Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen

In this episode of Historical Happy Hour, bestselling author Jane Healey welcomes back Rhys Bowen to discuss her latest novel, Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure. Set in the South of France on the eve of World War II, the book follows Ellie Endicott as she discovers independence, friendship, and courage after being abandoned by her husband. Bowen shares the inspirations behind the novel—from a crumbling Italian villa to her reflections on “invisible women”—and dives into themes of resilience, female friendship, and personal reinvention during tumultuous times. The conversation also explores her research process, writing routines, and the challenges and joys of balancing hope with historical truth.

Transcript

Jane: 0:07

Welcome to Historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction. I'm your host, Jane Healey, and in today's episode, we welcome back bestselling author Rhys Bowen to discuss her latest, delightful novel Mrs. Endicott's Splendid adventure. Um, it has been called riveting and, and riveting, an important historical novel, and it just released August 5th. Welcome back Reese. Thank you for doing this

Rhys: 0:32

again. Thanks. Hi, Jane. Welcome back. And congrats on you on your new book too. It's doing brilliantly. I love it. Oh, thank you

Jane: 0:38

so much. Um, so I'm gonna do a quick bio about you because there's, you have this amazing background in prolific writing history, and then we will dive into talk, discuss the book. Okay. Reese Bow is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 60 novels, including the Rose Arbor, the Paris assignment where the sky begins, the Venice sketchbook and in Fairley Field, the winner of the Lefty Award for best historical mystery novel. And the Agatha Award for best historical novel. She's also the author of the Royal Spins Series and several other series Bone's. Work has been translated into many languages and has won 16 honors to date, including multiple Agatha Thy and Macavity Awards. A transplanted Brit. Phone divides her time between California and Arizona. Again, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. And so, okay, let's dive in. Talk about how you came up with the premise of this beautiful novel and why you decided to write it.

Rhys: 1:38

Oh, thanks. Well, it was a double fold thing. I tell you. The first thing that happened was we were on a lake in Italy and I saw this abandoned villa and it had been beautiful once, but now there was ivy all over it. The shutters were hanging off, and I said to my husband, being me, I said. We should just buy this and renovate it. And my husband being practical said, no way could we ever do that. But it stayed with me. And you know, I kept thinking who would walk away from something so lovely? You know? And so finally I got to, um, put it into a book and I've got my character to renovate it. So that was one of the driving forces. The other I think was, I'd been very conscious as I get older about invisible women. You know, when you are young and sexy, everybody notices you and suddenly you get to an age when. Nobody notices you anymore and, um, you're taken for granted. And look at Ms. Marple, she is the best sleuth ever because no one notices her. She sits there in a corner, does her knitting, and everybody talks in front of her and she hears everything. And so I wanted to write about a woman who's been underappreciated all her life. She's lived someone else's life and then her companions also are women who've been. Unappreciated and just gone through life being taken for granted. So I want to give, I wanted to give them all their dream lives, I think is what I wanted to do.

Jane: 2:59

I love that. I loved this little like merry band of travelers. Yeah. So the story begins right before World War II and Ellie Endicott is ki just up her husband up and leaves her for a younger model and a young woman. And she has this I, which is a very considered crazy idea at the time to just move to the south of France.'cause she went there when she was young. And then she pulls along some friends, um, with her. It is such a beautiful setting. We were just talking about our love for the South of France. I and Villa Mayor, we've both been there. Talk about. Why you chose to have it, you know, said it in the south of France, what research you had to do. I'm sure it was very excruciating if you had to go back. I suffered from my craft. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about your research.

