Get Booked – DCR Bond, Sarah Needs Saving 030723

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield, and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Get Booked is a show talking about what I've read, what I'm reading, new releases, chat to authors, bloggers, publishers, and book enthusiasts, all based around supporting women's and men's emotional well-being. We like to open discussions and offer support by the incredible writing community out there. Join me while I review my way through books galore, chat with authors, and help you get booked up every day of the week at 5 AM and 5 PM for Women's Radio Station and Tuesdays at 4 PM for Men's Radio Station. Now joining us on today's show, we're going to be chatting to the author DCR Bond. DCR Bond, Debbie, was born in London but grew up in Jamaica, then Zambia, and dimensions of this international upbringing feature in her writing. As a child, she was encouraged to write and wanted to nurture her talent and become a journalist. She never did. Instead, she studied law, then qualified as an accountant and worked for 20 years in the city. She's not sure she ever really enjoyed that job. Uh, now freed from the shackles of the day job, DCR Bond has reverted to her childhood passion and loves her new career. Her women's fiction novels are light-hearted, visual, fast-paced, and easy to read, with strong, credible, and relatable characters. When Debbie's not writing, she can be found playing tennis— badly, that's not my opinion— bridge, a little bit better. She's in the gym, walking her dogs on Exmoor, or tending to her garden. She loves cooking her own produce for friends and family. Sounds fun. She lives with her husband in rural Devon, surrounded by their miniature bull terriers and small flock of free-range hens. DCR Bond is a new voice in women's fiction, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Marianne Keyes, Jane Fallon, Adele Parks, and so many more. And Sarah Needs Saving, which is due to be released on the 5th of July of this year, is a fun novel. What do you do when your neatly ordered life starts to topple? Sarah never expected to be blackmailed, especially not by someone so close. Sarah hadn't expected to be receiving criminal hush money either. As a respectable Exeter University professor's wife, neither were really the done thing, but super organized Sarah has it all under control, or so she thinks. Initially strong-armed into silence, Sarah is gradually dragged deeper into the underworld as she strives to protect her reputation and the lives of her friends and family. Sarah Needs Saving is set in rural North Devon and is an original and captivating spin on women's fiction with a thrilling edge. Frenetic pacing and confounding twists and turns. You can find out a little bit more about today's author at dcrbond.com. Now, if you are a fan of Get Booked, or maybe this is your first time listening, I do hope you enjoy the show. At the end of my shows, I tend to do a little bit of a sneaky peek, a snippet of a previous show, but to— please feel free to pop onto womensradiostation.com/get getbooked where you can find previous shows, or you can click onto the SoundCloud icon and check out previous getbooked shows or one of the many other fantastic shows that Women's and Men's Radio Station produce. I do hope you enjoy that. Or you can pop on to hazelbutterfield.com and all my shows go up on my SoundCloud as well. Or maybe you're just interested in what I've been reading and fancy wetting your appetite with the many books that I review up on there. Alternatively, you can pop onto my Instagram at @getbookedwrs or my other page at NuttyButty. See what I did there? Hazel Butterfield. I know, right? Uh, I'd love to hear from you all, especially if you've been reading something that I haven't mentioned on the show or on my website and you think I'd love it. Please do get in touch. Maybe you're a book blogger and you want to come on the show and chat to me about all the books that you are loving at the moment. Maybe you're a publisher or a book PR specialist and you want to help our listeners get their book published or get their published book out there. We'd love to hear from you. Likewise, if you are a debut author and you have a book that has recently been released or about to be released, please do get in touch with me on hazelbutterfield.com or on my Twitter. @nuttybutty, or the many, many different ways. You, you choose the way that you would prefer. I know there's many of you out there that aren't fans of social media, so you can just drop me a quick email as well at hazel@womensradiostation.com. Now, as promised, we have the author DCR Bond chatting to us here on Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station. And she has written the novel Sarah Needs Saving, due to be released on the 5th of July of this year. And, um, what do you do when you're Immediately life starts to topple. Sarah never expected to be blackmailed, especially not by someone so close. Sarah hadn't expected to be receiving criminal hush money either. As a respectable Exeter University professor's wife, neither were really the done thing, so I gather. But super organized Sarah has it all under control, or so she thinks. Initially strong-armed into silence, Sarah is gradually dragged deeper into the underworld as she strives to protect her reputation and the lives of her family and friends. Set in rural North Devon, Sarah Needs Saving is an original and captivating spin on women's fiction with a thrilling edge, frenetic pacing, and confounding twists and turns. And Debbie, thank you so much for joining us on the show. How are you? I'm great, thanks Hazel, and thank you very much for inviting me. It's just lovely to be here. Well, it's great to have you here. I mean, we love chatting about books, and I've been reading a little bit about your background, and I love it that after, you know, doing your stint in the corporate world, you've finally come back to what you love, which is writing. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about you? Yeah, I think it's a— I've got quite an eclectic background because my parents brought us, me and my siblings, up overseas. So although I was born in London, as a very young child we moved out to Jamaica and we spent the first— I spent the first 7 years of my life there. And then after that we came back in a brief stint in the UK and then I was out in Africa. So I've really been able to experience a lot of overseas living, and aspects of that I try and bring into some of my novels. There isn't anything of that in this particular novel, Sarah Needs Setting, but there is in other novels, in future novels I hope to be— I know that there will be aspects of internationalism in there. So I spent my childhood overseas, And then I was, as you say, in corporate world through until 15, 20 years— 15 years ago. And then I returned to writing, and that was my original childhood love and what I always wanted to do. And in a funny way, the things that you do as a child, they never really leave you, do they? No. And sometimes things that you do well as a child actually will resurface to be what you can be quite good at, and I hope that that's what I managed to do in my writing. Yeah, definitely. And I actually read a little bit about where you live now, near Exmoor. I gather you're a dog fan? I am. I've got 3 dogs, and I've always had dogs. There are actually 3 dogs at the moment. I have had 4, but just 3 at the moment, and they are the centre of my life. Yes, I mean, you know, they run your route, they give you a routine to life, don't they? They do indeed. I've got a dog sitting outside the room that I'm recording in at the moment saying, uh, Mom, Mom, you forgot to walk me this morning. I was very busy. Oh no, might have out and about. And she might have walked me. Well, she's due, she's due, but she wants me to go and throw her in the Thames somewhere where she can have a little bit of a paddle. And yeah, I love it. I absolutely love spending time with my dog, especially because I've got two teenage boys who like to ignore me other than when they're hungry or need money. Um, I'm quite intrigued to find out. Um, how do your miniature bull terriers get on with your small flock of hens? They have to be kept separate. I actually have, I actually have dog park, um, stops for the leads for when I go down, because typically I'll, I'll go down with the dogs, uh, feed the hang the— hook them up outside the, outside the chicken pen, and they sort of peer in and, and think, well, maybe, maybe one day she'll forget and let us in. And then I go in and feed the hens and come out and lock them afterwards. Otherwise, I think there'd be a bit of a train smash in there. Yeah, you see, the thing is, having a beagle, I, I would assume that I would have a similar issue, but I, I take her on to various places and she looks at horses like they're just a big dog and she's just not interested. And squirrels will stand behind her and kind of mimic her because they know that she just can't be bothered. She's just, yeah, all terriers are the same. They just, they just like to chase and they don't really care what they're chasing. Um, my little, my little chickens look like they could be fair game, so they all put them outside the chicken pen. I love that. What a great way to live and what a perfect surrounding for just sitting there and finally going back to your childhood passion of writing. And congratulations on finishing Sarah Needs Saving and having it published. It's available for all of our listeners from the 5th of July. Now, I do know you've got another book in the works, but first of all, let's talk about Sarah Needs Saving. First of all, where did the inspiration come from? Actually, it's a personal experience. I'll be honest with you, Hazel. It's a personal experience. Because the major plotline obviously is centered around dementia and what happens with the family and what happens with the third husband of the matriarch. And it happened to— it actually happened within my family that my mother-in-law suffered from dementia, and that was something which I think a lot of listeners will have personal sad experience from. Yeah. It is quite traumatic seeing someone change in front of you and gradually losing that person. But then that was compounded by when she actually died. And whilst the size of that inheritance was just a tiny fraction compared to what happens in Sarah Needs Saving, the principal was still involved. I'd been there when she shuffled across the table to my husband a will custodian's card, and she actually did say, you know, well, that's for you for when I shuffle off. And I knew she'd put her affairs in order because she was a— she was— it's not just that I loved her, I admired her. She was a very, very interesting woman. And, and so when, when her third husband tried to claim that she'd been— she died intestate, there was something about it that just didn't ring true. Right. And there was something about it that didn't ring true. And there was something about it that just piqued my, my husband's sort of interest. And we decided to investigate further. And that was the inspiration for this book. That was the inspiration for it. So it is personal experience. I think it's interesting because, I mean, as I was reading the book, at first you kind of think the ex-husband who's kind of, well, not officially an ex-husband, back on the scene for the mother-in-law, you kind of think it's a tough situation because like if you are responsible and you're doing all the hard work, sometimes people have opinions when they're not doing anything. And you kind of covered that quite delicately. So you didn't actually know who was going to be a villain for quite some time because, um, yeah, my family had been through the same situation where, um, my grandma had Alzheimer's and dementia and two of the sisters were close by. One was, um, at least 200 or 300 miles away and the other one was in Australia. So, you know, I think he visited once in the two or three years because it was virtually impossible, and then towards the end with COVID and Some of those siblings will never ever speak again. It's, it's a power struggle, it's a guilt issue, sometimes it's a laziness issue, and sometimes it just boils down to money or differing opinions, and it can be a cacophony of horrifically upsetting drama. Hazel, you are so right. I mean, I had that same experience with my mother because having been brought up overseas, my sister lives in Cape Town and my brother lives in Melbourne, Australia. You're right. And