Booked All Night

I'll Murder Him On Tuesday: An Interview with Allison Bettes

Subscriber Episode • • Booked All Night • Season 3 • Episode 19

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This week Jess was joined by Allison Bettes, Dr Pepper addict, weather nerd, and author of the Ranger Shield Security, Raising the Bar, and Cupid Meets Crime Scene romantic suspense series. 

You can order Red Flag Warning and more from our BookShop page which not only supports the pod but also indie bookstores, or directly from Allison's website (which includes free shipping and a signed copy!)

We volunteer as tribute--repeatedly. We're diving into the world of The Hunger Games: all 5 books, all 6 movies breaking down the world, the characters, the feelings, that weird thing with the pearl, our hatred for Gale, our love for Haymitch, & more. All leading up to the theatrical release of Sunrise On The Reaping this November. 

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Booked All Night is produced by Rob Cook.

Edited by Jessica Mary and Rob Cook.

Hosted by Jessica Mary, K. Leigh, Julia Johnston, and Magdalyn Ann

SPEAKER_00

Hey there, my little LibraNats. I'm Jessica Mary, and today I'm joined by Allison Betts, Dr. Pepper Addict, weather nerd, and author of the Ranger Shield Security Raising the Bar and Cupid Meets Crime Scene Romantic Suspense series. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02

So nice to watch. Yeah, no, I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00

I'm excited to have you. I love doing interviews. They're always so fun. So to get us started, can you just give us a quick pitch for I guess Cupid Meets Crime Scene?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So that specific series is really about the focus, is really the females. So all of my female characters in that series uh work in a STEM-related job. And so it's kind of their background that helps solve the crime or mystery that's in the book, along with finding they're happy ever after. Because I think the joy of romantic suspense is it's you get the spicy romance, but you also have some kind of crime or mystery or suspense element to it. But it's usually, and I'm guilty of this, my other series are it's usually the guy that in his role is solving the crime or the mystery. So that's what kind of separates this one because it's more of the female that's doing it.

SPEAKER_00

I like that. I like putting females first in these nice power roles, especially with a STEM background. That's so fun. And I do have questions about that later. Because I have I have researchy questions. But our very first game of the podcast is superlatives. So I'm going to ask you who in your books is most likely to or least likely to. This is very short, very rapid fire. Just let us know which character and uh which book they're from. And you have quite a few. So if you want to go outside the Cupid Meets Crime Scene series, you go right ahead. The first one is most likely to own way too many reusable water bottles.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, okay, that's a good question. That is probably my character, Ruthie, who was in the book uh Deception in New Direction. She's borderline hoarder, so that would be the reason probably why she would have them. She's also the type that when she walks into a store, it doesn't matter that she has 30 water bottles. If she sees a cute pink bedazzled one, she needs it. So she would get another one.

SPEAKER_01

To be fair, I want a cute pink bedazzled water bottle.

SPEAKER_00

So I also have a problem with water bottles. My husband's like, throw them out. Like, no, you can reuse all of them for forever. It's fine. Least likely to adopt a stray animal.

SPEAKER_03

Least likely? Oh, see, that's a hard one because a lot of my characters do that. Um, okay, I'm gonna have to actually think. That would probably be Jay, who was my firefighter character, only because he talks specifically about how much he would like a pet, but his schedule just doesn't really allow for it. You know, they work 24 or 48 hours on and then off. So that would probably be the one I could think of most just because again, it's mentioned multiple times that his schedule really kind of prevents him from having a pet.

SPEAKER_00

That's fair. Most likely to become best friends with the local barista.

SPEAKER_03

Oh coffee addiction would probably be my character Anna. Um, she is a TV news anchor and works very weird hours and talks about how tired she always is and how she very much requires coffee and caffeine. So I would guess probably Anna. She's in my book uh Restart and New Revenge, part of my first series. Exciting.

SPEAKER_00

Least likely to bring snacks for everyone.

SPEAKER_03

That would probably be Axel, who is in my book New Roots, and that is only because he would hoard them and doesn't want to share them. He is no the the female character that he gets with in the book runs a bakery, and he enjoys eating all of them by himself and not really sharing. So yes, definitely him.

SPEAKER_00

To be fair, if I dated a baker, I'd be like, no, the snacks are for me.

SPEAKER_03

Right. I will be your sci- your sampler, and I can't.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's fine. It's it's good. The last one is most likely to have 15 tabs open and insist they're organized.

SPEAKER_03

Uh well, first off, that would be me. You could see my screen right now. I call them my emotional support tabs because there's gotta be like 45 of them.

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna use them if they have to stay there.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. I may not use them for six more months, but at some point I'm gonna need it. So yes. Um, in terms of which character would probably use that, honestly, probably my character Iris, who is in my book Red Flag Morning, she's a meteorologist, and so she uses her computer a lot and she's constantly has all this data and information. So I could see her kind of being the same where she would need to have 30 tabs open at the same time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I wish it was only 30. There are sometimes I open up and it's like they're so small, I can't even read what the tab is. I mean, we want them to see what they are. Let them girl. Same.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, it's it's so bad. Especially when I'm like working on a new piece and I'm like doing all that research. Yes. I have had NASA's website open for four months at this point, and I haven't read the clips?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Fair, totally fair.

