The Divorce Party by M.M. Deluca
TPP EP 18

TPP Episode 18 with M.M. Deluca

Mark: What makes a great thriller tick, and what does it take to write one? Welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where bestselling award-winning and emerging thriller authors share their craft research and real world experiences that power today’s most grouping stories. I’m your host, mark PJ Nado, and this is episode 18.

Whether you’re writing thrillers or can’t get enough of reading them, this show takes you inside the minds of the authors, behind the twists, characters, and moments that keep us turning the page. This week I’m joined by mm DeLuca, author of the Divorce Party. We talk about the challenges of juggling multiple points of view, balancing dark humor with psychological suspense, and how Las Vegas became the perfect backdrop for a story of broken friendships, buried secrets, and [00:01:00] reinvention.

Mark: Marjorie, welcome to this show. Thank you so much for being here today.

Marjorie: Hey, it’s great to be here, mark. Really great.

Mark: I’m excited to talk about your book today, the Divorce Party. If you’re looking at the screen, for those who are watching the video, there is the book there. Thank you for sending me a copy.

Marjorie: Oh, you’re welcome. I hope you enjoyed it.

Mark: Yes. Let’s get into, let’s get into it. Pitch me the book.

Marjorie: Okay. The divorce party is definitely a psychological suspense. I think Big Little Lies meets the Hangover with a dose of Lucy Foley’s, the guest list. And here’s the kind of slug line. Four women, one glamorous, raunchy, weekend. A deadly reunion. So 20 years ago, Savannah, Daisy and Zoe were inseparable until one fateful night tore their friendship apart. They haven’t spoken since. Now they’re leading [00:02:00] very different lives. When the women receive a mysterious invitation to the divorce party of the decade hosted by their former college Queen Bee Evie, a tough and manipulative woman, they’re intrigued, annoyed, and just desperate enough to show up.

But as the night spirals from wild to Wicked, it’s clear this isn’t just about Evie celebrating her newfound freedom because as old grudges resurface and dangerous secrets are revealed as they always are in psychological thrillers, it’s clear this isn’t just a celebration, it’s a trap. What begins as a glittering girls’ getaway quickly spirals into a nightmare of lies.

Black male and murder. And when the past comes crashing into the present, the women must decide, can they trust each other to survive? Or was this twisted friendship always due to end in blood and a dead body, [00:03:00] actually a few dead bodies?

Mark: Yes. Thank you for that pitch. So what inspired that story?

Marjorie: Well there I get inspired by various things and the first thing that came to my mind, I knew I wanted to, I had this image of a Vegas, a sort of a luxury Vegas suite , and a dead body lying on a beautiful bed. That was the first image that came to my mind. Also my husband and I, when he was teaching, we used to, in the summer, go to Vegas a lot.

We’d spend a few days there and then sometimes we’d drive off somewhere else. But I just found Vegas a fascinating place. It’s a place where you can really be whoever you wanna be, do whatever you wanna do, because it’s like, it’s not real. It’s a place of illusions, you know, [00:04:00] like where else can you see a fake statue of liberty and a fake Eiffel Tower and a fake Venetian, kind of canal.

It just fascinated me and I knew I had to set a novel in Vegas because I knew it so well that I knew it could be a really interesting and great setting for a girl’s weekend.

Mark: And where did the girls come from? Where did the idea for them and the chaos of that relationship come from?

Marjorie: is kind of interesting when you’re, when you are a writer, sometimes you have a lot of books that you start and you don’t finish for various reasons, and I’m really bad for starting a book and then kind of running out of interest and starting another. So I actually had a couple of characters from other books that I said, Hmm, I didn’t like that book, but I love this character.

So a couple of the characters actually come from other novels. So we’ve got [00:05:00] Daisy, who’s kind of a burned out substitute teacher who thinks she’s missed out on life and not based on me, but some of the things that Daisy does is based on some of my experiences as a teacher. And then we’ve got Savannah, who’s a Vegas showgirl, who was an ex toxicologist.

And then we’ve got, Zoe, who’s a pediatrician who seems to be living the kind of perfect life. And I think Zoe and Daisy were from different books that I started writing and I threw them all together. And they took on a life of their own once they got together they were wicked and basically drove the story.