Rhys: 3:51

Yeah, I wanted to, I mean, I knew I wanted her to go somewhere lovely on the Mediterranean or somewhere unspoiled on the Mediterranean and just blossom into the person she was supposed to be. And I toyed with Italy'cause I love Italy too. But, um. I know France very well. I've been many times, and also I speak really good. I have a degree in French. I speak really good French, so I wanted her to be somewhere where she could interact with the local people very easily. And I set it in a fictitious place. I've called it Sam Benet. It's close to Marse, but it's really, if you've been to that coast at all, you'll know it's based on the town of Casis, which is just outside Marse and um, now it's quite fashionable, et cetera. But I'm sure before World War II it really was a little fishing village with those beautiful little colored fishing boats, bobbing up and down and just a little bistro. And, and of course it's got this wonderful setting with these huge high. Sandstone cliffs on either side. So it really is its own little world, and that's what I wanted for her to be somewhere, not where like the train goes past and people go and shop in the big shops, but somewhere where she's completely enclosed in a new world. So I set it there and I'd been there before, but when I write a book, I always have to go back And then. I know I'm writing the book and therefore I'm like a sponge. I'm open to everything. I sit there, you know, sit a little cafe and think, what can I hear? What do I smell now, what's that? The slap of the water against the harbor and all you take in all those tiny details that when I write about them, I take you there too. So, I did. I, as I say, I do suffer from my craft. I went there the fall. When I was writing that, I went there and um, you know, did all those things, had to try out all the bistros and um, uh, of course, but it really is a magical little place. And, and I tell you one thing that we loved is the market there to go into the markets in the south of France and there's this cheese stall with like a hundred varieties of cheese. And I went with my daughter and I took my daughter and son-in-law along to be my drivers and companions. And, um, we tried like five cheeses a day. We'd have a piece of this pea and so, and then there's a stall that just has olives. Of olives. And another thing we found at the bar market was you get the most amazing clothes if you're ever there again, let me recommend, because obviously they have, I think samples because there's only ever one of them. And if you look very carefully, you find these things you don't find anywhere else. I bought a blazer in the market and I'm flying first class on a plane. And, and the the, and the, the flight attendant says, I love your blazer. Where did you get it? And I said, oh, south of France. Yeah,

Jane: 6:32

you and I have very similar tastes because all I, all I care about at the, not all I care about, but my favorite thing about the markets is those little French, those cheese stands that are just amazing. Yeah. Right. And, and the fresh produce, which is like the colors and like these bursting red tomatoes and just unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter and I went to, um, this is going off topic, but my daughter and I we were at one of the markets there and we were, we went to one of those clothing stalls and we were like changing behind this little, like tiny, in the middle of the market and we both got like little tops and dresses and stuff. It was so, so great. Yeah. Yeah. So lovely. Um, so things change obviously dramatically in the village at when the war begins. And, um, so in terms of that research about what life was like in the south of France during the German occupation, did anything surprise you when you looked into that?

Rhys: 7:30

You know, uh, I, first of all, I had to bring in. The war. I, it's, I find it hard to write a book now and, and the war doesn't come in, you know, I've done so many of them that, yeah. But, but also I wanted Ellie to be happy and to be there, but then you can't up write a book where she goes there and she lives happy ever after. You know, we want, we want the tension in her life and we want to show what she's made of. The fact that because other people have believed in her now gives her the strength to do things she could not have done before. I. One thing that I wanted her to, there's an island further down the coast. It's not right off Cassie, but there is really is an island with a monastery that I went to once and I really was caught in a hailstorm there. So I brought that into the book. But, um, I wanted her to help smuggle Jewish men to this island. And then from there to and that was in my plan, but when I did the research there, I found there really was. A resistant cell in Marse that did start bringing out Jewish men, mainly men, because you could get them out so much easier. And Jewish women were taken in by families in the hills and nobody questioned them quite as much. And they were taken across to Corsica, which was, uh, Italian occupied and therefore much more relaxed about how they felt about the Jews. And so that, you know, it was fun to see that that really happened. And of course, you have to do all the, the real timeline of when the Americans came in and there really was this. Intensely fierce battle in Marse with the Germans occupying Marse and the Americans off the coast. And, you know, if you lived in Casis, you would've heard the boom, boom boom as they fought each other for several days. So it, you know, it, the thing to start with, of course, that the south of France was in the zone, Libra the the free zone. And therefore there were no German troops o occupying for several years that yes. It was a puppet government in place who I'm sure did what the Germans told them, but they weren't like rounding up people and taking them away and things. And so I think life was fairly pleasant there in that you know, you've got local fresh produce and if you're in the fishing village, they caught their fish and things. So they probably didn't have any real hardships till the Germans moved in in 1943. You know, I wanted to show and, but the thing is, she. When she opts to stay, she is an enemy alien. And of course, if the Germans told the local people go and round them up, she would've been rounded up and she might have been sent to a camp, not a a concentration camp as we know them, but there were sort of holding camps in France at that time. So she really is in danger from the moment war is declared. And of course, she comes, well, they come up with a novel solution to keep her. In the town.

