The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – IT’S CRYSTAL CLEAR AND ALL ABOUT THE DAD by Diane Brooks

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

IT’S CRYSTAL CLEAR AND ALL ABOUT THE DAD by Diane Brooks https://www.amazon.com/ITS-CRYSTAL-CLEAR-ALL-ABOUT/dp/B0FFZY2VL5 ”One daughter’s fight to save her child will unravel everything she thought she knew about family, love… and the father she trusted. Andrea “Andi” Chambers has always believed in the strength of her family. Raised in a loving home with siblings, laughter, and a mother who could fix anything, she cherished the stories her father never told — the ones sealed behind his military silence. But when Andi’s young daughter is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer, hope hinges on an impossible match. As Andi races against time to find a life-saving donor, a trail of medical records, old photographs, and unanswered questions leads her to a truth more devastating than any diagnosis: her father was not who he claimed to be. And she may not be the only child he left behind. Now, uncovering her father’s double life becomes more than a quest for answers — it’s the key to her daughter’s survival. With help from childhood friend Lynn and a man whose past is tangled with her own, Andi must choose whether to cling to the life she thought was hers… or embrace a future rewritten by secrets, sacrifice, and unexpected love. A gripping, heart-stirring novel about buried truths, the power of motherly devotion, and the unbreakable bonds of chosen family — It’s Crystal Clear and ALL ABOUT THE DAD!! is an unforgettable debut that asks: How far would you go to save the one you love?-”

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reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today's featured author comes to us from books to lifemarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success. Today, an amazing lady on the show, we're going to be talking to her about her books. Her one that will be leading off with today is called It's Crystal Clear and All About the Dad by Diane Brooks. We're going to be having her on the show.

We're going to talk about her insights, her experiences, some of the things that she writes in her cool books, that you're going to find out more about. She's a retired accountant with many interests. Her favorite time of day is still the morning coffee hour with her husband of almost 54 years. Yeah, she read a book on how you made that work. 54 years, congratulations. And you still enjoy having coffee with them. Oh, yes, every morning.

There is my favorite hour of the day, the fastest hour of the day. I tried that in a relationship of trying to like someone at the morning coffee hour, but by the end of the day, I hated them profusely. And they handed me, too, as well. So it was mutual. Not fair. They discussed their daily activities, as well as their favorite memories of yesterday year. This is the beauty of being in a relationship for that long.

She thinks it's the fast-moving hour of the day. Well, that's because you're drinking the coffee, and that tends to make things move faster from when I hear. You know what I mean? Make wink. When you get old, that's really important, that morning coffee and what follows. The rest of her days are filled with spending time with your two grandsons visiting casinos and having her 98-year-old dad visit on Monday mornings

and he's our greatest critic. Life is grand for Diane, the oldest of seven children, including sharing holidays, birthdays, and all of life's monumental moments with their families. Life is good. Welcome to the show, Diane. I love your attitude. How are you?

I am wonderful. Thanks for asking. I mean, your bio is just a wonderful display of positive. hope and just a good mindset. I should take that on. I had to make it all fit on one page. I mean, you can't turn the page of about the author. You know, so I made it fit on one page.

So give us a $30,000 over you. Oh, I'm sorry, actually. Let's get your dot-coms. Any websites, social media, anything you want people to search you out and find you for. You know how they all like. No. No.

My website is currently being built, but I didn't realize I needed one. My books are for sale on Amazon and Ingrams, Sparks, and that's it. Yeah. And I guess that's not enough. So that's why I'm talking to you. You can help me sell some of my books, please? You got to move some books here, girl?

No, it's really important nowadays because a lot of people want to stay in touch with authors, especially if they're fans. And so you want like a newsletter and a website so people can follow you and hear when the new book's coming out or what you're working on. And, you know, there's authors. I mean, this is the, this is the whole gig. They're just in constant chatter with their fans, and, you know, they give them a place to hold community. Some people have Facebook groups and stuff.

So, yeah, very good ideas on selling books. Thank you. People want more than just the book. They're consumed. If they love an author, you know, they'll fall on them and they want to know what they're doing. And, you know, it's kind of funny some of the stories I hear about from authors like yourself on the show. Let's get into this book. It's called It's Crystal Clear and All About the Dad.

