me, they have an idea, we work together, and then they have a finished product in their hands that will then sell to thousands of people and help them in some way. So it's just such a rewarding, rewarding profession. And while it's very hard to navigate

being an author and spending time on my books and also running a business, I can't really imagine doing it any other way. That's really cool. I do know, I've heard other people talk about, like, getting started in terms of like they could write a book, but then like figuring out, like, now what do I do? Which is the most intimidating part. So it seems like you really, like, found a gap and can really help people in that way. It's great. So how? How? How do you? How? How would you describe secrets of our house in a couple of sentences? Yeah. Unfortunately, this is one of those books.

So I've written, you know, I've had four books. Two of them, one-liners. I can just describe them so easily. And then two of my books, this is one of them. It's really hard to sum up in a sentence or two. But I would basically say it's about a very successful businesswoman and her husband and her daughter. And she has created this dream getaway.

home called the Black House and she wants to just have a lovely summer with her daughter before her daughter leaves for college and when they get to the Black House, everything unravels. Secrets are revealed. Tragedies ensue and at the end of the day it's really about survival and how all of them are going to maintain being a family despite some of the tragic occurrences that happen. So this is more of like a domestic drama for. me actually. I typically write domestic suspense, but this is a little bit different. It's a little bit of a departure, but I had so much fun writing it. Yeah, it wasn't, there wasn't as much like

thrilling stuff happening, but there still was enough. That's why at the beginning when I was like, I would kind of call it a domestic suspense. It is probably closer to a drama because there's not as much like explosive stuff all over the place, but you get to like know the characters really well and just like see how they navigate some difficult stuff that happens that summer. So we are going to get into spoilers now. So if you have not read the book, pause and go read it and come back. But if you're here because you already read the book, then you can just keep listening. So the mother-daughter relationship is like really at the forefront of a lot of the family

dynamics within the book. So when you started out, were you intending on exploring that relationship in depth? And then what was it like diving into like a really honest, messy description of mothers and daughters? Yes. So I typically always write about parent-child relationships in some way or another. I have a nine-year-old daughter, so I don't have a 17-year-old daughter. But this one was really therapeutic for me to, you know, recall myself being a teenager with my mother. I had a very different mother than Desi. I mean, couldn't be more different. But it was so, I thought it was so important to really examine the push pull that mothers and daughters can have, especially when a daughter is on the precipice of leaving and becoming an adult and working, you know, to establish her own

independence and how mothers can hold so tightly to what they think. is best for their children. And I think almost all of us as parents are guilty of that of, you know, just imprinting our own desires and dreams and wishes onto our kids instead of really letting them make their own decisions and just be who they are. So I wanted to play with that on the page. Yeah, that definitely came through. Desi, the mom, she does have this extreme obsession with like having the right life and having it look the right way to the point that she marries peter which is her well her husband she married him um married peter instead of carter even though she knew she loved carter more than she loved peter and that's kind of

kept her unhappy throughout her life um with knowing all of that and kind of her obsession with the appearances. How much is she to blame for like kind of the severe unhappiness that's just like in her family, especially at the beginning of the book? Yeah, I think she's mostly to blame because she is putting the emphasis on how her world looks to the outside world. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. I'm someone who's the complete opposite of Desi. I can give it shit less what anybody thinks, but she is very, like, very put together and it really matters how the aesthetics of her life look. And she chose the stable partner in Peter, someone that she's not even really in love with. And I think a lot of women, though, have that, you know, one person who got away or

that big what if, like, oh, what would my life have been like? But if she had chosen Carter, it would have been wild and messy and she wouldn't have been in control. And I think at the core DESE's life is all about control. And throughout the course of the book, it definitely unravels as things become out of her control. But she just clings so tightly to what she thinks she should be like and what her life should be like that it causes her a lot of unhappiness. Yeah. It's kind of that like contradiction that anyone who is trying to control something so much, you're typically not going to have control it. probably not actually going to be happy with it.

Absolutely. Very interesting character. On the flip side, we had Lenore, who is Jules' boyfriend's mom, who does feel very motherly and very grounded, and she feels like a mother to her kids. She feels like a mother to Jules. And sometimes she feels like a mother to Desi as well. And there's a moment where Lenore kind of steps in when Desi is. is trying to control Jules' life and encourages Jules to stand up for herself and to actually say

what she wants from her life. And it's like a big moment where it changes a lot for Jules to be like, I'm not just something my parents talk about. Like I'm someone who can make my own decisions. So was Lennon-Nor kind of brought in on purpose to kind of like aid the coming of age for Jules and for Desi as well? Yes. Lonor, I love. love Lenore. So she has cancer. She's very sick. She's going to die and she knows that.