And then Evie, who’s the kind of queen bee, I don’t know where she came from, but I knew I had to have a leader, one that was sufficiently ruthless and [00:06:00] hard-nosed, to kind of lead the pack. And so they came from various places

Mark: I love that you can take a character from another book that you didn’t even finish and then just pull it into this book. I love that idea of nothing ever has to be a waste, especially ‘

Marjorie: cause they never die.

Mark: to give up on a book.

Marjorie: that, you created that person and there they are kind of hanging around in your laptop in a file. The characters never die.

Mark: So when you create characters, is it an outline of their name and what they look like and who they are and the struggles and all those things? Or is it mostly in your head that you carried them over from the other book?

Marjorie: They’re in my head. But when I do start to develop the characters, I’m a screenwriter as well. I’ve, I’ve written a few scripts, none of which have been produced yet, but they’re, some are getting close. I take a lesson from screenwriters. I do a little bible like where [00:07:00] I actually find a picture of who I think this character looks like, and I create a little biography of them, of all their quirks and habits.

And I really develop them because I need to be able to see them in my head as well as on the page. And I use that to develop the characters. It really helps to have a visual of them.

Mark: Do you find when you’re writing, ’cause this book jumps all over, well, three of the four, do you find that you have to out that sheet and look at it again, just to remind yourself of who this voice is supposed to be before you move on to write that character? Or are you lucky enough to just have them in your head and it works to go from chapter to chapter like you do.

Marjorie: I would say, if you’re talking about the process of writing this book, this was the first time I had I think it’s the, it’s been a long time since I’ve written a multiple point of view novel. And this was a real challenge. And I would say it was, the process [00:08:00] was basically a controlled mess if you can call it that.

 what I do is I use a large notebook. Kind of like this. And, I keep track. Each chapter switches from one character to another, and I keep track of every chapter and what happens to that character so that I can look back and see, well, what happened? What did she do in that chapter?

Otherwise you would definitely lose the thread if you don’t do that. And we’re talking three points of view. It’s a juggling act to do that. And that was quite a major challenge. In the book we’re also talking about timelines too. Not only three points of view, but multiple timelines. So, I didn’t know I’d ever get this one finished, but I did finally.

Mark: yeah, that would’ve been quite a juggle even between who they were when they were younger, when you’re doing those flashbacks versus who they are in the future.

Marjorie: Yeah. [00:09:00] ’cause we look back at them when they’re college girls ’cause all of the characters come from tough backgrounds. Some of them single parent families mostly. And they basically had to claw their way into a pretty a good university. So they all go to University of San Diego, where they really don’t fit in. But, they managed to claw their way in there and survive in various ways. And

Mark: Yeah.

Marjorie: so it was the characters really took over. They were so distinct that once you get halfway through the book and you really get to know them, it becomes easier to keep track.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. At its core, what kind of story would you say this is, and what challenge did it represent to you as a writer?

Marjorie: When I started this story, it was supposed to be a more lighthearted [00:10:00] story, because I’d just written a string of really dark psychological suspense stories. My last book, the night side was very dark and had sort of a paranormal edge to it. So I wanted to write something more kind of fun and raunchy and I guess fast moving.

But really it is a story about, can you leave your past behind and recreate yourself? Can you really, forget about that past, can you really become someone different or do those secrets and that person that you were always have to haunt you. So there is a kind of, a deeper side to it, but I wanted it to be fun and I wanted to have fun writing it, which I did. And pull myself out of the dark side, which I’d been in for quite a while with my other books.

Mark: Yeah. I love that you said that you use the Hangover as a comparative because of how like goofy and fun the Hangover is, but then [00:11:00] it’s still a pretty serious dark book at, its at the core premise, but there’s still a lot of like fun. Yeah. It’s a great mix of things

Marjorie: I wanted a bit of humor. I, one of my favorite writers is Leanne Morty. I love the way that she has some pretty dark themes in her book, but she still manages to have an undercurrent of humor. And that’s why I really enjoy her books and that’s what I wanted to do with this because even though I’ve written some very serious dark suspense stories, I can’t resist a bit of humor.