I lived, I mean, my mother, when she came back from Africa, settled close to Guildford. Well, that's from where I live in North Devon. That's a 6-hour, depending on the M25, hour trip. And yet, of course, to my sister, my brother, at least I'm in the same country. Yeah. And never anything— whenever Mum needed anything, because she was living in sheltered housing, I couldn't drive up and stay the night even. I had to drive all the way up, turn around, and come all the way back. And to my sister and my brother, well, I'm in the country, we can't possibly do it. And you do, you have that guilt. You have that guilt if you don't go. You have that guilt if you do go. You have about leaving. It's incredible. It's an incredible mantle that so many women are forced to put on and honor because you love that person and you do take it on. You do take that role on. And yet it does cause discord within the family. Do you know what? Unfortunately, so many people are living longer, and so dementia and Alzheimer's are becoming more inevitable. Um, and I mean, my grandma was 96, um, when she finally died. But I have friends who are going through similar situations, and I personally, I stopped seeing my grandma for the last year because it just stressed her out too much. And some people were saying 'Oh, well, you know, you should still come and see her. It's about, you know, you've got to show your face.' I'm like, 'No, it's not. It's about the fact that it stresses her out because she doesn't remember who I am, but she kind of does, but she then feels bad herself because she knows there's something wrong with her.' And I said, sometimes there are a lot of egos involved in what people think they are supposed to do with people who have Alzheimer's and dementia. I have a friend whose sister knew that she didn't have a close relationship with her mother. And similarly, you know, it was a tough situation. She had to leave everything to her other sister to take, take on board all of the extra stress and work because they were closer. And so therefore they knew each other more and it was an easier situation. It's a minefield, absolute minefield. It is a minefield, Hazel. And I had to think long and hard about how Sarah would react in these circumstances. Because I think I got it right, because I think Sarah does do, and I think she's right to do, what you did. She decided to stop visiting her mother-in-law when the dementia became too advanced. And I think that sometimes that is the right thing to do, and it is the right thing not just for the person who is still in full control of their mental faculties, but just like Sarah, it was the right thing for, she, she judged, the right thing for her mother-in-law. Yeah. Because she wanted to, she wanted to retain memories of her mother-in-law as she was, as she admired her, not the person that she'd become. Yeah. And it is a really difficult judgment call for a lot of people. And I think you're right, there is pressure on us from all parts of, of society to just do the right thing. When sometimes the right thing has to be what's right for you, that you actually have to think about your own mental health as well as the person that's suffering. Yeah, and we're only human and we might get it wrong, but also we just need to be a little bit more patient with each other and not be so judgmental about how we all decide to do things. And add an additional layer into that, Mike, the caregiver, was, um, decided to grow some pot to help Sarah's mother-in-law with her ailments, which we all know, um, it's actually proven that it does help. Um, but there's, there's helping, and then there's having a full-blown farm and supplying the local, uh, drug dealers, isn't there? There is. And to be honest, I thought that was quite an interesting line because in Sarah Needs Saving, it's going on in wall garden. But, you know, living in rural North Devon— because I think you live in London, don't you? I do, southwest London, yeah. Living in rural North Devon and doing so many walks that I do, it's quite interesting because you can see how isolated some of these farms are, and you do sometimes wonder, you know, well, what could be going on in there? And although this activity is going on in the privacy of a walled garden, there's ample scope for all sorts of things to be going on in our rural countryside. And it just got me thinking that it would just be an interesting sort of angle to take, because we all value our privacy. People don't tend to wander around and poke their noses into other people's affairs. And in the country, we're quite a respecter of privacy. And I just thought it was quite a fun line. Quite a fun line. It definitely was. But with these things, it's very rare that you decide to just dip your toe slightly into a little bit of, um, drug dealing. It always kind of just explodes a little bit. Before you know it, there's friends and family getting involved, you're getting bribed left, right, and center, you're paying for your daughter's schooling in Bitcoin, and you know starts to look a little bit more like Narcos as you move along. And it's very rare that you kind of just dip in and can easily dip out again. You kind of get embroiled and it's a dangerous world. And poor Sarah does get dragged in. Yeah, you know, Sarah does get dragged in. And, you know, my mother always used to say that experience is the name we give to our mistakes. And I think Sarah does make a classic mistake. And her life does spiral outta control as a consequence of not being honest with her husband about a mistake that she made, which I think most of the readers, if I hope people read Sarah Needs Saving, but I think most readers will understand why she did make that mistake and have some sympathy for her. But the real mistake she makes is not being honest with her husband. And if she had been honest with her husband, her life would've taken a completely different route and she wouldn't have experienced all of the horrors that she does in Sarah Needs Saving. But she does make that mistake and I think we are all guilty of making mistakes which can just lead to further compounding errors. And before we know it, our life is in somebody else's control, no longer in ours. The thing is though, an added layer into this was kind of dealing with the, insufferable plights of the, uh, London gentry, the kind of the, the upper classes who don't really have a grasp on reality, who still like to kind of claim some sort of allegiance above anybody else. And I think even if Sarah had told her husband, he was so kind of in his own little, uh, 18th century world, and he wasn't really listening to what was going on, and his His brother is the most insufferable toss that just treats people ironically very badly and looks down at them when he's the one that's actually lost all his— it's all fake. It's all incredibly fake. Um, it's lovely, isn't it? Don't you just love the fact that he gets his comeuppance? Well, yes, yes, because I think also if they didn't behave so badly and so as if they were above anybody else, I don't think Sarah would have been in a position where she needed to kind of defend her own normality and her roots so much. And Mike wouldn't have been given the opportunity to kind of manipulate her the way he did. And yeah, I had a lot of fun with those two characters. Yeah, really. Um, uh, Harry and Amy are— I think because I think it's quite You— it's very important to me to structure very strong characters. And Harry and Amy, I think, do come off the page as two of the most odious individuals that you would never want to have the misfortune to have to sit down with, don't they? But I think what came to mind was fur coat, no knickers, or probably more accurately, red tartan suit, no knickers. They are really rather odious. But I do have a lot of fun with them. And if you've got characters that are really very unpleasant, you can really put them through the mill. And that's one of the beauties of being able to write, that you can take people that you really, really, really don't like, and you can make their life totally miserable. And you can just put them through the mill. And that's just what's so wonderful about being able to write something like Sarah Needs Saving, that you can take the plot lines and you can develop them, and you can hopefully make good judgments about what would happen in real life so that it's not incredible. But you could, you can, you can do a little bit of social justice as well. Oh yes, I did sense there was some situations, especially, uh, certain coffee morning meetings where there was planning going on with, um, some people who really did like the sound of their own voices. I was wondering whether that was based on any real life experience where you with certain people? No, I have to say, um, there I have, I have got a friend who's read, not been able to get past the first page of the book because she said it just reminds her of her own life. Hopefully not too much. I said, don't worry, don't worry, Fiona, once you get past the first page, it's not, it's not, I promise you. But she does do a lot of— she's a very, very generous-hearted person, and she does do an enormous amount for, for, for, for, for one of the local charities. And I just think that she sort of thought, oh my God, it's going to be, it's going to be all about my work for the charity. But it's not. And none of my characters are ever modeled on individual people. But inevitably you take a little bit of someone just to sort of inspire you, a little bit of someone that sort of, you know, you think, well, if I mix a little bit of that in and a little bit of that person who's sitting over there having a coffee that looks like they've got an interesting face. You end up with somebody that can be quite an interesting character. So no, Sandra isn't modeled on anybody in particular, but I kind of imagined what would be the worst sort of chairperson that you can have trying to dictate who you, what you should do. And I think she is, she does personify a lot of things that we've all experienced where people in authority are bossing us around. Right, okay, yeah. I did, yes, I did have visions. It's that thing, isn't it, where you see a sign as you walk into an author's house, "Any bad behavior will be recorded in my next novel." So I had visions of that as I was reading about Sandra. I do wonder whether my friends are a little bit more reserved now And I think inevitably when they read the books, because I've, you know, as you know, I'm well on my way to the second novel, that they can't help but sort of think, is that person modeled on XYZ? And I do wonder whether they're a little bit more reserved about letting their hair down in front of me for fear of those ideas being stolen and appearing in print. See, I wouldn't be surprised if at some of your many dinner parties where I gather you cook your own homegrown produce, whether people might possibly over-egg situations to see if they can get it in the book. I absolutely love gardening, and I think it's a little bit of the African in me that I, I slightly overdo it. So I'm, I, I I haven't got that skill of, of, of, I, if I, as a vegetable gardener, you know, you sort of germinate sort of maybe 20 red cabbage plants and then you try and separate them out and, and just grow 6. And I just can't, I can't kill the other 14. I've gotta find somewhere for them to go. Yeah. So I massively overproduce and therefore I have to, being an African, I can't, I can't waste anything. I just can't bear it. I cannot bear food going to waste. Me neither. I have to, if it's not going to a dog or it's not going to a chicken or it's not going to a friend, then I have to cook it and I have to entertain and I have to feed people. I have to feed people. I completely understand this. I mean, one of my, if I ever feel a little bit overwhelmed or I kind of need a Ctrl+Alt+Delete, my thing is cooking and especially on a Wednesday because then, you know, because of the alliteration, it's Wine Wednesday and you should always cook with a little bit of wine. And so therefore people at work on a Thursday will know that there's lots of food coming in because there's only me and my two children and sometimes it's not quite the style of food that they want because I'll try quite different things. So I'll just come in on a Thursday with a ridiculous amount of food because I just want to cook and I definitely don't want it wasted. So yeah, I definitely— I do understand not wanting to waste and just loving cooking from scratch and just entertaining people as well. What sort of food do you like to cook? I love cooking Middle Eastern food. I've just got this great, you know, sort of desire, all the herbs, all the spices. Yeah, I just love it. And I'm very fortunate that my husband, having been forced during COVID to take up cooking, I can't do it all, dear. I really can't do it all. Strangely, he turned out to be a really, really good cook. Oh, well done him. And he cooks really, really good Indian cookery. He is sort of a bit like Heston Blumenthal. He's into the spices and the chemistry of cooking, and he's really good at mixing spices. I remember going into his office once because a recipe that I was calling for chillies, dried chillies. And I thought, well, he's bound to have some. So I went into his office and I said, Martin, have you got any dried chillies I could have from you? And he stopped what he was doing and he turned around and he rattled off about 4 different sorts of chillies. And he said, well, which sort do you want? And I said, just dried chillies. The recipe just has dried chillies. And he said, what are you doing? Do you want the heat at the back of the mouth, at the front of the mouth? Oh, I love that. Quite impressed, I really was. Well, I mean, I'm a vegetarian, so I will cook so from so many different areas, and I like to kind of mix the different genres together. But my kids are meat eaters, so I cook a lot of meat. So quite often, especially my oldest— my youngest is the one that likes doing the prep with me— but my eldest, he will sit there with a spoon and kind of taste as I go along for the spag bowls and for the lasagnas and for the curries and things like that, because I can smell it and I know it smells delicious, but someone's got to taste it. And so they just sit there with their spoon waiting to be fed. That reminds me, that story that you just told, Hazel, reminds me of my goddaughter, who is really, really such a sweet girl. She really is. And when she was a bit younger, because she's, she's, she's 9 now, when she was a bit younger, um, her, her mother, who's a very good friend of mine, Jackie, was a vegan. She's now a vegetarian, um, but she was a vegan, uh, but her husband, um, is very much a meat eater, and Emily's being brought up to eat what she wants. And she always used to explain to people, "Mummy's a vegan, but Daddy and I are English," she used to say. Wow. Yeah, but you know, out of the mouths of babes. Absolutely. But I have to say that Jackie always used to say that even when she was a vegan, she was quite comfortable eating my eggs because she knew how I treat my chickens, and she knew that they were very, very carefully looked after, fed from all the scraps from all of my overproduction in the polytunnels, and she just knew that they were really, really well looked after, and the eggs do taste wonderful as a consequence. They really do. I don't like eggs, but if I'm somewhere else where the eggs are pretty much coming from the next garden, it's a completely different beast. It is. It tastes fantastic. Yeah. I guess that's where you got your research from for the polytunnels as well. I'm assuming for your— the research for your book didn't involve you growing your own pot. No, but you know what, that's where I write. I love being down there. Really peculiarly, that is where I write. I actually sit in the polytunnel in a white plastic chair. I use a tub of fish blood and bone for my sort of Pepsi Max, which is there to give me a caffeine boost. I've got my stack of sort of research material on another tub of Growmore. And it's just wonderful because you're just looking out on all this produce that is growing. And when you need to take a little gap, you can, you know, do you just put, put the computer to one side and you can wander up and do a tiny bit of weeding or a tiny bit of, you know, fiddling around, and it's terribly relaxing and it's terribly inspirational. So I actually write in there. Yeah, I just write in there. I mean, I write wherever, you know, I love writing there because then you're not disturbed and people know that you're in there, and if you're in there, you shouldn't be disturbed. Whereas if you're in the house, then dogs can come in and they expect to be, you know, they expect to be the center of your attention. Husbands can come in and friends can drop round. Whereas if you're writing and you're in the polytunnel, then, then you don't get interrupted just at that moment when you're just trying to sort a little problem out. Yep. If Debbie's in the polytunnel, leave her alone. I love that. Um, so what's the next book about then? What, what's been going on recently in the polytunnel? What's been going on recently in the polytunnel is actually, the next book is actually not even set in it. It is. It is still partially set in North Devon because I think always I'm going to write about what's surrounding me. But we were in— we were during COVID the first lockdown, we were actually locked down in Portugal coincidentally. And so the second book is mostly set in the Algarve. And there is still large tracts of it set in North Devon. But a lot of it is set in the Algarve, so that's where my sort of international experience comes out. And that's set down in Portugal. So is it connected to Sarah? Do you know, it's not. It's completely different. I did try and connect it, but my editor said it was a bit tortuous and actually a bit confusing. And And that's why right at the very end, when Mike makes his exit, he actually goes off to Portugal. And I did actually have the link into the new novel, but it was a bit tortuous and it would've needed a lot of explanation. And my editor said, "Debbie, just cut it. Just cut it." Oh, I wanted to hear about Mike's £5 million ill-gotten gains in the Algarve. Yeah, yeah, naughty boy, Mike. But, but it is interesting, isn't it? Because although, you know, Mike is portrayed as someone who does some terrible things, there is, you know, I think, I think I personally had an element of sympathy for some of what he did, and I didn't want to portray him as the antagonist, that which is why I, I write about Nick, um, because I, I think although, you know, Sarah learns quite a bit from Mike. I, I have some sympathy for Mike, and I, I, I do have— I think he was badly treated by Harry. That's exactly what I was about to say. You need to put some perspective on it. When people treat you badly, sometimes you can kind of understand why somebody treats them badly back, you know. I don't mean that, you know, we could— we can all respond in that way, and it's not the best way to live, but, you know, you've got to earn respect, and if you treat somebody terribly, then, you know, the respect has gone, and therefore a different path is kind of formed. But we don't want to tell the listeners too much about Serenity Slay, and they need to go out and buy it themselves, and they can pop onto dcrbond.com to go and order the book and sink their teeth into it. When you're in between writing, is there any— are there any particular books that you've been reading and loving at the moment? Yeah, I've normally got two on the go, Hazel. I know I like to read, I like to read a nonfiction book at night and then a fiction book during the day. My nonfiction book at the moment, I recently finished one by Alison Weir, which is about the, about the, the, the medieval English queens, which is fascinating. Now reading one by Lucy Worsley about Agatha Christie. Okay. Which is really, really fun. And actually it's almost too much fun because the idea of nighttime reading for me is that you read a few pages and then you get sleepy. And you can't do that if it's too compelling. Yes. But I'm really enjoying that. It's fascinating reading her take on, on, on Agatha Christie and all the sort of bits of Agatha Christie that we take for granted. And in true Lucy Worsley fashion, she does put a new spin on it. It. And then at the moment, on a, on a, on a fiction basis, I'm just reading The Keeper of Stories. Okay. Which is, which is quite, quite an interesting book. I'm just— and it's obviously had a lot of, um, a lot of reviews. So I'm just re— I'm just starting that, but I haven't got too far into that yet, so I can't really comment yet. It has been put in my basket, The Keeper of Stories. It's one of those ones that I do hope to be able to get the chance to read, um, soon. Now we are running out of time, which is not a huge surprise. But so very quickly, I do like to ask all my guests for 3 top tips, their main things, their main go-tos to try and maintain a good level of mental health and mental well-being. What would be your 3? Um, my 3, in no particular order. The first one is definitely go walking, and if you can, go walking with a dog. Because if you watch— if you watch the dog sticking its snout in a bush, sticking its snout down a molehole, chasing after a bird that it stands no chance of catching, you just can't help but laugh. Yeah. So I think that's a brilliant tip. The second one I personally always follow is go and do some vegetable gardening. And I know we don't all have the space for a polytunnel, but just something on a window shelf, you know, just the concept of weeding and just nurturing something that really just is time-consuming. You can't think— it's good mindfulness. You can't think about anything but just just tipping, ticking away and peeling out those little weeds that shouldn't be there. And I think my last one is something that certainly I personally practice, which is don't watch the news, put the radio on instead. Oh, 100%. I have friends saying to me, did you see the news this morning? Did you hear it? Did you listen? I was like, no, I'm not going to listen. It's all morbidly ridiculous or completely based around moral panic where they just want clickbait. I don't trust it, I don't like it, and I think it's horrible. So I completely agree with that. Just put some music on, just listen to the radio. I mean, if something ghastly has happened that you need to know about, they'll let you know. They will, yeah. But news that you watch is so alarmist, isn't it? I mean, we all— yeah, it's sensationalist. It's— yeah, I don't trust a lot of it, unfortunately, increasingly so. But those were three Absolutely fantastic tips. I really appreciate that, and thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I've really enjoyed chatting to you, and hopefully we'll chat again when the next book comes out. I hope so, Hazel. Yes, I'll see if I can come up with a, a new tip for mental well-being by then. Oh, I'm sure you'll come up with so many. Thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Thank you, Hazel. Thank you. As we like to do here on Get Booked, we now have an author-read extract of today's book. A reading from Sarah Needs Saving. Sarah tried Freddie again. No answer. She tossed the phone onto the copper tray, pausing to stare for a moment at the invitation, and started laying the table. The doorbell rang, sending a ripple of pleasure through her. Now she was the one who passed down the corridor. It was her octagonal hallway she crossed, before opening the glazed doors onto the short inner hallway and sliding back the lock to answer her imposing front door. She popped the ticking timer into her apron pocket, feeling it trembling against her body, wondering who she would be admitting. She wasn't expecting anyone, but she had fast learned that owning the Dower House brought responsibilities and plenty of visitors. She embraced her new position as the respected lady of the big house, The villagers expected support for local causes, and she gave it willingly, both her time and, where necessary, money. People regularly dropped by hoping to be invited into the house for a cup of tea as they tapped her for a raffle prize or thrust a crumpled sponsorship form into her hands, a shy youngster shuffling by their side. She always asked callers inside, enjoying their gawping at the sheer size and opulence of her home. Her first visitor had been one of the church wardens dropping by to welcome the new family to the community. "Just wanted to leave you one of our information leaflets, let you know about upcoming events, prayer meetings, Bible classes, and of course when the church services are." "Thank you, how thoughtful." "I'm Sarah Featherstone. Do come in for a cup of tea if you've time," said Sarah, inviting the lady to introduce herself. The visitor accepted, wiping her feet zealously on the doormat, and tiptoed into the hallway. Oh gosh, thank you ever so. I'm Susan Johnston. I've never actually been invited into the big house before. Susan was astonished and amazed and astounded every step of the way to the morning room. It took 15 minutes to cross the octagonal staircase hall. For over an hour, Sarah poured tea and fielded Susan's stream of questions while the visitor wandered around the morning room, pointing at each vase and every picture. This woman had never stepped beyond the velvet rope before. 15 years ago, neither had Sarah. Are all these things really yours? I, I don't mean yours personally. I mean, do all these beautiful objects belong to your family? Yes, they do now. Wow, aren't you lucky! Mind, I think I might be a bit nervous about the dusting. Sarah held up the teapot. "You get used to it. More tea?" "Oh, ta very much," said Susan, passing over her cup. "You inherited, didn't you? I mean the house. You inherited the house." Sarah handed back the full cup. "Yes, it used to belong to my mother-in-law. That's one of life's most precious gifts, isn't it? Family. You can have all the money in the world, but there's no point without your family." Children? One daughter, Mary, named after her grandmother. Oh, that's lovely, innit? Did she leave you all the furniture too? Sarah stood up, shaking the empty teapot, then staring at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. Heavens, is that the time? Susan took her cue, and Sarah was able to close the front door on the guest, vowing to learn how to curtail future house tours without being rude. Each time Sarah answered the front door, she felt the corners of her mouth twitch, recalling that first visitor. Who would it be tonight? Sarah closed the door to the octagonal hallway, humming to herself as she slid back the bolt and opened the front door. There were no villagers outside, just Mike, and he was covered in blood. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. That was an extract of today's book, Sarah Needs Saving, by today's guest, D.C.R. Bond. You can find out more about today's guest at dcrbond.com. Right now, time on Get Booked for today's guest, Giulia Boggio, with the book Shooters, which has become a bestseller. What a fun book. The majority of industries have an incestuous undertone at the best of times., and photography certainly is no different. Well, apart from the whole intimate nature of the work, the romantic settings, and celebrity lifestyle, but obviously other than that. Sometimes we need to break patterns in our behavior to get different results, to break away from what's not working for us. But then again, it isn't always down to our behavior, and we need to explore the possibility of something new, not going the same way past relationships. Stella in Shooters is a deliciously feisty, sexy, warm, and driven, yet a totally clumsy character who is determined to become a successful wedding photographer, so long as she doesn't become distracted by older patterns of behavior that has not served her well. The whole book is full of strong characters, especially the women. And yet they all have their fallible quirks. It just makes them human and relatable. As I said before, it's a great fun book. Julia, thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked. Yeah, no worries. Thanks for having me on, and congratulations on becoming a bestseller. Thank you. You've done so well. We're going to talk a little bit, um, later on in the show about how you have done incredible marketing for this book. But first of all, if you just kick off telling our listeners a little bit about you, who are you? Oh goodness, who am I? I am— I— that's a big question for this time in the morning. Now, so I'm Julia Bojo. I'm originally from New Jersey, but I've now lived in the UK for longer than I lived in America, actually. And, and I started my working life as a copywriter.. And I did that for about 8 years, and then I discovered photography on a 6-month trip through South America. And so when I got back from that, I retrained as a photographer and I entered the wonderful world of wedding photography, which is of course where I've drawn a lot of my knowledge for, for writing this book. So yeah, and that's it. I'm a mother. I've got 2 kids. I'm also, well, I don't know if you want to talk about this, Yes, but I'm a YouTube— I was an original YouTube star as well. We do want to— do not think we're getting away if we weren't talking about YouTube for sure. Okay, I'll just leave that little Easter egg for later then. But yeah, no, that's, that's me in a nutshell. Brilliant. Yeah. Well, so Stella, the character, I must say I had so much fun and This is what I love about books, because you can find out so much about each other and about different industries, and we can talk about how we can make mistakes in life and how we can overcome them. And then sometimes we give us— we put ourselves under so much pressure to succeed or keep on going over past mistakes that sometimes aren't even necessarily something that's just completely down to ourselves. Um, and I think Shooters really covers that. And it's, it's super fun. And I, I like finding out a little bit more about the photography industry as well. And yeah, I think, I think you can, you can always tell when a book has been written by somebody who knows the industry that they're talking about. It's like, you know, like when doctors watch Grey's Anatomy and they're probably like, oh, that didn't happen that way, or, you know, that kind of thing. I didn't— I wanted the details to be right in this book, and I definitely know the industry. So yeah, definitely do. I, I want to know, what was your— what was the process like for writing this book? Did you have to do any additional research? Did you have to kind of call in some favors from some of your friends in the industry? Well, I mean, I do— I'm always putting questions on Facebook for all my photography friends, like, oh, can you tell me a story from a wedding where this happened and that happened? And, and they're always too happy to, uh, to pour their hearts out to me. But, but yeah, no, a lot of it has just come from my own experience and, and then a lot from my imagination as well. I mean, there's nothing in the book that actually happens, you know, was 100% what happened in real life. But, but yeah, no, it was an interesting process and I wrote it over the pandemic. So I mean, I couldn't go to Cliveden to look around and remember the details. I mean, I've probably got some stuff wrong there, I had to use my memory and the internet from the time that I shot a wedding at Clivedon. And also, you know, the lakes in Italy for that section of the book. I just had to use the internet and my own memories of Italy. So it was, yeah, harder to do during the pandemic. I bet it was quite helpful actually. I mean, first of all, writing a book keeps you out of trouble in the pandemic, but also imagining all these fantastic destinations and locations even in the UK. When you couldn't actually go to them. I suppose it was part of your little mental health journey, really. Yeah, I agree. It was, it was very good for me to be able to sort of escape the hell of the pandemic. But also I took a, I took a writing course over the time. So I was doing the Curtis Brown 6-month selective course and I met my writing tribe through that, which was extremely helpful in, you know, getting through the pandemic and, and, you know, honing my craft as a writer as well. So Um, yeah, that, that will always be part of my, my memory of that time. Well, talking about honing your craft, I mean, um, when you release a book, quite often you get PR people involved just to kind of help you connect with many different people, uh, who can help you promote your book. But you have done the research, and I, I think I recall you saying in the past that you've done little courses as well, um, on how to market yourself and your book in a fun way, in the same way me that, uh, all these, um, 19, 20-year-olds use TikTok. I mean, I would love to be able to do some of the things that you've put out on social media. There's so much fun, but it works, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's another creative outlet for me, and that's the thing, because I've got a degree in marketing and, you know, I was in advertising for a long time and I ran my own business. So, um, if I can't market something, there's something wrong. But, um, But yeah, I mean, when you look at something like Instagram and whatnot, I think the content that people really relate to is when you're creating something entertaining but also making a point at the same time. And since I've started doing those videos, I can tell that I've definitely had an uptick in followers and whatnot. Long may it continue. But yeah, they're fun as well. Marketing should be fun. That's, that's my number one you know, saying about marketing. I think when it comes across as being fun, it helps people want to engage as well, because there are so many hints and tips and tricks that people use out there to market themselves. And yeah, you use it for fun and just have, have a great time. And it's definitely worked for you. She just seems to be everywhere. And I've seen various pictures of people, especially photographers, in random destinations reading Susan. Well, that was part of my campaign. So, um, you know, before the book launched, I reached out to my photography network and I asked certain people, you know, would you take pictures of yourself reading Shooters for my launch campaign? And then the idea was that everybody would put this picture up on, uh, you know, social media at the same time on the day of my launch and then tell people about the book and ask them to buy it. And I dropped the price of the book as well on digital. And, um, so they all did this. And I have to say, I mean, the, the photos that they came up with were amazing. I mean, they weren't just iPhone photos. They were, they were really professional photos. And, and I'll always be grateful to them all for taking the time to, to do that for me. I think it, yeah, it's lovely. And, and obviously, as you said, you've written about what you know. You know photography, but also another theme in the book is dancing. Oh yes, here we go. You are a dancer. You are, you know what's happening now. You are a dancer. And I do believe that you reenacted a dance scene on your— was it your wedding day? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but first of all, I think calling me a dancer is probably stretching the truth a little bit. I did a dance at my wedding. You knew how to dance though. It was a professional dance, something that you knew, something about you. You absolutely smashed it out the park. It was the famous dance from Dirty Dancing. Yeah, yeah. And so, and it was back when, you know, not everybody stood there throughout every waking moment with their phones. So there was, um, so it's quite a, a really simple video that kind of got picked up on YouTube and it did really well. If it was now, it would have, you know, millions of views on TikTok and Instagram and it'd be absolutely everywhere. But it was something that went viral back before things really Yeah, back when— things just go viral so easily. Exactly. Yeah. It's like the meaning of viral has really changed in the past, you know, 15 years since we got married or 17 years. My God, it's been a long time. But yeah, back then viral was something that you sent around to your friends, a video that was on YouTube, and then you talked about it around the water cooler. And nowadays there's just so much viral content that You know, nothing really gets picked out of the crowd anymore unless it's, you know, really different. But back then, yeah, we put it up and the next day we got a call from the Metro and we had like 200 views and we were so excited. And we put it up 2 years after we actually got married. So, you know, it wasn't filmed with the purpose of going on to YouTube. We just put it up to show friends. And so we did. We had 200 views, Metro calls and wanted to do a piece on us. Fine. So we did it. And the next day my husband got onto the tube to, you know, to go to work. And, but there were no Metros, they were all out. So he got a Times and suddenly was reading it on the tube and he just looked over at the woman next to him who was reading the Metro. And, you know, we expected like a column inch, you know, not, not much. I mean, not a big story. It was an entire page. It was the entire, you know, third page. I was a page 3 girl. And he He's just like, he's like, can I have your newspaper? Can I switch with you? And she's like, why? And he's like, because that's me. And she's like, oh my God. And then he got off the tube at the next stop to call me.