Give us a 30,000 overview. What's the sign? Okay. I started the book. It took years. It actually took years. I think I started it in 1997 because I had my 17-year-old son home in bed after a horrible accident. And I had nurses and health aids for him in and out of the house, and I needed something to do.

but then they were gone and he needed my help so I put the book away a couple months later I had my husband home upstairs broken left side right side he was downed by a tree at work oh no I went in the next room and I started picked up the book again and he got better and you know life was grand again and the book went away and then 20 years later what happened but COVID. So now I'm sitting down and I'm really, I'm going to finish this darn book. It's been sitting there long enough. What's the story about inside this book? The story is about a family of six living in Grafton, Massachusetts being burned out of their home. Wow. Wow. Now, everybody that knew I was writing this book knew I was writing about children. So when they

read the first paragraph they were appalled that I killed everybody in this fire and so we have everybody in the house perishing from this horrible fire but the 18 year old daughter was kidnapped out of her bed and brought into the orchard that's where they lived at the top of the hill this beautiful orchard and she was raped oh no we have horrible horrible things happen in the very first paragraph of this book. Wow. So from there, what happens is we fast forward a little bit to the young men that were raising havoc with this family in Grafton.

And these two boys traveled from, let's see where they're, they're from Maryland, and they drove up, they're taking revenge off of Rockwell's dad. Well, smart, handsome young man, but boy, he found out some secrets about his dad and he's trying to avenge some of the happenings from his dad. And he did. He killed everybody but this one lovely girl in this house. Now the rest of the book goes on about the six kids that live in Maryland. So you see, we have dad fathering six children in Maryland. and we have dad fathering six children in Massachusetts.

Ah! You're setting up franchises, we like to call it from Fight Club. It's all about the dad. We have one surviving beautiful young woman in Grafton, and we have the other family in Maryland living happily. These two families didn't know anything about one another until nine months later, the young woman now she's a young woman raped in the orchid it didn't it did turn into a pregnancy and she has a beautiful baby girl and they educate one another they live with one another and years later

this youngster this little girl comes down with cancer and they need a blood donor they need somebody that can help this youngster and it all comes down to the blood now like I said these two families Maryland Massachusetts they don't know anything about one another but a blood drive just a general blood drive turns up a mysterious blood that is the same as this little girl and okay so now we have the surviving girl from Grafton who has grown up and is now a doctor of criminology traveling just looking for this the person that owns this blood type that is the same as her daughters and this is where she's finding out about the other family and that she is not alone that dad who was in the navy

oh yeah yeah this he was this very very very let's call him romantic man who fathered all of these children and you better have some romance with that kind of action absolutely so the book is it's a fast it's only 200 pages so i cover all of this territory and 200 pages about all of these these different families and this horrible cancer and this this this this younger girl and sure the a lot of driving in this I think there's a lot of driving in this between Massachusetts and Maryland and the search go her name is is Andrea Andy Andy is the mom of this little girl who needs this this blood donor and because she does have credentials in the the hospital she is a doctor herself she can get into the blood

blood banks down in Maryland. She does eventually, and do I give away the ending of the book? I don't want to do that. You know, no, no, no, no, no. You want people to buy the book, so. That's right. So I want to get them interested. I want them to get involved with Andy,

searching and searching for this, this donor that is going to save her daughter's life. But in the meantime, she's finding out a little bit more about her life. And it's tragic almost Because she lost her whole family in Massachusetts Just to find out that dad built another one At the same time She's finding out she has a half-sister And they're almost mirror images of one another

They're both beautiful young women And then when she meets these people in Maryland And she starts looking through family photo album the men in this Maryland family look just like the brothers that she lost in Massachusetts. And then the wife down there in Marilyn, she uncovers the only picture she has of her husband. And Andy takes one look at that and says, that's my dad. Oh. And everything just starts snowballing in her head.

head and in her heart and there it is there's the dad and there's Andrea kind of just walking through her life and finding out that she it's not the life that she thought she had growing up and a lot of learning experiences for her oh wow so let's see let's move to the second book now this book came after the prior one we've been discussing, Crystal Story. See, the first book we were just discussing, it's crystal clear and all about the dad. And Andrea's travels, like I say, she meets Rockwell. This is the man who set the fire at her home, but she doesn't know this yet. And we meet Rockwell and that family, and he is entertained for a whole week by his dad,

And they travel through New England up to Old Orchard Beach, down to a hot dog stand in Massachusetts. And in doing so, he is keeping company at night with a woman. He's putting notes on the TV in the motel rooms. He's on vacation with two of his boys. But yet, he's putting notes on the TV screens saying, go out for a drink. But what he's doing is going one door down and meeting Crystal. So he has this, his romance going on with Crystal while he is vacationing with his boys. So that is the little twist in the first book.