So she's faced with her own mortality. And I think as a result, she just like is so honest and open. And I really wanted to use her as such a juxtaposition to the type of mother that Desi is, but also use her as a tool for Jules to really believe in herself. And it drives me nuts with parents. I think we've all experienced it. where it's like, we live in the same house. You grow up for 18 years or however long you live at home,

but you stop seeing each other for who you really are. And you start reacting to almost the avatar that that person is. And you think you know best. And my dad reacts this way and my mom's this. And we stop just really saying, like, I see you. And you can do and be anything. So I think Lenore is really that, just that person for Jules, who allows her to stand up for herself, which everybody needs, especially a 17-year-old girl.

That is such a good description of like how we, like how we do lose track of the people in our family, sometimes just because we're around them all the time. So we're like, oh, you're this. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's label. We like label and dismiss. And I'm doing a lot of familial work myself, like ancestral healing. I'm super woo-woo, so I'm like all over the place. But this ancestral healing. And I was like, oh, I don't have any issues with my dad. I don't have any. I was crying within five minutes. And I was like, oh my God, fundamentally, we all want to be seen and loved and celebrated. And somewhere along the way sometimes in families, we just stop doing that without meaning. Yeah. I think the other thing that sometimes.

happens is like the self-worth gets all tangled up together. So there's also a point after Lenore helps Jules kind of stand up for herself where she kind of like thinks like when had when did my self-worth get so tangled up in my mother's self-worth. And it's relatively common in families, not even just mothers and daughters, but how do you feel the relationship with Desi and Jules would have continued if Lenore hadn't given Jules the push to kind of become. her own person or kind of what do you think happens when children don't get and disentangled from their parents' self-worth? Yeah. Oh, man. I think we can get so enmeshed and there needs to be a lot of cord cutting. Because I think for Jules, she would have, you know,

probably done what her mother wanted her to do, but then would have rebelled at some point and really realize I'm not living for me. I'm living for my mother's, like, perception of who I should be. and then that resentment builds and builds and builds. So they probably would have gotten to a point where their relationship was irreparable and they might not have been able to come back for it. So that's why Lenore really, you know, she was really used as like a beacon of hope and change for Jules to just like do what she wants to do. Yeah.

Yep. I mean, that's exactly how I felt. Like unless someone similar to Lenore came into her life later, I was like, this would be, she would just be living her mom's life. basically for the rest of the life, which is no fun. No, you can't live for your parents, people. You gotta live for you. It does not work in the long run.

I can promise not as well. Yeah. Yeah. So there are some moments where you feel a little bit sympathetic for Desi, even though there are plenty of other ones where I was pretty angry at her. But at one point, she's even reflecting on how like she knows she used to feel fully human, but that she kind of like drowned that out with work and fear and excuses and kind of just succumbed into her life instead of fighting for the life that she wanted. Why do you think she was

willing to succumb to her life even though she brought a daughter into the world who like very much really wants to live her life? Yeah, I think Desi's, her life is just all about comfort and conditioning and sometimes it's really hard like for to live that wild messy fully human life that comes with a lot of ups and a lot of downs a lot of uncertainty and I think she wanted this certain predictable monetarily comfortable life and that was one path and then this wild messy free you know life her daughter is actually living that life and she is seeing the mirror version like when the book starts actually, Desi is falling out of love with her husband just as Jules is falling in love. So they have this perfect like mirror, um, experiences of each other. And I think Desi

is really reminded of like what her life could have been like if she had just followed her own instincts and really chosen almost like what Jules is, is doing. So I think she sees a lot of herself and her daughter and is really internally. conflicted about like what she wants for her because i think she equates being successful with following the straight narrow safe path and then like jules her daughter wants to not go to college and be an amtier paramedic and she desi's like looking down on that when in fact that would be the perfect path for jules and she just can't seem to like embrace it and completely support her daughter which is what all children are just seeking, like just support me in my decisions.

So that is like a battle, an internal battle that Desi fights the whole way through. She really does. There's a moment where she's talking to Jules after Lenore's funeral, actually. And they're discussing Will. They're discussing what Jules wants with her life. and it like seems like she really understands her daughter and that she wants to kind of soften out in her approach and literally like days after that she then goes to will and basically scares him out of the relationship with her daughter so like what do you think could have

what got her so close to like letting her daughter make your own choices and like wanting that for her daughter to doing something so shady and essentially ending the relationship. Doesie thinks she knows best. Like she thinks that as a teenager, you can't possibly know that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone or that you really know that this path is the one for you. She wants her to go to school, to get a degree and do all of the traditional stuff that often doesn't lead people to live happy lives. Desi is a huge example of that. But for some strange reason, she still thinks she knows best. So she totally sabotages that relationship, even though it ends up kind of backfiring in her face later on.

Yeah, it really does. It ends up backfiring a little bit. So unlike Desi, I was in love with Jules and Will through the whole thing. It was like, fan girling so hard. And so that plane crash was terrifying. and it went on for so long, like the chapters of it getting resolved. So I was so nervous that whole time. But did you think that plane crash was necessary to kind of like shock the adults into understanding what matters the most?

Was it to kind of help Jewel see how capable she can be? And did you ever have Will die in any of your drafts? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, Will died in every draft up until the very last minute. I was like, God, I got to, like, give somebody something. Like, he doesn't have to die for the point to get across. I think that would have been taking it a little bit too far. But, yeah, sometimes, you know, someone has to die.

Someone gets cancer. Some catastrophe has to happen in order for adults specifically to just stop the BS and realize, like, oh, this is what matters. matters and really come to see like the truth of people and relationships and love. So the plane crash is a big catalyst, even though it comes very late in the novel to to just wake everybody up essentially. It definitely does that for everyone involved. And mostly because Will doesn't die, it does kind of end on a happy note. Like everything's a little bit different, but it is is a lot happier. And Desi even is realizing at one point, like, that she's gaining the possibility

of a more honest future and that through loss came clarity for her, through tragedy came truth. So when you set out writing the book, was it kind of like the tragedies that would happen to Desi that you saw transforming her? Or did that kind of happen while you were writing it? Yeah. I mean, I knew that I wanted her to go on some sort of journey that she's not going to be able to stay the same and have her secrets and her perfect life and like it was just all going to unravel. So always knew that she was going to have some sort of evolution. But actually, the early drafts of this book were way more thriller. I mean, way more like murder and, you know, crazy twist and turns. And then it ended up being more emotional saga and drama. And though everything

kind of wraps up, you know, it's not perfect. And I'm a big fan of like not tying everything up with a pretty red bow because that's not realistic and their family dynamic has changed so much but in some ways even though they've all kind of disbanded everyone's going to be happier in the end because they're living a more authentic honest life and they're not lying to each other anymore um so so yeah i think you know i i kind of always knew desi was going to go through some sort of some sort of evolution um but i don't often know you know how it's all how it's all going to end up until it's actually done. So the whole book alternates between Desi and Jules just throughout it. And then in the epilogue, we do only hear from Desi's perspective. So what made you choose to keep Jules's

perspective out of the epilogue? Yeah, you see a little bit of Jules in the epilogue like Desi and her go on this walk. And I think you just get an idea or a sense, at least I did as the writer, the Jules is going to be fine. Like she's got a long road ahead of her too, but She, I felt like her journey was, she had less to go than Desi. So to really hear from Desi as the matriarch, like looking at her family. You know, they're sitting around this table in the very end. And she's kind of just observing. And I think it's that, that feeling of like letting go a little bit of the reins with Jules.

But she's observing her and like what a woman, a young woman, her daughter is becoming. So for me, I didn't feel like we needed to hear from Jules because we were seeing her and knowing that she's probably going to be fine. That's true. You weren't, there wasn't anything. It didn't make me question like, oh, is Jules actually okay, though? So I totally understand that. Yeah. You are pretty sure through the whole book anyway that like left to her own devices, Jules knows what she wants from life. Right. Exactly. So where can people follow you so they can keep up with everything? Just plug whatever. Yes. I'm so old school and I'm trying to be an author without social media, even though I'm told that's never going to happen. But the main social media platform I'm on is Instagram. It's just at my name, Ria Fri, R-A-A-F-R-E-A-F-R-E-Y. People can go to my website,

rea-fri-com, or if someone is out there and is very interested about writing a book, being published, just talking about it. They can go to rightwayco.com, W-R-I-T-E-W-A-Y-C-O-com. We are completely word-of-mouth referral-only business. We don't advertise. We don't market on social media. So it's kind of like an underground operation and I really, really want to keep it that way. That's really cool. So I will put all of those links in the show notes for your social and for right way so that people can get to that. And then thank you for being. a guest. Thank you so much. This was such a fun conversation.