Jane: 10:05

Yes. Yeah. No spoilers, but yes. So I, in terms of the characters, your characters are always very richly developed and feel, very real. I wanna talk, how do you develop your main characters? There's a, there's a whole cast of them here. There's Ellie. Her friend Dora, who comes with her, who is ill, her housekeeper, Mavis who's a, I thought was hilarious. They also pick up another woman along the way, another young woman, Yvette. So how do you develop your characters? Is it part of your writing process or do you sketch them up before you start?

Rhys: 10:40

I hate to tell you this, but I, I bring them onto the page and then they develop their own, own lives and off they go. And I'm running like one step behind to see what they're doing. I knew to begin with, I knew. Uh, what sort of journey? I wanted Ellie to take that I wanted, she's lived someone else's life for the past 30 years. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to see what would happen if you gave her her own life and she got a chance. I mean, she's a person who I presume has done everything correctly. You know, she's volunteered at church, she's had the dinners made for her husband to entertain. And if you look at this, she takes risks. I mean, the first risk is stealing his car and then going across the channel. But then she takes bigger risks. She takes in this unknown French girl and she starts taking bigger and bigger risks till when we get to World War ii. She takes the biggest risks of all. So I wanted to show her her character, just setting out feelers for what could I do now until at the end she is this very brave. Person. Um, I knew where Ellie wanted to go. I didn't know she'd have a romance until the car pulls up and this rather hostile guy with curly hair comes up and says, what are you doing? So that was kind of nice to find out. Oh yeah, he's, he, there's this guy who is not, not at all bad at all in this village. We like it but I knew to begin with, I wanted her to take. Two women she would not have been friends with in England. You know, there's a very strict class system. And she would not have talked, she wouldn't have hung out with her maid. She wouldn't have said, let's go to the pub together ever. Mm-hmm. And nor would she, with Dora, who is the older, classic vi village spinster, you know, who runs all the good deeds, but everybody's terrified of her, and she's really critical. So there's no way they would've hung out together either. But circumstances throw the three of them together. I think the interesting thing I learned when I'd finished the book was Ellie thinks that she is saving Mavis and Dora, and when she looks back on it, they have saved her. And that's what, that's what I wanted to, that's what made me feel good at the end of the book that that had happened.

Jane: 12:47

Yeah. And, and that's one thing I wanted to mention to people too. I, I, you know, there's a lot of World War II out there and some of it can be rather dark, but I, I never, I obviously, things happen, to these characters in this book, and so there's some sadness and, um, but you always seem to balance it and it, it, it ends on a really hopeful note. There's a lot of joy too, and I just. How do you strike that balance in, in your writing? Is it an another, I mean, you've been doing this so long, like is it just innate to you now? But because I, I really felt that like, it, uh, it is a delightful novel even though it's, it's a wartime novel and it, it has a really, it's about female friendships and like you said, discovering yourself later in life and all of those great themes.

Rhys: 13:27

Yeah. I can't, it's not in my nature to write an a book with a sad ending. I don't think I could ever do it, you know? Yeah. But I knew. Along the way, bad things had to happen. And um, I think seeing how Ellie handles the bad things shows each time she handles one. You see how her, how she's grown, uh, until the end. I mean, the worst things possible happen and she has to. Come to terms with that or completely break. So I mean, I don't know if I, but I don't do an outline or character arcs or draw things on, you know, do diagrams on boards or anything. Um, I just I knew the war was coming and I knew once the war came, life would not be beautiful all the time. And I knew that some. Really sad things were going to happen and you know, I did debate some of them, but I thought, this is a war. It has to be accurate. You have to, people have to understand that in a war. You can't save everybody. And of course she couldn't. Yeah. So, you know, I, I wanted to have to handle loss and grief as well as, um, coming through it.