SPEAKER_00

So let's jump into the Cupid Meets crime scene series, which is a spin-off from the Ranger Shield security series. Uh, and as you mentioned, it features uh sisters of one of the main characters of that. Will readers need to be versed in the Ranger Shield security series in order to understand Road Wave or any of them.

SPEAKER_03

No. I I write my books as a reader, because I was a reader long before I was a writer. I love reading things out of order. I am not the type that has to read things in order. So it bothers me if I see book three of a series that just that like the blurb or the tropes just sound amazing and I want to start there, but it it irritates me if I have to go back and read the first ones. So I wanted to genuinely write a lot of my books in that way that you could pick up anywhere and start with anything. Now, I have been told that the third book in the Ranger Shield series should be read after the first one, only because the it's their brother and sister. So each one of them, you get to know their love story, but you get a little bit more of the family history in book one. Now, the plot itself, the storyline, does not need to be read in the first one. It's more just for people who really want that full story background, like the family history. They preferred reading that one over the third one. But I've also had some people start at book four, start at book three, start at book six, it doesn't matter, and they feel perfectly fine with it. So, yes, basically what happened is in my fourth book of The Ranger Shield Security, which is Restart and New Revenge, you meet Anna, the news anchor. And she is adopted and she has several other adopted sisters that they grew up with. So the Cubid Meets crime scene series really just kind of picks up with the rest of the sisters. So you get to know each and every one of them. None of them live in the same state. They all live in different towns and different places across the country. So really the only thing that's connecting them is the backstory, and there's uh an occasional unhinged family group text that goes into the books. So that's really what kind of links them. And again, the common denominator of each of them works in some kind of like stem-related job, at least in the cupid meets crime scene. Anna's not, she's a news anchor, but the rest of them are. We have a forensic scientist, a meteorologist, a marine biologist. Again, they're all kind of STEM-based careers. But no, you don't have to. Um, you know, some people do just because they don't like knowing that this character is going to get together, even though I think we all, it's a romance book. We know the character's gonna get together in the end.

SPEAKER_01

You can be a little sus about it.

SPEAKER_03

Like it's it's fun. Who knows? So, yes, some people I know prefer to read books like book one, two, three, and four. And I've met people like that when they, you know, meet you at book events or things like that. They're like, nope, sorry, still gotta start at book one, and that's fine. But no, the books don't have to be read in any particular order.

SPEAKER_00

That's exciting that it's a big series of essentially standalone pieces, and you can just kind of pick it up and be where you want to be and not be like, well, I need to read 15 other books prior to getting into this particular one.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, reminds me of it. You'll say, Oh, hey, I remember this guy, he was in this book, or this person was in this book. So you'll have that familiarity, but yeah, no, there's no technical order to any of this.

SPEAKER_00

It kind of like it reminds me of like old school IP work where like you can pick up any babysitter club book, you can pick up any Gears Fonts book, and you know kind of like the mood and the vibe that you're getting into, but you don't need to read the other 182 of these to understand what's going on. Yeah. I like that. That's really cool. Uh we did talk about the ladies in STEM that the O'Hara sisters are all scientists, and Iris, I read, was a meteorologist, Cora is a hydrologist, uh, Hazel is who's our main character is a marine biologist, and they all kind of find themselves in whoops, a cran scene. So my question is two parts in like, in that sounds like a lot of research. Do you have background in STEM? And if not, like what was the research for that for? And what makes those particular jobs and these characters really ideal for coming into this crime scene romance series?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so I am actually a scientist by day. That is my day job. So it was very easy for me to kind of come into the science background of these. And literally every single one of the roles that one of the sisters has, I have a friend who specifically works in that job. So it was also a way for me, not just with my own job, but it was a way for me to contact my friends and say, okay, walk me through your day. And I don't mean, you know, like, look, we we all know a teacher. We all know somebody who's worked as a teacher. I don't want to know that you just teach kids. I wanted them to literally like talk me through like first bell all the way to you leave. Like, what do you do? And so it was first off, it was actually kind of nice because I got more details about all my friends' jobs and what they actually do. You know, you know like what they do, but you don't know the details. So it was kind of fun. But also too, I learned a lot along the way. I'm not a marine biologist. I, you know, when I was probably eight or nine, I hadn't had an obsession with like dolphins and manatees. I wanted to be one, but I never became that. So it's a rite of passage. It is, but and it it was like, I don't know, I had the best way to describe it. Just it was such a fun way to kind of dive into a career that I thought I maybe wanted to have. And now you actually get to talk to somebody who is doing it. It was so neat to kind of hear the stories. And I have to admit, a lot of the funny moments that happen in the books were kind of maybe not actual things that happened to my friends, but kind of like, you know, maybe dramatized them a little bit more for the books to make them more fun. But there were definitely moments in there where if that friend reads the book, they're like, oh my God, I totally remember this, you know, because it was something that they've gone through. So that was actually fun. Now, with that said, even though I am a scientist, even though I had friends that were involved, it is still a ton of research because I didn't necessarily write the books where my friends live. So you have the component of the science aspect in the book, but you also still have to do research on your, you know, your fake small town. You still have to do research on some of the character development itself. So there was still a lot of research there, just maybe not as much if I wasn't a scientist myself. The crime and mystery aspect was very fun because it wasn't, they're not just your typical like murder type of situations where someone dies and, you know, here's the bad guy. Their jobs actually help you solve the crime. So as you're reading, it's still almost like a mystery novel where you kind of pick up pieces of evidence and you're trying to figure out the who done it as you read it, and you're using their background knowledge to kind of give you some input. So I really had a lot of fun with that.