And I felt that a couple of the girls were, especially Daisy, I think more humor. There’s sort of a, a dark humor to them and, I really enjoyed that.

Mark: And with this like dark humor and this like the dark kind of psychological side, how do you balance giving them likability as you’re writing it to make sure that the reader’s not disliking all of these characters? Because they do [00:12:00] have, they do have all have hard stories.

Marjorie: Yeah, I know. And I, I was looking at a couple of the reviews and said, I don’t like any of these women, but, I still like the story. I don’t know about, I honestly don’t think about likability that much. I mean, I try to make them more likable. They’re really just trying to survive.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Marjorie: And certainly Evie, the character, you don’t really get to hear anything from her side.

But there are some serious issues related to her that you would feel sorry for her. I think, but likability, you know what, what do I remember one editor said to me. This character is kind of unlikable. Can’t you get her to even pet a horse or something? There was a scene where she’s with a horse.

Can’t you get her to pet a horse or make her a little bit more likable, that way? Or maybe, you know, save, what is it? Save the cat, have them, uh, pick up [00:13:00] a, a stray animal. I wasn’t thinking about likability. I mean, I like them, but, it’s hard to do that without it seeming fake. And, I hope that I’d made them likable by making them understandable. You know, they’re, they’ve got weaknesses and, that should make them likable.

Mark: Yeah. I think as the story goes on and you start, you start to feel empathy for, ’cause it takes a while to reveal. To get the reveal on like what happened to them and why they are, because that was the setup. So, but as it goes on, you definitely have a sense of empathy for, oh wow, they’ve actually been through these, you know, these terrible things. And even

Marjorie: Threw Helen back.

Mark: their life is almost a result of that fateful day. Like every one of the

Marjorie: Yeah,

Mark: and played, played with each other is like that your life is basically because of that moment and it’s, yeah. it’s amazing that it all comes back to that.

Marjorie: Yeah. I feel, my stories are more character driven than some of the other psychological [00:14:00] thrillers out there. And sometimes people might say, well, that it’s, that makes it more of a slow burn. But I honestly can’t write something that’s simply plot driven. I can’t, I have to really develop the characters. Otherwise, to me, the stories just a string of events.

Mark: Yeah, that’s, it is tough to balance that especially in psychological, I mean, I like this low burn concept of psychological because we need to get to know the characters in order to understand the psychological side.

But even when I’m writing, I do battle that myself because I think about whether or not the pace is going fast enough and it’s like, oh, I need you to, to meet this character. I need you to understand that she’s this way because of this, you know, is now the right time. And it’s always that balance.

Marjorie: Yeah. You do have to balance that. Yeah. And you don’t wanna lose the reader in a kind of big character sketch or something. You want to keep them reading. So it is definitely a balancing act.

Mark: And when people,

Marjorie: my mug. Divorce party mug.[00:15:00]

Mark: okay, well played.

Marjorie: Yeah.

Mark: When readers finish the book, what do you hope they’re thinking about or feeling?

Marjorie: Well, the ending is pretty the ending starts to move quite fast. The, what happens? I, I expect them to kind of sit back and go, holy, whatever. What happened just there?

Mark: Yeah.

Marjorie: it was a bloodbath or something. Yeah, I mean, I hope that they maybe would go back and say, wow, I didn’t see that coming. I think maybe you might have to reread some of it and see where that was all coming from.

The ending was a challenge to write to get it to work. I mean, I hope that readers enjoy the setting and think, wow, that was a fun fast compelling read [00:16:00] that, I met these really different kind of characters and I really enjoyed it.

Mark: Would you say you’re a discovery writer or an outliner?

Marjorie: Oh, you mean like a, a pants or a

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I recently heard the term discovery writer, ’cause

Marjorie: No, I was wondering what is that a discovery writer?

Mark: I stole it and, no one’s gonna

Marjorie: it like a nicer way of

Mark: the same as a pants? Yeah. It’s just a nice way of saying a pants. Yeah.

Marjorie: Yeah, I think at heart I’m a pants, but I’ve learned to control that urge to start writing before planning, because as I said, I’ve started a lot of books that haven’t been finished simply because I hadn’t mapped it out. And now I’ve written enough scripts and screenplays to understand that you cannot write a [00:17:00] screenplay without mapping out the beats.

And that’s really helped me plan my novels. That being said, I don’t write a really detailed outline. I just have a sort of loose outline. I know the ending. I have to know the ending. And then I keep track in a notebook of what’s happening in each chapter because I think you, if you outline it too much for me, I like to

Discover maybe there are new ways that you could go, and if you kind of hem yourself in too much, you lose that ability to go in another direction. But I think you always need to have the end point in mind because you have to know where you’re going. Otherwise, you’re all over the place.

Mark: Yeah. As few zigzags when you go from A to to Z as you can, I. When you mentioned it was tricky for the ending,

Marjorie: Mm-hmm.

Mark: [00:18:00] did you find that you had to go back and rewrite the setup to get it to work out in the end?

Marjorie: Yes. The way I write I don’t know how to describe it, but I could draw it. I start writing and I get to the middle, and I always, every day when I sit down, I loop back to see what I’ve written and often rewrite that. That’s why in my final draft, often the beginning’s fabulous and the ending’s kind of a bit rough.

So I’m constantly looping back. And so when I get to the middle or a bit further along, and I don’t loop back to the beginning, but I loop back a few chapters because as you said, especially when you’ve got three characters, you have to make sure everything’s fitting into place. Otherwise it doesn’t work.

So when I got to the end wrote what I wanted as the ending and then looked at it and said, well, that doesn’t make sense because this person’s here, that person’s there and there’s absolutely no [00:19:00] reason why this would’ve happened. There has to be a lead up and a justification for a big, kind of epic ending.

It has to make sense. It has to work. You have to prepare the characters for it. So yes, I constantly looping back many times and especially with this book, probably it was one of the books that I had the most trouble with that I had to go back and rewrite and actually move things around a lot.

My other books have been mostly one point of view, one character point of view, but this one was a big challenge.

Mark: Hmm.

Marjorie: I actually started another one that was the same thing, three character point of view, but that one I haven’t finished, yet. But, I’m constantly rewriting and reconfiguring the chapters in the story.

Mark: Do you sit down for a few hours to [00:20:00] do that a couple of chapters might take you, what, 15 minutes to kind of get back into the character or something, and then you carry on from there. Do you just write for two or three hours until you can’t handle writing

Marjorie: I write every morning I’m in my office every morning from probably nine till one. That’s when I do my most of my writing. Then I do a little bit in the evening, sometimes afternoons. I never write, I go out, do stuff. I don’t wanna become like a lump sitting at the desk, you know, I need to go to the gym or go walk a walk for a walk or something.

And besides walking really helps you figure out, if I’ve got a difficult plot twist that I have to manage, I find that going out for a walk really helps figure it out. I was actually reading one of my favorite writers, Lisa Jewel, does that. She said a lot of her writing is done when she’s out walking.

And it’s true. You’ve got something that you, you’re not sure you don’t have a [00:21:00] good idea for. You go out for a walk and ping it suddenly kind of pops into your head.

So I sit down and I write, you have to get serious about it. If you’re gonna. Write multiple books. You have to sit down for prolonged periods of time and not get distracted by social media or, you know, going on the internet,

Mark: Difficult to do these

Marjorie: me sometimes.Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. So you, this is your fifth book, right? Your fifth published book.

Marjorie: It’s, let me think. Yes. Fifth traditionally published book, I published, self-published some books before,

In the, in my earlier days as a writer. So I think this is maybe my 10th book that I’ve written, but I’ve actually got other complete manuscripts that I haven’t sold yet.

Mark: Okay. [00:22:00] And is there anything that you have learned writing this book, either about yourself or about your process that’s unique to this book?

Marjorie: that’s unique to this book. Yes, that I can actually handle multiple points of view and I really like it. The previous books I’d written more from, just one point of view and sometimes when you are writing those kind of books, especially if it’s in the first person, which a couple of my books have been, the Savage Instinct was one, it’s a historical suspense.

It’s very draining to write a book from one point of view in the first person. Because you are almost becoming the character and it really drains you. And by the end of the book you’re like, I’m sick of this person. I wish I could think from somebody else’s point of view. So I found that being able to jump from one character to another was really refreshing and gave me a kind of [00:23:00] reprieve from the other characters.

So I really enjoyed that. But it does present its own set of difficulties, in kind of making sure that they are developed. They’re all unique because you don’t want them all to have the same voice, so you have to really concentrate on that. So that was probably the main thing I found.

Mark: That’s cool. Does that make you wanna write more multiple POV books? Maybe less? Well, I guess there’s three, right? In this one. Does it make you wanna do a two or go back to one?

Marjorie: Not really. No. I’m enjoying sort of multiple points of view. I’m at a bit of a crossroads right now, actually because I could write another one in the vein of the divorce party. But I also really love historical fiction and I loved writing my book, the Savage Instinct, which was [00:24:00] based, I love research and I really enjoyed the research for writing the Savage Instinct.

So I’m kind of wondering which way to go now. I’m kind of at a crossroads, wondering which direction to take. I mean, not that there wasn’t research for the divorce party, there was, but it was a different kind of research researching, the growing trend of divorce parties in Las Vegas and how they have unique cocktails and unique party games and, playlists.

Slogans for invitations was a lot of fun. In fact, it’s a real eyeopener. And actually in the book, I, um, separate each section. I think the first section I’ve got the invitation and I’ve got all these slogans for divorce party in invitations like I do. I did, I’m done the champagne. I got back my last [00:25:00] name.

Then I’ve got playlists, topped by, I Will Survive by Gloria Gainor, which I think. Would be the theme song for this book ’cause it’s about survival. And then the last part is divorce party cocktails, which actually tried out a few. The deadbeat time robber, the Screw, my Ex Driver and all that. So I actually had a lot of fun doing that. It was a different kind of research, not quite so serious

Mark: does that come up in Vegas a lot? Those kinds of parties?

Marjorie: Oh yeah, it’s actually a massive trend along with bachelor and bachelorette parties and weddings. Divorce parties are massive there now. And that’s actually another, as I was reading, about divorce parties, I hadn’t realized how big a trend it was and it sort of confirmed the idea in my mind to go ahead and do that.

Mark: Yeah.

Marjorie: [00:26:00] So

Mark: a lot about divorce parties.

Marjorie: Yes, I know. And the way people are trying to see them as not really the ending of something, but a new beginning apparently, and celebrating the new beginning rather than kind of wallowing in misery about the the ending of a, of a relationship. So I hope, I know, a few of the reviews have said, I’ve just gone through a divorce and this really was interesting to me that, I really enjoyed reading it.

It poke poked me up a bit, got my spirits up. Hopefully their, their experience though wasn’t as deadly as this one. But

Mark: Especially the Endy. Yeah.

Marjorie: yes. Yeah. Not the way to get rid of your ex, but I don’t wanna give anything away.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I try not to spoil it, but yeah.

Marjorie: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: What advice would you give someone who just published their [00:27:00] first or second novel?

Marjorie: What advice would I give them and it, it really depends if they’ve published it traditionally or self-published I guess. But the main advice I would give someone is be prepared to do a lot of your own publicity. Unless you’re one of the top I guess one or 2% of writers with big publishers you’re gonna have to do most of the publicity yourself.

You will get some help from the publisher get used to waiting for responses. It’s a long waiting game. And just because you published two novels doesn’t mean the third is guaranteed publication. In fact, the second and third novels are even more difficult because I’d say, publishing houses today definitely look at the sales of the previous books, when they’re trying to decide [00:28:00] whether to publish another one of your books.

Mark: Yeah,

Marjorie: It’s a very difficult landscape now, the publishing industry.

Mark: hearing George Martin talk about how his career, he thought his career was about over and it really was tanking until he released the Game of Thrones, and even that was years later that it took off. That’s kind of blew up his career

Marjorie: Yeah. I mean, don’t give up. You’ve gotta really push on. I mean, I, there have been times when I thought that’s it. I’m never gonna get another book published. And I’ve had agents, I’ve actually had three different agents. And most times I’ve parted amicably with them. In fact, in all times I’ve pod amicably with them.

But just if you have an agent and then suddenly you don’t, and you find yourself that you’re on your own, that’s not the end of things. Writers can sell their own books.

Mark: hmm.

Marjorie: Maybe not with one of the Big four, or I [00:29:00] don’t know how many it is now. Big five, big three or four publishers, you can’t sell to them.

They require you to have an agent. But there are many really good publishing houses out there that will accept submissions from un agented writers. They’re more interested in the quality of the work and they’re very good, publishing houses. So I would say, you can do it yourself. You’ve just gotta be really, persistent and don’t give up and have a really thick skin because you’re gonna get people that give you one star reviews and say, your book is a piece of crap.

You know, and nobody should read it. But then you’re gonna get those readers that send you a email. I just got one last week saying, wow, I just finished your book. What a wild ride that was. I loved it. I’m gonna look at some of your other books and that’s kind of what makes you keep going on.

Mark: Yeah.

Marjorie: so it [00:30:00] is a, a very tough industry out there and you’ve gotta get lots of reviews and lots of sales and have a presence on social media, but that can take a lot of time up

Mark: Yeah.

Marjorie: and nobody really knows what it takes to sell books. I mean, yes, you can do all the Instagram posts you want, but I don’t think anybody can pin down what makes a book sell,

Mark: No.

Marjorie: persistence. I if, if we knew we’d be doing it. And there are plenty of people that would like to sell you.

Mark: be a 1%.

Marjorie: Yeah, well there are plenty of people that would like to sell you. I get lots of emails, mostly scammers, saying , I saw your book and I really think I can take it to the next level.

And would you like to be part of my publicity program? So many of those, I just send them to spam.

Mark: [00:31:00] yeah. What made you shift from self-publishing? You said you started to traditional.

Marjorie: Well, I self-published in the earlier days of self-publishing, so I guess my first book was, came out in 2013. It was a young adult sci-fi trilogy, which actually is still selling today. I, I’m surprised. And I, I tried to sell it to a publisher and it was at the time that Hunger Games had come out and they said, oh, we don’t need any more young adult dystopian books.

So I didn’t have any luck with it, but I self-published it and it actually did really well. And I’d actually, I’ve actually adapted it into a series which got some interest from Netflix at one point. So I still have hopes for that. But it was in the earlier days when it was easier to sell books as a self-published author.

Now the market is so crowded, for self-publishing that I think it’s [00:32:00] much more difficult. But after that one and then I published, a sort of historical kind of epic and then a romantic suspense I was doing, it was taking up too much time trying to publicize it, and it was costing me a lot of money to publicize it.

And I thought, I really want some recognition from my books, from a traditional publisher. And that’s when I decided to send, I had a book called The Savage Instinct, and then another one, which became The Secret Sister. And it was just luck that there used to be a thing on Twitter called Pit Mad. I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard of it.

Mark: no.

Marjorie: It was a pitching thing on, on Twitter when Twitter was Twitter and you basically pitched your book in one line and editors and [00:33:00] agents were watching. It happened maybe two or three times a year, and it was a big deal. So I pitched the Secret Sister on at Pit Mad and I thought, well, I might as well, I’d sent it to a bunch of agents and been turned down.

And so I pitched it and an editor liked it, an editor of a large independent publisher in the uk. And I thought it was a scam, but it turned out she was an editor, a really good editor, and they gave me a two book deal out of that.

Mark: Awesome.

Marjorie: It was purely luck and pitching it at the right place and the right time.

That got me into being traditionally published. The same thing with the Savage Instinct. I sent it to agents didn’t have a lot of luck, and then I entered it for something called the Launchpad, which is a very, very good contest. I [00:34:00] can’t, I really recommend it to people who are trying to get exposure for their books.

The launchpad is primarily for screenwriters, but they run once a year a manuscript contest because film producers are always looking for content. So I entered the manuscript contest and I got shortlisted to the top. I think 25. And I thought that’s it. I’m not gonna get anything out of this. But an editor from a small US publisher contacted me and said, I’m interested in your book.

We’d like to publish it. So there are many different ways to get published other than going through an agent, but you just have to know which are the reputable ones. ’cause there are many scammers out there who’d like to tell you that they can publish your book, but often you’re left sitting there with [00:35:00] $10,000 worth of books that you’ve paid for and now you have to sell ’em.

Mark: Yeah.

Marjorie: so you just have to know which are the right ones to enter contests and that kind of thing. So once the Secret Sister came out and did quite very well, actually. Then it became easier to get books published by publishing houses.

Mark: Oh, good for you. Being persistent in finding those little spots so I have a question from TR Hendricks, who was my last guest. We have like a move the question forward segment.

Marjorie: Oh,

Mark: question for you was, to your knowledge, which matrimonial tradition globally do you think the most peculiar?

Marjorie: matrimonial.

Mark: He heard that your book was the divorce party, so

Marjorie: Oh,

Mark: the question he came up with.

Marjorie: oh my goodness. Peculiar, I wish you’d prepared me for this one.

Mark: Yeah.[00:36:00]

Yeah, that’s no problem. That’s not an easy question.

Marjorie: No it isn’t. I wouldn’t say it’s peculiar, but I went to, a wedding a couple of years ago that was basically a Celtic themed wedding. And, it’s not a peculiar tradition, I thought it was actually a lovely tradition. But they, held a kind of a, they had like a, a braided rope and they each held the bride and groom each held one side of it and sort of wrapped it around this, I don’t know what it was, wrapped it around the table, I think.

I’m not sure what they were doing, but they went round and round wrapping this, braided rope. I guess it was a symbol of their kind of being tied together in mamo or something. I think, I thought that was kind of a charming, tradition. I guess the another tradition, which I find not strange, but a [00:37:00] little kind of outdated, there’s a tradition here where I live in Canada, and I don’t know whether it’s a tradition elsewhere, but at the wedding, the bride is supposed to wear a blue garter, and after the reception, the, the husband takes the garter off her leg.

Like she, it’s she, she puts her leg up on a stool and the husband is supposed to take the gutter off with his teeth, and then all the unmarried men kind of line up. Behind her and the groom flings the garter into the crowd. And I guess the man that catches it is the one that’s gonna get married next. I found, I always found that kind of a really weird and a little bit offensive actually.

I guess it’s the male equivalent of the bride throwing the bouquet.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I didn’t know [00:38:00] that was a Canadian tradition.

Marjorie: Yeah. Is it, I don’t know. Is it done somewhere else? I’m not aware that it’s maybe it’s just a Manitoba tradition, but I’ve been to many weddings where that happened. In fact, at my own wedding I was forced to wear the blue garter.

Mark: yeah. Oh no, I definitely knew it was like, we do it here, I’m Canadian as well, so we also, I’ve definitely seen it, but I thought it was just like a almost American thing. Then we just kind of partook in the same thing. I didn’t realize it was more exclusive to Canada. That’s interesting.

Okay, cool. So maybe a bit of a peculiar Canadian tradition we have going on. So last question for the main show, where can listeners find your books?

Marjorie: It’s basically on all the main online sites. Amazon indigo Chapters, Cobo, apple, barn and Noble. If they go to my [00:39:00] website, it shows where to get the book. It’s not actually in bookstores, but you can still get a paperback. This publisher doesn’t put the book in bookstores. I guess they’re more digital first, but you can get a paperback if you want it. So it’s all a major online suppliers.

Mark: I will link that in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. This has been a lot of fun learning all about this book and your process. If you don’t mind sticking around for a few minutes, we’re gonna go to the to the after show with the rapid fire for our Patreon members.

Thanks for listening and make sure you’re following the show so you don’t miss episode 19 with Mark Philbin, author of Kill Them All. We talk about the puzzle like structure behind his 12 city murders spree, the mind games that drive his characters and how he builds tension through patterns, logic, and chaos.

Want to go deeper? You can get early access bonus content, and the after show with [00:40:00] rapid fire questions. Plus the chance to ask future guests your own questions. Over on Patreon. The links in the show notes.