Jane: 14:29

Absolutely. I, another two characters I wanted to mention that I really liked was, um, Tom and Clive or Mr. Thomas, was he? Oh, yeah. And they were a, um, a gay couple that work not. Accepted by everyone, but kind of like lived their lives there. And were they inspired by anyone?'cause I know Clive was an artist and,

Rhys: 14:50

well, you know, I used to work in BBC drama in London and I had plenty of friends who were gay couples. And, um, life in the BBC was so easy for them. You know, anything in an artistic setting, nobody minds and everybody knows, and it's just lovely. But when you think that before I'm in the, the one that made me think about it was you know, in World War ii. What, what was his, oh, Stephen Haw? No, not Stephen Hawkin. Who was Oh, Alan Turing. Oh yes. I mean, the person who saved, virtually saved the world because he invented the thing, he cracked the Enigma code. And so when you look at it, he saved the world and they were about to arrest him for homosexuality. So that shows you how very dangerous it was. Even, I mean, no one was gonna give him a free pass for saving the world. Even. So, you imagine a gay couple in the twenties and you imagine a spiteful landlady or something who would turn them in, they would've gone to prison. Mm-hmm. It was funny because they were probably the first characters that came into my head when I thought Ellie's going to go to this little village. But I wanted there to be some Brits there because there were so many Brits in the south of France before World War ii. You know, lots of British people would spend. The winter in the south of France,'cause that's what one did. And so I thought, it'd be lovely if she found them there because they can be themselves there and they can be warm and wonderful. And the sort of people that would really make her feel welcome. And then you had the other Brits, you had the lower class couple who ran the little paril who would not make her feel welcome. So I wanted to show the balance of there were some Brits abroad who were really nice and the others who was not so nice.

Jane: 16:26

Yep. And you did that so well. We talked a little bit about your writing process. So people, you know, I always ask writing questions on, at like the second half of my questions. So you have this idea. It doesn't sound like you plot things out at all. You just sit down every day and kind of. Feel your way along. What is your process like?

Rhys: 16:47

I know an overall story. I mean, I could, if you'd said me before I start, um, I want to write this book about a woman who's been underappreciated and, and, and finally. Gets to the south of France and fans her, who she really is. So that was my overall arc. Oh, and finds a villa and it's going to bring this villa back to life. So that was the overall arc of it. And I obviously the first thing is to go to the area and get my feel for the place again to read up on exactly the timeline of World War II in the south of France and what did happen there. And then I start writing and, um. The thing that's really important to me, I dunno about you, but if I've got that first chapter in place. I just feel that nothing else matters. And I, I'll toy with that for ages. I will lie in bed, playing with the first line, playing with the first paragraph. Um mm-hmm. And once, once I've got that, then I sort of feel the books, not the book's done, but then I know where I'm going. And so what I do normally is I write, I try to write 1500 words a day. Every day. So I will, you know, get, I get up early in the morning. I do my emails, I check my Facebook page, you know, all the things one does these days. And then I start to write and I won't let myself stop for the day till I've done 1500 words. And some days that's really easy and I zoom ahead and I'm happy. And then other days it's like pulling teeth and I get up and I throw a load in the laundry. And my coffee and I walk around the garden, you know, all those things rather than write, but I know if I can't leave until I've finished them, I do them. And I think this is utter rubbish. What am I doing? You know, this book will never work out. Or n you know, and every book I go through this with, and I bet you do everybody, I think every writer has these times of torment, but every day I start by editing what I've done the day before. Mm-hmm. Because that way you never look at a blank screen. And then when I look at it the second day, I think, oh, well that wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was. Oh, I think that's gonna work. Or else, I don't think we need to know this here. Let's get rid of this scene and put it in much later, you know? So I've got something to start on every day. So I go all the way through till I've done a first draft, and then I give it to a couple of people to read. And. Come back with their feedback. And then I sort of take what I think is good and one of them is my husband and he's Mr. Picky. And he will go through and he will say, that sentence was really clumsy. And then he would say and it's funny with books when I used to write the Constable Evans series with a male protagonist, he would say, no man would ever. Say that. And I would say, oh, but you see he's a sensitive man, not like you. So, so it fights, but um, I go through and I listen and, and then, uh, uh, someone else reads it and I get their feedback too. And, um, I go through and I do a really big edit and, you know, literally a, a ruthless edit. Do I need this scene? Why is it here? Why do we need it in this place? What would happen if we didn't find it out until there? So I go through and do my really big edit, then I give it to my agent to read who has suggestions, go through, do final polish, then it goes off to the editors. Yeah and that, that has to be done within six months.'cause I write two books a year. Amazing.