SPEAKER_00

It sounds like you had a lot of fun with that. What is your daytime scientist job?

SPEAKER_03

I am a meteorologist. So Iris, the very first one in Red Flag Morning, was actually based uh not necessarily my job. She, Iris's character, works for the National Weather Service outside of what would be Las Vegas. Again, it's a made-up town, but that is where she is. I don't live there. That's not my job, but it's a similar job to what I do. Now, I actually have a friend who does that job and was very specific in giving me advice. But it was definitely a lot of fun to write a character like that. And being a meteorologist, I have a lot of fun weather puns and weather jokes. And it was so much fun, can I tell you, to add some of those, like just into the book, as I'm sure it would be for anyone who has a job. If you, you know, do coding or you're a teacher, a doctor, everybody's got little jokes that work, you know, with their career. That was very fun to put those in.

SPEAKER_00

It's also really fun, like when you are a reader and you have any semblance of understanding of those fields. And uh, I don't remember the exact joke, but it was a coding joke uh written in Python about Santa checking his list twice. And saw the bottom of it's like repeat, you know, and I was like, ah ha ha ha, it's funny, I love it. And my friends are like, I don't what is this? Not like nothing, never mind. I'll just I'll sit in the corner and giggle to myself. It's cool. But sorry.

SPEAKER_03

If you have that background, you get them more. And I um I guess I should have probably taken these out before, but in this front of each chapter, I try to have the jokes written at the very top. Love this. And so each chapter you get one, and they're kind of sort of tailored to that particular chapter, not always, but I tried to make them so that it was a ch it was a funny joke and sometimes could kind of break up the monotony of the book, but also it was a way for people to kind of laugh about it too.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. I love that. It's so good. My final question for this particular scene is what was the first scene that came to your mind for Rogue Wave particularly? And how did you know that that was the story to explore with these characters?

SPEAKER_03

So when I was writing Red Flag Warning, the first book in the series, you know, I have the Unhinged Sister Group chat, and they were talking about some of the animals that uh Hazel was getting at the aquarium. And I got this great idea to have this frog, sassy octopus character that was constantly just the bane of Hazel's existence at work, like constantly causing problems, constantly making her life, you know, very difficult, but it's an animal. And I kind of just went with that. And the more I started writing, I ended up incorporating it so that the octopus kind of almost placed matchmaker between her and Hank. Uh, obviously not on purpose because it's an octopus. They don't do those things on purpose, but it just kind of by default becomes the matchmaker. Ultimately, the reason that the two of them finally, you know, kind of have that moment of like, okay, this is gonna happen is because of Nigel, who is my octopus.

SPEAKER_00

The best name. I love it. Now I need like a Nigel stuffy. This would be great, right?

SPEAKER_03

But that name was I actually asked a lot of my street team. Um, I had sent them, I couldn't cut, I narrowed it down to like four or five names and just couldn't figure out which one to use. And I had sent a poll in Instagram for all of the people that are on my street team and said vote, and that was the name they voted for. So that's how Nigel got his name.

SPEAKER_00

I love, I love stories with um Octophoda. I I just I love them because they're so there's so many mischievous stories that if you were like, yeah, this octopus played matchmaker, I'm like, no, I believe it. I have I 100% believe it. I have seen so many stories about octopuses and things in the aquarium. One where like one was sneaking out every night and they couldn't figure out why the fish were all disappearing from the aquarium. Here the octopus was going and getting them. One where uh he wasn't eating the shrimp and then finally he just like toffed it back at the guy because it wasn't good shrimp. Uh, and then like if you ever watch the videos of them where they have like essentially like the smart toys that we would give dogs with like treats inside them, and they just like completely figure out these puzzles. I'm like, yeah, no, I I buy it. The octopus is a matchmaker and is doing it intentionally. You can't you can't persuade me otherwise, I believe, but that's 100% doable.

SPEAKER_03

And there are very much stories similar to that in the book, which again kind of goes to you know Hazel's frustration at work, but also then how she ends up with Hank. And I I loved it. It was honestly probably one of my favorite scenes I have written. I've got 10 books. Um, not all 10 are published, only eight are published now, but of the 10 books that I have written, that is hands down one of my favorite scenes I have ever written.