It's Crystal Clear and All About the Dad. So the second book, I pick it up with Crystal's story. And yes, the books are related. And the first page of the book of Crystal's story is it had to be written because it was driving me nuts. all the people I created people I created neighborhoods and they were driving me crazy so I wrote the second book Crystal's story just to be able to get to the end and say it's done but okay crystal clear and all about dad yeah I mean 200 pages it's a quick one but boy it's interesting yeah second book more like 550 pages and I I just took Crystal from

From a teenager to a married man to her piano career, and her husband was the dad. It's the same dad from the first book. She knows all about the families. She knows all about the Massachusetts. She knows all about the Maryland. and she had a hand in helping him create those lives. So, I've never read any books with bigamy in it. So that was the big subject in my books.

He's a bigamist in the first book, and I continue that in the second book. Yes. Yeah. Pretty wild there. It's wild. So is there any third book coming? Is there going to be a continuation of this year? I ended the Crystal's story in the second book, and I love my ending, and please do not turn to the last page.

I beg you, in the first book, do not go to the first page, and then in the second book, do not go to the last page, because they're sweet endings. As much as I've killed off a lot of people, and there's a lot of tragedy, and a lot of tears. The endings are sweet. I'll say that much about my books. Ah, these seem pretty interesting. What do you find, what do you think readers find most enduring or entertaining about your books? The fact that I think I make them very, very real, and it's all about the dad. Dad does not have a name because in Massachusetts, he is, in Massachusetts, all the kids,

names begin with the same letter. Mom was Amy and they had A.m. Andrea and there was Aaron and six kids all beginning the same alphabet letter. And then we get down to Maryland. And once again, it's we have Rockwell and we have Russell and we have Riley. And once again, Dad just has a way of getting what he wants from the women in his life. naming his children. So I think a reader is going to say, that's clever. You know, that is at least clever. And he's a bigamist. He's just this likable guy, which he really is. He's a good dad. And I think I get that across on the pages of my books in the two different states.

And he's just a good guy. So down in Maryland, he's Reginald. Up in Massachusetts, he's Aspen. Oh, wow. And he's just dad. He's always just dad. Always just dad. Yeah, yeah.

But he's got, he's got multiple teams he's building of basketball. Oh, absolutely, yes, yes. So where do your ideas come from? Where do you get some of these? Who hurt you, basically? Oh, nobody hurt me? Nobody. I am the oldest of six kids, and I have a great relationship with my brothers and sisters.

And my dad, he's, oh, he's my best friend. Still to this day, he's my best friend. He comes every Monday morning, and he will not drink my coffee. I don't know what it is about my coffee, but he won't drink it. But no, he, you know, he's my best friend, and absolutely no reflection on my dad or the way I grew up, not at all. Where do you get your ideas then? I don't know. I don't know where this one came from.

it was in the first book just my fingers were flying across the keyboard and all of a sudden dad said oh crystal I did it again and she said what do you mean you did it again and he said I met a young woman and I fell in love and I married her and she said you can't do that you're married to me and he said yeah but I did marry her so she said you're a bigamist that's against the law we've got to make this right somehow. So Crystal having the means to get into the back room of the naval station because that's where her dad is. And she was always hanging around with her dad. She created the name of Aspen in Massachusetts to keep him covered, to keep him legal. And then, you know, a year later, because that

worked, he came home or rode home. And he said, Crystal, she said, I don't like that tone of a voice at all. What did you do? He said, I met another woman, and I married her. You fool, you cannot do things like this. So once again, she went in the back room of the naval station, and she created Reginald. We're talking social security numbers. We're talking ranks in the Army, ranks in the Navy.

We are, we're talking duty stations and income. Somehow she managed to get into, I don't know how, I only wrote the Beck, so I don't know how, but she has these two guys drawing money out of, one out of the Navy and one out of the Army and supporting these two families with six kids. Wow. So I don't know where I got my idea. Like I said, I just created one, and I said, what the heck, he's a bigamist already? I'll just create another.

Okay. So then when, you know, here we are years later and we have a fire in Grafton and everybody's dead, I killed him too. Oh. It was like, oh, wow, that dad is dead. Now she's thinking, I can have this guy all to myself. How do I kill off the other one? And so I don't want to get into the specific. Yeah, you want to save it.

Yeah, let's save some of it for the book. You definitely want to do that. But has any of your family read the book? I have a couple of sisters that have read the book. And my friends have read the book. My dad has read my three books. I do have three books. Oh, you do have three.

One not related to these two at all. And my books are very sex. So when I found out that, you know, my dad wanted to read these books. And I went, oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yeah, they're very sexy. I mean, after all, this man, he has 12 children. So, yes, he spends a lot of time in the bedroom.

And I was quite explicit in the bedroom and at the train station and in different places. A train station, yeah, in the motels, you know, with the boys, one door down. But, yeah. So my dad, like I said, he, he's a train station. he has read both books. And truth, he told me, when he read my third book, he said, Dee, it's not as good as the first two. Oh, wow.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, wow. I mean, what are you going to do? I don't know. I don't know. What are you going to do? That's funny that he reads the book.

So, yeah, you're just like, oh, if you only want to find out, but you might regret what you're getting into. I don't know. He still comes for car. He still comes every Monday. You know, he does. So what does the future hold for you? What, any books maybe coming out in the near future? Okay.

My third book was The Edge of the Fire. And it is more written more like a cult and how to get out of the cult, how to be strong with the other members that are caught in the same situation. and build something stronger than the cult. And I thought it was a really good book. My dad did not enjoy it. My girlfriend who read the book said, D, your writing's getting better.

Now, whether she enjoyed the book or not, I don't know, but she said, your writing's getting better. So I thank her very much for that. I don't even know if there's a kiss in that book. I don't even know. There's a relationship that is budding, but hmm no sex no sex no sex so I guess that one won't sell it all I'm making on a fourth and my fourth book I'm probably a hundred pages in with three really really good storylines that somehow I need to tie together and bring this book to an ending it's yeah I like I I say, 100 pages and building.

Wow. 100 pages and building. So anything more we want to promote on the show? We have you here, anything we need to plug, et cetera, et cetera. Not really, just my books. If you could show pictures with my books and plug my books and, yeah, talk about where they're available, which is always Amazon and Ingram's Box. Definitely.

I'll be on that. Do you ever write yourself into a corner and have hours or days or even weeks? trying to figure out how to fix it or change the thought process. Oh, definitely. Like I say, that that first book went into the computer and I'd walk away, and it was years later when I finally finished it. It was COVID that made me finish that. It was just an interest and the people in the first book driving me nuts that made me write the second one.

Oh. And those people are now living their lives happily, and I don't need to go back to them anymore. And then the third book was a stand-alone, and my fourth book is just driving me nuts again. I need to sit down and draw all of the lines that I've started and put them together and make an ending to this book. Whether there will be a fifth or not, I don't know. because I've got my grandchildren that the love of my lives. They come, they play with my dog, they make a mess out of my house, they leave the

refrigerated door open, they leave the toilet seat up because they're boys. Yeah, I'm overrun by the boys in my family, which is, it's wonderful because I love them dearly. Yeah, that's what boys do. Yes, yes. We enjoy life. So, yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. People will be excited to read your books, and I think you've got maybe a burgeoning thing. It's interesting, people fall in love with these characters and books, and they love series because they can binge them and, you know, the series and everything going on.

So it's pretty wild, some of the stuff that is out there. I'm working on and talking about an audiobook. It's Crystal Clear and All About the Dad. If I could get that one going, and if that one showed interest, then maybe I, I'll be. I would do the audio book on the second book, Crystal Story. Beyond that, I am talking with a studio about doing a miniseries or something, a TV show, and I would like to incorporate both the stories in that situation. But it's expensive.

I need to sell these books in order to get involved in a miniseries. That's my aim with talking about. with you. Help me sell books, please. That's interesting. They're fun. They're good for you and all that stuff. Thank you very much for coming to show. We really appreciate it. And thanks for sharing

all the wonderful ideas and concepts that you used to write it out. Thank you. Thank you, Diane. Thanks for much for tuning up. Order her books wherever fine books are sold. Her book is called It's Crystal Clear and all about the dad and sounds like it capture you right there

in the first paragraph and keeps your reading to find out what happened. The book is out June 26, 2025. Thanks for us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Forchus Christch, Chris Foss, 1 on the TikTok and YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. Be sure to be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts.

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