Jane: 19:57

Amazing. I, yeah, I mean, you're, it's so prolific. I, I, and it's so refreshing for me to hear, let you go through that whole like self-doubt and angst and like, is this even anything? This is a disaster.

Rhys: 20:13

Yeah. Well, every book I think I go through, a panic mode, like the first 50 pages. I start to think this story isn't going anywhere. And I think, oh, you know, it's gonna be finished. I'm gonna say everything I want to say in 88 pages and it's going to be one too short. And I go through this panic mode and then I, I kind of see where we're going and then it sort of move, it gets its own momentum and it moves ahead and by page 200, like, oh, I know this is fun. I'm gonna do this. So I have to do that. I have to sort of. Panic else else. If I were really, if I got down with a book and I thought, oh, what a good story I'm writing. This is brilliant. I bet it would be a horrible story. I have to. Have to really suffer as I go through it.

Jane: 20:53

Yeah, you do. I think you, you do have to suffer through the process a little bit. And I, and I'm the same way with the first chapter where I'm, I like, I start in one place and then I start in another place, and then she's on the train. No, she's not on the train. She's somewhere else. And I, I like, until I get that tight and in the best it can be, that's, yeah,

Rhys: 21:10

it's important. I mean, so many people will just read those first few pages. Um, yeah. And also, I mean. You have to know where to come in because obviously if you're telling someone's story, they have a whole life. You come in the death. Yes, were born, but you want to come in Exactly What shows them in that moment of conflict where you say, oh gosh, this is not good for this person. Or else. Or else you can do the other thing. You can say, oh, what a lovely thing. You know this person's going up to the altar for her wedding. And then, oh, at the end of the chapter, the groom's not coming. You know, that, that sort of thing. You want to, you want to really grab the reader by the emotion in that first chapter, don't you?

Jane: 21:46

Yes, absolutely. That's so, so true. I have to show people like the, i the, this is a advanced copy, but you have like page, they list all your books and there's like pages and pages of them, which is just, it's just incredible. And you're such an inspiration to writers like me. Well, I have,

Rhys: 22:06

can I show you something else too, in the hard copy? Yeah. Look what lake Union does inside. Oh, you, you, oh, they do that inside yours too. Do they? No, no, no, no. That's beautiful. I that's so perfect for that area of the world too. We always true. A beautiful, lovely thing to have on the, on the inside the of the hardcover, which is gorgeous.

Jane: 22:23

So gorgeous. Yeah. So you've written multiple series too, and is there something like, I, I'm so curious, like you've written series. Is there, so is there something different about writing a series compared to standalone novels and do you have a preference?

Rhys: 22:38

Well, I think one really compliments the other because when, when you write a series it's like going back to a family reunion. You know everybody, you know the setting, you know everybody. I mean, obviously my characters move around, like the Royal Spins series. I've got this ensemble cast of characters. Who come put in an appearance in most of the books. So I know people who are gonna come back and how they're gonna behave'cause I know what they're like. So it's much easier in a way you can get started immediately because you start with, she's always in the first person. So she's talking about what I'm going to be doing at the moment and then one of these characters walks in and off we go. So in a way it's a much easier to start. The good thing about the standalone is you never have to go back to those characters again. So, I mean, if you really wanted to, you could kill them all at the end, which is a nice thought. That's funny. I dunno about you. But I get, I get letters all the time saying, aren't you gonna do a sequel to this? I want to know what happened to Ellie and Nico after this. It's like, no, I left them happily. I'm going to go away and never come to visit them again. You know, I just said that

Jane: 23:43

to someone the other day. It's so lovely that people want. To hear, you know, want a sequel right. Of your books. And it's lovely to hear, but when I'm done, I'm done. Like I feel like, and they're done. Yeah. Yeah.