SPEAKER_02

That sounds fun.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. That brings us to the very first official big game of the podcast, which is space them or embrace them. And this one, this one comes with a little story. So you are flying through the cosmos with a cargo full of tropes and cliches, but suddenly you get sucked into a black hole, and in order to escape, you have to dump out some cargo. Uh, you have 10 items. I don't know why I always show my hands when I do this. We are an audio medium, but there are 10 items, uh, and you can only see two at a time due to a computer error. You don't have a lot of rounds to get back to to get rid of as many as you would like, but you will come back to the whole list at least once. Only I know the magic number that you need to get down to in order to actually escape. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_02

I am ready.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, your first two are Cargo Manifests and Grumpy Sunshine.

SPEAKER_02

Grumpy Sunshine.

SPEAKER_00

Age gap romance or slow burn?

SPEAKER_03

Age gap.

SPEAKER_00

Forced proximity or small towns.

SPEAKER_03

Oh I'm going forced proximity.

SPEAKER_00

I love forced proximity. It is such crack to me. I don't think I'd ever be able to throw it off this list.

SPEAKER_03

I'm with you. I find uh unintentionally, it's the trope I probably write the most.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. Uh found family or one bed.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, one bed, for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Protective love interests or amateur sleuths.

SPEAKER_03

I'm going protective.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. And happily ever after or grumpy sunshine?

SPEAKER_03

Happily ever after.

SPEAKER_00

Age gap romance or forced proximity? Forced proximity. One bed or protective love interest. One bed. One bed. So you do make it out of the black hole with forced proximity, one bed, and happily ever after. I like those. Which sounds like a great book, to be honest. So this next set of questions are all about like reading habits and what you think on writing craft and other things. What is something about your writing routine that you feel has changed the most over time?

SPEAKER_03

So when I first started writing, which backstory, I started writing during COVID. I'd always had ideas for books in my head, but honestly just never had the time to write them down. And then when COVID hit, you know, a lot of us were trapped in our houses with a lot of extra free time on our hand. I started to actually write them down. And then what just became short stories, they got longer and longer, and one book turned into two and three and four. And it wasn't until my fourth one where my poor husband, who did read my books out of just love and support, was finally like, please publish these so other people read them, which was code for I don't want to read them any because romance is not my jam. Um he did, I will say he loved the crime and the science, like the suspense acts like side of them. It's just the romance side just wasn't really his jam. And that's fine. So by the fourth one, he was like, please just publish these so other people could read them. So it was really him and my best friend at the time who pushed me into doing it. But I think my writing style has changed because I always was under the impression that you have to write a book from start to finish and in that order. You have to write it in correctly. You can't write chapter five before you write chapter two. That doesn't make any sense. And I've now realized that no, like I find my books are better when I just write when the mood strikes me. Um and I have talked about this in on other platforms before, but I am neither a plotter nor pancer. I am what I like to call option C, which is a hormonal writer. And what I mean by that is, you know, in the middle of my cycle, I write my best spicy scenes because that's how I'm feeling. And there is a particular part of your phase where women literally, it's when your focus is the best, you have the most energy. Those are the days I force myself to sit down and write because I can, I mean, everything just comes to me. My focus is perfect. The words just, I mean, vomit all over the page in the best way possible. And then um, on the first day of my cycle when I hate everyone, um, that's when I buy my best murder scenes. Uh, because it's just how I'm feeling. So I I consider myself, as I said, a hormonal writer.

SPEAKER_00

The real reason to track your cycle is just that you can write.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Better murder scenes. So you're like, I know it's coming. You're just son of a few.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. But that's how I do now. If I get to a certain point in the book where I'm struggling and I know I'm only two days away from starting my cycle, I'll be like, you know, I'll murder him on Tuesday. I got time, I'm gonna write something else. So, you know, things like that.

SPEAKER_00

That's perfect. I love it. Because I'm I'm very much like a mood writer. Like, I've got to be in the mood. I kind of have to like romance myself into getting to that point. And so it's nice to hear somebody else has an equally crazy, I have to be in the right state of mind to get into writing.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, just like you said, with people that are mood readers, there are definitely mood writers. And it is so much easier if you just accept that and understand that, and I'm with you, there there are days where I write based off of four Dr. Peppers and an entire bag of races peanut butter cups. That is that is how I write. And and it's fine. You just again, you have to get to the point of, okay, I have accepted it. This is how I'm going to write today. And I've never had an issue with it. Sure, do I end up changing some of the words? Usually the editor will, but I can't say that I've ever been unhappy with those moments. You just kind of have to let your brain work at its own pace.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And eventually, like, you know, you'll you'll hit that flow state. And sometimes that flow state doesn't come, and you gotta just be okay with getting up and stepping away and being like, as you said, I'll kill him on Tuesday. Like it's just it'll there are other days, it'll it'll happen. It's fine. Yeah. With that, do you actively read while you're drafting or do you take breaks while you are doing that?

SPEAKER_03

And I do both. I can never read my own. Books once they are published. I will never go back. And honestly, it has more to do with I find my what I do is I will read a chapter from me. Oh, Mia, why didn't you put this in there? I should have added a line about this. So I find myself just constantly critiquing myself. So I cannot read my own books, but I can read other books. The only issue is it depends on the mood. So I went through like a monster romance phase where that like that's all I wanted to read. I couldn't actively write contemporary romance while reading monster romance because I legitimately found myself as I was like writing some of it. I'm like, you know, they're going through the forest. And then my brain would be like, ooh, what if it's like a tree monster? And I'm like, nope, nope, nope. You write contemporary, you write contemporary. So I have to kind of stick with what I'm writing. So I will often only read contemporary romance when I'm in a writing phase. Now, I love historical romance. I like monster romance. And there's so many other genres that I like, but I cannot read those and write at the same time. Even historical. I mean, it's real people, it's not like it's monsters or fee or anything, but the language, I found I did actually do one book and I found I kept writing, alas, like contemporary books, because it was something that was said in the historical scene, like even little things like that that you don't actually realize that your brain just kind of rewires itself. So now I if I'm writing, I have to read a contemporary romance to kind of go along with it. Otherwise, it just totally messes with me.

SPEAKER_00

I am this so I as I said before, I write for children and I write mostly upper middle grade, which is that weird gap between like middle school and high schools. It's a very specific voice. So when I'm writing, if I'm reading, like I have to read in that specific age category in that specific voice, or I will start talking like an adult. And I'm like, these are not adults. This is a 13-year-old, they have no concept of these adult things. Like, and if they do, that's a completely wildly different story than what I'm writing. And right like it it's hard, it's very difficult, especially if if you enjoy genre fiction, you're like, I love monster romance, and you're like, and then alas, oh wait, it's 2026. We don't we don't say that now. Or I had I had started, I can't believe it. It hurts me to say technically historical fiction romance because it's set in 2005, so everybody gets to feel old with me on that. And I was like, how did we talk? Oh, oh, oh, that's how we talked. Oh, like like Regency era kind of has like it doesn't matter what class you're reading about in the Regency era, they all kind of have like this, it sounds sophisticated, yeah, you know. And I was like, not 2005, not not any part of that sounds.

SPEAKER_03

It's funny you say that because even when you go back and you watch old movies from like the 70s, the 80s, and 90s, and you hear some of the phrases they say, you almost like internally cringe, like, oh, people said that. But yes, that's exactly right. It's it whether it was the 1300s, 1500s, 1800s, all of them just sounded very regal. Even if, again, if you were just what was considered a commoner, it's there was just this element of how the language was spoken. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

I I think about that whenever I think about my Shakespeare classes, right? Shakespeare's like the the epitome of the English language, and it's all dick jokes and sword play. And everyone's like, oh, you should write like Shakespeare. And I'm like, I mean, I kinda am. So I guess uh it's rough. It's rough the way that we just kind of osmosis what we're reading into our writing, and and I'm like, you don't even notice till you go back to edit, and you're like, you find the alas, or you find you finding for using my editor that's like no one says this. Like, or or what's the new one? There's a new movie coming out, or the guy wicker, right? I just sit there staring at it, but I know if I were reading that somehow there'd be a bunch of baskets in my writing for no good reason, you know? Like it would just stay there. And my last question, my last defensive question for the reading writing section. Uh, what is the deepest you have ever delved into the research rabbit hole?

SPEAKER_03

Ooh. So I would see there's two aspects of it. Um, one is the jobs. I get lost when I research jobs, like in the best way possible, lost. You know, where you start going down these rabbit holes of information. And especially for the marine biologist role. Yes, I had people I could talk to who are actually marine biologists. Yes, I even had one that actually worked at an aquarium where my character works. And those were great, but then they give you a bit of information and you just start deep diving into something that you read about. Uh, there is a a very, it's not a very big chapter, but there's a chapter in there where she's dealing with an axolotl. I have to admit, I knew very little about axolotls before writing this book. And now I feel like I could own five or six of them and be perfectly fine because of the amount of information that I know. So there is, I that's probably the most common thing that I find that I do deep dives into research, and that would be the jobs in the background of the characters. But probably the hardest thing for me is anything medical. I am not a medical person. I have a couple friends, I have an ER doctor friend, I have a couple nurses, but I that's not my forte. So you have to be very delicate about what you write. You can't write a character that says, oh, she had a cast on for six days. No one wears a cast for six days. You wear it for six weeks, sometimes longer. So you do have to be very careful about stuff like that, where, you know, in your mind, well, yeah, but I only want her to wear a cast for six days. Well, it doesn't work that way. So you kind of have to sometimes kind of rewrite the narrative of what you wanted your book to be based off of what you find out. So, my favorite, however, is when I will randomly send some of my medical friends questions because I've had to start putting hypothetically before it, because apparently one of my friends' co-workers saw the messages pop up. She was like, So, if I were to stab someone in the leg, how quickly would they be now? I think it kind of may or may not have frightened this person. So now I have to put like hypothetically, if I did this every time I send a message. But yes, I would say medical stuff is definitely hands down the hardest for me just because I have very little knowledge. I can put a band-aid on a cut and that's about it.

SPEAKER_00

This brings us to the second game of the podcast, which I see you have lots of copies of your book, so I get to play bring your own book. So for this, you will need a copy of your own book. Well, I have 10 fill-in-the-blank statements, but the answers are going to come from your book. So you're going to flip to a random page, uh, use a word or phrase from the first full paragraph to complete the sentence. Okay, start it. I got out my book. So, the very first one is the title of my true crime documentary is Toiletry Bag. Uh beautiful. Never let me be in charge of Romeo. Romeo. My dating profile should probably mention Date with Hector. The sheriff pulled me over because of a happy meal. A happy meal? That bitch was after my fries. That's right. The worst thing to discover during a beach walk is a curmudgeon. My therapist says I need to stop. Walking to the couch. I knew it was going to be a weird Tuesday when it was hotter than Satan's armpit.

SPEAKER_03

That one actually works really well. It does. It's very topical.

SPEAKER_00

It's a very tropical. I'm done. I'm sorry. Okay. My next vacation definitely will not include Cora's supervisor. If I opened a restaurant, our signature dish would be The Shower.

SPEAKER_02

The shower.

SPEAKER_00

And the final one is my autobiography would end with the words.

SPEAKER_02

Shit. Am I allowed to say that or do you need something else? Okay. It was literally on one of these episodes. It was perfect.

SPEAKER_01

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, shit.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Exactly. Oh, so these are some questions. These are some questions from our Discord members. Uh, if you are a member of the Pillow Fort, which is our free-to-join Discord server, then you could have asked Allison a question today. But if not, you will have to wait for our next interview. But the first one is from Ivan Scott, and he says to describe the passion you have for writing, and can you go a day without thinking about your character's story or what your next book will be about?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, okay. So no, Ivan, I can't. I it is very hard for me, even when I'm in vacation mode or in full-blown work mode. I find I even have dreams about some of my characters sometimes. So no, I it's hard. It may not always be the same book. It may even be a character that I've already written versus a character that I'm currently writing. But no, it's really hard to get away from them once you once you put so much of yourself into the books, it's really hard to separate. But I'm okay with that because I love my characters. So even even some of the bad characters, I still love them.

SPEAKER_00

It's true. You're like, I made them. They are my babies. I want to think about them all the time. The second one is from Kit Gray, who is an author on our server. We are interviewing her, I think, next week or the week after. And she would love to hear about how you plot your twisty, suspenseful mystery arcs, what works for you, what doesn't work for you, and what tools or strategies you use.

SPEAKER_03

My goal is I don't want you to know who done it. I want you to think you know. And then you get to the very end and you're like, oh, wow, okay, never mind. So that's where this is going. Again, not necessarily in a bad way. I still want you to be able to look back and think that's when it, you know what I'm saying? I still want it to be somewhat obvious, but maybe just not the main person, the main bad person that you think is going to be it. Um, I have so much fun with that, but sometimes it doesn't work out. And I, and two of my books have had to completely revamp who my fake bad guy is in order for the real bad guy to kind of be there. You don't want it to be too obvious. It's that fine line of making it obvious enough that people still can think back and be like, oh, okay, yeah, I should have seen that, but not too obvious that that's the main person that they go to. So it is, it's hard. And I I have honestly found the best way to do it is beta readers. I know that sounds like such a cop-out, but I will, when I send the manuscript off to beta readers, the very first thing, and a lot of them know me by now, they've done this with me several times. They know the first thing I'm going to ask is, did you figure it out? And if so, who did you think it was? Because if everybody's answer is different, then it didn't really work as well as I thought it was. So that's then for me, then I'll go back and I'll kind of regroup into what I need to do to fix the book.

SPEAKER_00

I could never. I I have such trouble burying the lead. I I think part of it is because, you know, most of what I read is for a younger audience, and so burying the lead is unheard of. And so a lot of a lot of the mysteries that I tend to read are very Scooby-doo-asque. I'm like, what do you mean it's the only other character on the island? What? Could have fooled me. And this last one I took from one of our new members, uh Allah Wilson, and she asks, What advice would you give to new writers?

SPEAKER_03

To just do it. Um, again, I did it during COVID, and again, I I never wrote with the intention of publishing. It was really just me because it was cathartic to write down. It was fun to create these worlds and these characters. But now that the books are out there, look, you don't have to be a best-selling author. You don't have to sell a million copies. Literally, even if I I remember when my first book came out, I think I sold 40 copies. And I was just so excited that 40 people wanted to read, even though I'm pretty sure half of those were my family, but it's fine. It you had people that were genuinely excited to read the books. And then even more so, when you start writing more, I have fans who I'm an autobuy. Like I'm an autobuy author for some of these people, and it's just such a fun feeling. Am I a best-selling author? No. Do I have a million books sold? Absolutely not even close. But I still have people that genuinely look forward to my books coming out. They genuinely enjoy reading them. It gives them a break from the daily chaos of the real world. And ultimately, that's always been my goal. You know what I'm saying? I'm not writing my books thinking they're going to be Pulitzer Prize-winning books. My books are meant to be what I refer to as palette cleansers. If you've had a crap day, or if you've just read the most angsty book in the world and you just need a mental break, read one of my books. And it's so I tell new authors or wannabe authors, just do it. The hardest part is truly finishing the manuscript because even as someone who now has, like I said, 10 books, you are never going to be happy with the book. I always find myself thinking, oh, you know what? I should have added this to that book. I should have added this. You're always going to come up with stuff. So the hardest part is literally putting the end and sending it off. Because you're always just going to think to yourself, well, I could have added this, or maybe if I just gave it another month and tweaked it. So just do it, uh, finish it and send it off. Send it off to see what happens. Some people may not like it, but many others will.

SPEAKER_00

Excellent advice. And also, like my least favorite advice. Because it like at the end of the day, I know that it's right to just sit down and do it. But man, some days it's so hard.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, it is. It is absolutely hard. But what is the famous quote, Nato, nothing worthwhile is ever easy?

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Very true. And also, if you don't even try, then it's not gonna happen. Then it's never gonna happen, is right. So that brings us to the nonsense, which is my favorite part of the interview. So if Hazel had to work one shift at a Waffle House, how long before she's promoted, fired, or somehow solving a crime?

SPEAKER_03

Um, it would be very quick before she solves a crime because she is just very into that. She's a very intelligent person. Um, she's used to working with very chaotic uh, you know, coworkers, uh, you know, like an octopus and an axolotl. So she could handle the chaos, I think, of the Waffle House very, very well. Um, she's probably the type that would get fired, though, because of how she would handle things. Um definitely. But yeah, she'd probably be the first one to solve a crime and also the second one to get fired.

SPEAKER_00

Hank has to host a children's birthday party. How does it go? And at what point does he regret every life decision that led him there?

SPEAKER_03

So Hank has a canine therapy dog because he is a sheriff. Um he doesn't have like the ones that find drugs. He that's not his. He has the one that he, you know, like is supposed to help in therapy type situations. So I think initially he would do great because he could bring the therapy dog, and kids love dogs, and it would work out great. But then I think the overall chaos of too much noise and loudness would just get to him. Yeah. And that's when he would have his breaking point.

SPEAKER_00

I believe it. I'm the same. If your characters started a true crime podcast, what would it be called and how long before they completely derail into unrelated topics?

SPEAKER_03

So I don't know. That's a very good question. I there was a podcast that a crime podcast in red flag warning. It was not for the main characters, it was a psychic, you know, that it comes into play with the investigation, so I don't want to give too much away. But there was there, but if you're talking specifically like my main characters, especially like the sisters, um, they have a shared book group called Friends of Fun Fiction. The acronym is F Off. And I feel like their podcast would probably be something similar to that. Where like on the surface, it sounds like totally legit, but if you think about it and go with the acronym, it would be highly inappropriate. That's I feel like that's what the podcast would be centered around.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. Would they stay on topic for a while? Or would they be kind of like booked all night and then we need the producer to keep us wrangled like cats?

SPEAKER_03

I think that's what it is. If you read the group, the family group chats, it's very unhinged and all over the place. So I imagine the podcast would be the same.

SPEAKER_00

Your setting gets a one-star Yelp review. What is the complaint?

SPEAKER_03

So it depends on the book, but I could see for my books that are based in Vegas, it would be that it's too hot and too chaotic. Um for Atlanta, probably too many people. I've got a book based in Atlanta. It could just be too too big of a city, too big of a, you know, too many people. Um, and then the fourth book that will come out in the Cupid Meets crime scene series, which is Gail's book, She Lives on a Farm. And I could see that it just it smells terrible because it's a farm and it has all these animals. It's got llamas and an ostrich and all kinds of animals. I could I could see the smell getting to them.

SPEAKER_00

I have absolutely seen that exact Yelp review. We have a we have a lot of farms around here, and people have been like, oh, it just it stunk. I'm like, it's almost like there's animals on a farm. On a farm. What some people, man, just just blow my mind at like how far they missed the point. I'm just so rough. If your villain had to work the customer service desk at a beach souvenir shop, what is the complaint that finally breaks them?

SPEAKER_03

I could see if they ran like a surfboard shop on the water. Uh I could see somebody being like, what do you mean I have to swim? I have to know how to swim to do this? Am I gonna get wet? I could see those comments. Somebody asking those two questions literally being what makes my villain snap and just murder them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

To be fair, I'm sure somebody out there offering surf lessons has had that very question.

SPEAKER_00

I'm I'm I'm positive. I'm positive somebody out there has had that. Yes. Which character would accidentally become a weather influencer and what would their channel name be?

SPEAKER_03

So I obviously I would go with uh my character Iris, uh, who is a meteorologist, because it would just make total sense. Um, what would her channel be called? That's a good one. Maybe hot and hangry. Hot and hangry. Because she lives in Vegas, which is a very hot place, and she is all about the food. Um, it's literally what bonds her to some of her other characters is her love of food. Uh, she likes to cook, but she also likes to eat. So yeah, hot and hangry, I feel like, would be fantastic.

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful. If your book were a seafood restaurant, what's the signature dish and what's the item everyone is secretly too afraid to order?

SPEAKER_03

Ooh, the too afraid to order would be Nigel the Octopus. You can get it on the menu. You could get octopus. I just don't know too many people who would want to try it. Yeah, I don't know. Um, if I had to pick the signature item, it would probably be let's go with fish. It would just be something simple. Like a basic fish and chips would be like the signature item. It's seafood, but it's something that most people usually like because it's fried food.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Everybody loves fried food. Everybody loves fried food. If your entire cast got trapped in an escape room, who figures it out first? And who keeps insisting the clues are just decorative?

SPEAKER_03

Probably who figures it out first would be it might be a tie. I would say it's either Hank because he's a sheriff. That's what he does. He figures these kind of crimes and mysteries out. So he would probably know where are the the best spots to look for these kind of clues. But also perhaps Hector, who was my park ranger in Red Flag Warning, because he's also former military. So like he kind of has that background knowledge of trying like missions and things like that. Like he would help keep everybody on task to be able to solve this. Um, the person who would leave them like just not be feeling it, would that's actually a tough one. I might, yeah. No, I'm going with Iris. Again, she would be after like 10 minutes, she'd be like, when are we eating? Do when anyone brings snacks? Me, I'm Iris. Yes, I am Iris too. So yes, that would be, I think she would just be distracted by snacks. And I think that would kind of totally deviate the group as a whole.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I always have snacks on me because of that. Like, I get so grumpy and I'm like, I want something to eat now, and we can't get something to eat now, I will ruin the entire activity for everyone. So now there's just constantly chewy bars and bags of popcorn and stuff in every bag I own. My last nonsensical question. If the ocean itself could leave your characters a passive-aggressive note, what would it say?

SPEAKER_03

Stop stealing things from us. Because Hazel loves to go down to the beach after a good storm and collect all the things that wash up on the shore. Um, borderline hoarder. So I would say I feel like the ocean could just leave her a note that says, Please leave my stuff alone.

SPEAKER_00

I could it there for a reason. Please leave it alone.

SPEAKER_03

Leave it alone. Stop touching everything.

SPEAKER_00

Allison, where can everybody find you and your books?

SPEAKER_03

So uh you can go to my website, uh, which is allisonbetis.com. Uh I ship uh for free uh all over the US and Canada. So you can get them. You actually get an autographed copy because I will sign them before I wrap them and ship them out. You can also get them on Amazon. My first series, uh, I have audiobooks. So if you're more of an audiobook reader, if that's more of your jam, you can get audiobooks for the entire first season. You can either on Audible and several other platforms. So wherever you would normally get your audiobooks, you can check them out there. And then uh all of my books are in Kindle Unlimited. So if you're also more of an e-book reader uh and that's more of what you prefer, you can also get them that way too.

SPEAKER_00

Very exciting. And uh finally, uh, we asked this of all of our guests here at the pod. Is there anybody that you would like to thank? Anyone from agents to editors to writing partners, friends or family who had to miss into your book a million times, etc.

SPEAKER_03

Definitely my husband, who kind of was uh, you know, gently forced into reading the books in the beginning, um, just to kind of appease me. Um, but it worked out very well. Yes, gently, very gently. Uh just a soft nudge, really. Um also all of my editors, you know, it's it's very hard as an author to get constructive criticism on your books and not feel deflated. And I have such a wonderful team of editors who do a great job of the way they present these in in the sense that, and look, sometimes it's this sucks, move this, get rid of this. But it's I know that they love these books as much as I do. And so it's so much easier to take that that feedback when you know they're they love the projects with you. So I I could not do this without my editing team. And also, honestly, the best is other author friends. It's this is a very hard industry to be in. It can feel very much there's a lot of FOMO involved. There is also a sense of, you know, when you see others that talk about their promotions, you think, oh, I didn't have that. Maybe I'm not as good of a writer as I thought. You know, you constantly go through those phases uh in your career. And if I didn't have other author friends that were like, oh yeah, I had that last year. You're good, just just move through it. You know, if you don't have them that can kind of walk you through these things, I I don't know if I would have had 10 books by now. Certainly not published. You know what I'm saying? I probably would have given up and just written them on my own, you know, where I start, you know, having those bad days. So yes, definitely having author friends in the community, other indie authors that have kind of take your back and tell you how it is. I yeah, dev absolutely hands down some of those friends.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00

This was so much fun. I love how I say us, even though I'm the only host that does interviews these days, but I guess there's like five of me now.

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Jessica Mary

Host
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Julia Johnston

Co-host
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K. Leigh

Co-host
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Magdalynn Ann

Co-host
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Rob Cook

Producer
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Allison Bettes

Guest