Rhys: 23:54

It's funny. And the nice thing about standalones, and I mean, that's why I started writing standalones. I had ideas. That wouldn't fit into either of my series. Mm-hmm. And so it's really nice, and my former editor, Daniel Marshall, was the best ever I could say to her, I'd really like to write a book about a woman in Venice in various time periods. And she'd say, oh, brilliant. And I'd really like to write a book about young girls who got on a train to be evacuated in World War II and were never seen again. Oh, wonderful. I think if I'd said to her, you know, I'd like to write a book about a man. From New Jersey who goes to live in a cave in Tibet for 30 years, she'd go interesting. But she wouldn't say, are you crazy? You know? That's what I.

Jane: 24:37

Yeah, I am a huge Danielle Marshall fan. I noticed you dedicated this book to her, Danielle, um, yeah. Picked me outta the slush pile. Um, she was and that's how I ended up with Lake Union, um, to almost 10 years ago. Yeah.

Rhys: 24:49

The best ever she was wonderful. Yeah.

Jane: 24:50

She was so great. I have a couple more writing related questions. If anyone has questions for Reese, please put them in the chat or in the q and a. Mm-hmm. Um, what is the best writing advice you've ever received?

Rhys: 25:03

I think one of the things I say when I give a talk at a writer's conference or something is don't ever write to please anybody else. Mm-hmm. The only book I've ever written is one I want to read, and it's not on the shelf. And so I have to write it because then I can put it on the shelf. So if you are ever trying to please anybody else, if you ever think, oh, vampires are hot right now, or you know, world War, world War I, world War II is hot right now. By the time you've written the book and it's been through the agent and everything, you. You're gonna find it's three years later and it's not hot anymore. And the other thing is, you're gonna live with these characters for most people, live with them for a year. Mm-hmm. You have to, you have to really care about, be vested in those characters and want things to happen for them. Because if you do that, then your reader will do that. If you're just writing any old characters, then no one else will care.

Jane: 25:54

Yes. I completely agree. I, I, I think about that all the time. Yeah. Like I feel like readers are real so smart and they know when you're mailing it in, they know when you're not feeling passionate about it. Yeah. I think that's really good advice. Yeah. Um, and what about the publishing industry? What it's changed so much over the years? Yeah. Even since I started in it. Uh, what advice do you have about getting published these days?

Rhys: 26:16

Well, I, it's really hard because the, you have to overcome that wall of the agents and it's harder really, I think, to find an agent than it is to find a publisher. Mm-hmm. The thing is, now there is a self-publishing option. Yeah, but, and of course you can put your own book, own book up on Amazon anytime you like. The only thing against that is you then have to work your tail off to get anybody to read it. And that's not easy. And um, all these it's very interesting. I dunno if this happened to you, but when this book came out. I reckon every day I've had an email from someone saying, Mrs. Andicott was such a beautiful book, I'd like to help you put it in front of readers, and this is what I can do for you. So that all these like semis scam people who are going to pounce on self-published books. And, um, you know, I've, I wrote back and said. I'm currently number 14 on Kindle. What do you plan to do for me? Good for you. I get a lot of those too, and I'm just like,

Jane: 27:15

oh no. Yeah. And I agree, like I, I think that I have a couple friends who have gone the self publishing route and they. But they also, they were just really smart about it. They were smart about the marketing, they were smart about the editing and the cover, and they worked their tails off with the marketing. They worked so hard. But yeah, that's a whole different, it's a path and you can be successful

Rhys: 27:36

at it, but it's really, really tough. Yeah. I mean, there are small publishers and, and some of those do a really good job sometimes. Mm-hmm. And maybe a way to break in. Again, you're not gonna see the sort of. Marketing and numbers and things. I mean, that's the big problem is that there's now hardly any publishers, they've all gone into one huge conglomerate. Mm-hmm. And, uh, you know, if, if one of the, one of the penguin houses turns you down, the other penguin houses are probably not gonna pick you up. So it's, it's very frustrating. I agree. The other thing is there are. Dare I say it, there are too many books being published at the moment. If you look to how successful Agatha Christie was, she probably came out in a year when there were 20 books published. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Everybody noticed this book, so trying to get notice these days is really, really hard. Trying to get reviews, trying to get anything even trying to get into bookstores, it, you know, it's, it's an uphill battle and you have to work all the social media stuff. I mean, the amount of time you and I spend. On Facebook page and Instagram and I, this, this must be number 40 of the Zooms that I've done since the book came. I know,

Jane: 28:46

and I appreciate it. I know I am because I'm still kind, I'm still in it with my book and, and doing. I have like four events in the next three days, and I, it's a lot. It's a hustle. A hustle is real

Rhys: 28:57

When you do two or three zooms in a day. I've gone up and I've said to my husband. My cheeks hurt. You cannot look like this. You have to smile the whole time. You have to look interested. What an interesting question. You know? And at the end of the day, your cheeks hurt.

Jane: 29:11

It's

Rhys: 29:11

so

Jane: 29:11

true. I know. And I, I be like, I, I had like a bunch in a row last week and I came home and I'm like. I'm just not gonna talk to anyone all weekend long. Nobody.

Rhys: 29:21

Yeah. Quite agree. Yeah, don't talk to me. It's something you have to, I mean, the good thing about the, you know, the upside of a Zoom is if I go to a bookstore and there are a hundred people there, I'm thrilled you do some of these, you know, uh, I did an online one for Barbara Peters and you have 2000 people there, so, you know, you're really expanding your, your, your reach by doing those things. So they're great.

Jane: 29:44

They are great. They are. And you have so many fans and so on that note, what are you, how can readers keep in touch with you and, and talk a little bit about your next book that's coming out?'cause it sounds very so cool.

Rhys: 29:56

Well, you, if you go to my website, which is just respo.com and you actually want to. Contact me. There's a, a link, which it says, you know, get in touch with Reese and that will take you to my to what, uh, to my email where I can respond to you and I do respond to my emails. Um, I don't, you know, I, I have an assistant, but I like to respond to any questions or comments that I have. I like to respond myself. I have a Facebook page, which is re repo author, and I post on that a lot. Um, I'm part of a group blog called Jungle Red Writers, and I, I really recommend you go and see us because all of us bring a different aspect of, of writing and publishing and we have lots of fun chats, some of them really mundane about why I hate ironing. And other of them really, really sort of. Intense. So you always get something interesting from us. And, um, I'm, then, I'm on Instagram, which I confess I don't do much with, but, um, I guess it's necessary. So, you know, I'm there in social media and, uh, I, I do work hard at it and my next book I've just. Actually got the edits back. I was holding my breath.'cause you know, with every book, doesn't matter how many books you've written until you get something back from your editor saying, I liked this. You know, you hold your breath and you, you're terrified you're going to get an an edit back that said, yes, this was quite nice, but could we rewrite the whole second half? You know, and or could we make that you've made that? The main character, a young woman, could we make her a 75-year-old man? And so I'm, I'm really glad when they love the book and the edits are really just a polish rather than a rewrite. And that makes me feel very good, you know? And it's, uh, at the moment, the title is from sea to Sky. That probably won't stick because as you know, marketing comes in and sort of says, can we call it this instead? And then I say No on over my dead body. And then we have, we go back and forward for like a month and then finally we get something we agree on. But it's about a very famous author, think Agatha Christie Famous, who has written a whole lot of books and cannot finish her last one because she has dementia. And so a young writer is hired to finish it for her and it takes place on the island of sky. And this young writer is sent to this island to get the feel of the place that she's writing about. And while she's there, she starts finding out things that make her think. It was a real crime and worse than that she, it makes her think that somehow the writer was involved in it, which is impossible because the other writer is Australian. So you have definitely a crime within a crime. You I, you, you get the whole of the book that she's written so far. So you've got a book Oh, very cool. A book within a book. So it, it was interesting and challenging to write because the other book is in. Another writer's style, which is not her usual style, it's the style of someone who might be getting dementia. So that was a challenge to write that too.

Jane: 32:53

Yeah, absolutely. So amazing. And when is that coming out, do you expect That will

Rhys: 32:58

come out next July.

Jane: 32:59

Amazing. Amazing.

Rhys: 33:01

We have a, yeah. Oh, go ahead. My, my series, my next, um, Royal Spins book comes out in November, and that is called From Cradle to Grave. That's up to, I think that's book 19 in the series. So she's going quite well and we have a very interesting, lovely TV offer, which I think. I'm very touch wood. I I'm very, looks like it's going to go through, so that will be, oh, I'm meeting them in England in a couple of weeks so I can report more then.

Jane: 33:28

Oh, I can't wait to hear about that. That's amazing. I, we have a couple of questions. I don't wanna take up too much more of your time, uh, but I wanna tell you that you have so many fans from all over the world re really all over the country and all over the world. Tel Aviv, Cape Elizabeth, Maine. And, uh, Texas, Pennsylvania. So Christine Mott, who's always on, hello Christine, do you, she, she asks, do you always know the ending of your books?

Rhys: 33:54

I mean, I know I want them to end, if not happily then in a satisfying manner. But I don't always know the details of the ending. I wasn't sure whether this Mrs. Endicott, whether that nice twist was gonna come at the end or not. But, um, I don't with the mystery novels, I don't always know who done it. I pretty much always know, but sometimes I've been surprised. Sometimes I find at the last minute, oh yeah, I thought it was you, but it wasn't, was it? And they go, ha ha ha. Was it so funny? You know, I, I think being open in my books, I think being open to what your characters are gonna do. I find is, is makes a much better story. You know, I dunno about you. I started dialogue sometime and then one of the characters will say something I'd never thought they were gonna say. And you look at the screen and you go, what? Okay, I didn't realize that. You know, I like to be open like that.

Jane: 34:50

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think you have to, so to, to get, get into that flow. Oh, Melissa Gluck asked last question. How in the world do you come up with so many fabulous plots for the Royal Spins series? Did you just, is the royal spin, is this number 19? Did you say that? Yeah. Yeah.

Rhys: 35:06

It's funny because, uh, at the beginning I knew I wanted ev all the plots to be connected with royalty because obviously she's related to the royal family and, and the, the humor and the fun and the mysteries have to do with what might happen if you were related to the royal family. But then I've, I've taken her places, I've taken her to the south of France. I've taken her to Paris. I took her to Kenya once, you know, and, um. And then each time I write a book, I think, God what? When they say we'd like a new contract now for two more books, I think. What now is gonna happen next, you know, and then suddenly one day I think, oh, well of course, obviously that's, you know, like the one before finished finished and it finishes with an invitation to the coronation. And so when I'm thinking what's gonna happen next, I think well. Dummy, the coronation iss gonna happen next. We can't ignore that and something bad might want to happen at the coronation. So there we are. We've got a story. So excellent. It it, it's funny, it just, it, I, you can't, I can't think of it ahead of time. Sometimes I think, what am I gonna do next? What? And then if I worry about it. You know, I can't. And then suddenly one day I think, well, that's obvious. That's exactly what's gonna happen next. And um, so, you know, you can't, I, you can't force it. It's just got to come one day. You lie in bed and you think, huh, of course she'd do that, wouldn't she? Yes.

Jane: 36:25

Yeah. Or in the shower or in a drive or walk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So true. Reese, this is delightful. Congratulations on your latest bestseller. Thank you. Um, I was so excited to talk to you again.'cause like I said, you inspire writers like me so much. And, um, and I hope with your next one you'll come back again maybe in, in another year.

Rhys: 36:45

He certainly will. Yes, I'd love to. Yeah. And I wanna be a guest on, on Jungle Red ever. Just come and tell me too. Oh, I

Jane: 36:52

would love that.

Rhys: 36:52

I hank, we have Hank Philippi. Ryan is a mutual friend. I love her course. You do? Yeah. And Hank grabs all the best guests, I have to say. It's just not fair. I would like. Would you like to be a guest? And she says, Hank's hosting me. You know? Okay. Right, right.

Jane: 37:06

Have a wonderful night. That's a wrap on historical happy hour. I will be back with more announcements about new guests in the fall and about new events coming up for women of Arlington Hall. So thank you everyone for coming, and thank you again, Reese. Have a wonderful night. Thank you so much, James. See you soon. Bye. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye.