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- [00:04]
A
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.comlimukmu and Doug here.
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B
We have the Limu emu in its.
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C
Natural habitat, helping people customize their car.
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B
Insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
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D
Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
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B
Cut the camera.
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C
They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary unwritten Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates excludes Massachusetts. This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery Lynchburg, Tennessee.
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B
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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D
Fiona Snow turned her little red Mini into the lane leading to the cottage. Bumping down the rutted road, rain pelting the windshield, she sang along with the radio. The lyrics of Juice Newton's pop song angel of the Morning resonated with her 19 year old heart. Though Fiona's love affair with Gareth Talbot wasn't going to end in sorrow, theirs was a happily ever after kind of love. This is GP Gottlieb, host for New Books and Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. Today I'm talking to Mary Price Burke about her latest Terence Reid mystery, Violent Seed. As part of a Summer of Chefs week being hosted in a magnificent Cotswolds estate, Lord Terence Reid and his family are among the week's guests. Reid's wife, Lady Ann is there to revitalize the gardens and several old family friends are there, looking forward to a week of delicious food. There's also a camera crew, but one person is there to stir up old grudges, restart his career and blackmail other guests into paying him for not sharing their private information. When that person is found shot to death and the local police chief is injured, Lord Terence Reid is called upon to begin the investigation. He's surprised when both of his parents and his younger sister claim to be responsible for shooting the repugnant man, and he knows they're all covering for the real murderer. Hi, Mary. Thanks for joining me today.
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B
Hi, Khalid. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
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D
I loved your first Terence Reid novel, the Mermaids of Bodega Bay, and wonder if you'd explain how you ever came up with Lord Terence Reid. He's a wonderful character. Is he based on someone you admire?
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B
He's based, I think, on several different people. But I started actually when I was writing Mermaids at Bodega Bay. When I first started, I was thinking I would have the FBI agent who ended up being minor character be the star. And then Terrence just took over. So he came to life for me, and I just enjoyed how he had a troubled childhood, how he had all these different. These conflicting influences in his life, and how he struggles to kind of loosen up a little. So I don't think I know anybody, but I feel like I know him. I don't know anybody like him.
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D
But you'd like to know someone like him.
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B
I love him. Right.
- [04:12]
D
Mermaids of Bodega Bay took place in California. We learn immediately in that book that Lord read is from Scotland. Neither of those places are the places that you live. Can you talk about how you chose the locations?
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B
Yes. Yes. So Bodega Bay is someplace. I was actually born in San Francisco, and I was an Air Force grass. We moved around, but I had gone up to Bodega Bay on a vacation with my husband, and I just fell in love with it. And I saw a story there, and so I wanted it the first book to happen there, but I also wanted it to be moving into Scotland and other locations. And then when Terence showed up, Lord Terence Reid showed up to help his estranged wife in Bodega Bay. And Bodega Bay actually looks a little bit like Scotland, those cliffs. I think in some areas, I just thought it went naturally. I wanted her to be American, and I could see the artist colony that she was staying at or staying next to, and I could see the Mermaids of Bodega Bay bed and breakfast in my mind. And it just. The artist colony just sort of came to me and. And I went back several times. I was doing a trial in San Francisco, and I went back several times. The trial took two and a half months. So every once in a while, we had a longer weekend, and I went up again, and I just. I just absorbed the area and loved it, and that's how I picked the area.
- [05:58]
D
Okay. And I might add that you were a lawyer, a practicing lawyer. And that's what you meant when you said you were doing Ramon.
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B
Right. It wasn't on trial. I mean, I wasn't a defendant or a plaintiff. Good, good, good.
- [06:09]
D
To clear that up, Lord Terence Reid is married to Lady Anne. She is a master gardener who gets hired to design gardens all over the world. Since I follow you on Facebook, I know that you are also an accom. Established gardener between you and Lady Anne, who has more success in their garden Also. Can you say a little bit more about Lady Anne?
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B
Yes. So she's 10 years younger than Terrence. I think she's 26 maybe in the first book. And she's gone to the University of Virginia. They have a program there for the historical restoration of gardens. She's a much better gardener than I am. But she. To be fair, she's got more rain. We have a very dry climate here in. In Colorado. But she also is, you know, trained in this. I took the master gardener program. I never finished up with the volunteer hours to get. To actually get my certificate or whatever because of my work. But I love gardening, and I love. When I travel, that's where I go. I like to go visit gardens. And I like to think about Lady Ann restoring gardens. So I have fun finding different gardens, different kinds of gardens for her to restore and reading about the gardeners that she. That originally designed the gardens, the ones that she's restoring. And I try to put a little bit of that in to the story. Not too much to where you think you're reading a gardening book, but enough to show that she knows what she's doing.
- [07:46]
D
I really enjoyed the gardening parts, but you're right, you didn't do too much of it. So we're in Scotland in this book, and we learn more about Reid's childhood. He was seriously affected when his mother, Juliet, had an affair. And it feels like he carries that loneliness of his mother's disappearance after all these years, even though she returned. Can you say more about that?
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B
Yeah, that I. That was a deep scar for him when he was 8, just so the people that haven't read it will know. When he was 8, his mother ran away with a lover and left for two years, came back expecting the lover's child. But during that time, the only child left behind was Terrence, his brother. She took his younger brother and sister with. With her because. And then left him because he was the heir. He was the oldest. He was going to be the next Earl. And so. But he. He felt it very personally that, that she had rejected him, taking the other children. And then when he. She comes back, he's very, very much protecting himself against getting to attach to her again. But. And he goes. He's been also been sent away to boarding school. Right. When she goes away. So it, it does scar. It affects him through his whole life. And it's something he has to battle with to. To recognize when those feelings come up. And it's something that his relationship with his wife is. It greatly affects them, especially in the beginning books. But when he learns to handle it better, I'm hoping that people will be seeing the growth in the way he handles it and the returning closeness to his mother.
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D
We learn early in the book that Gareth is disappointed about the heart attack that Reid's father has. He's angry because he'd been blackmailing Lord Charles for years and now the Lord has. The Earl has stopped paying and Gareth starts planning his revenge. Can you talk about creating someone like Gareth who has no conscience whatsoever?
- [10:08]
B
Yes. And he's another character that just sort of evolved. I mean, I kind of had thought he'd be more of a good guy, but he just wasn't. Every time I started writing his point of view, he came out as a complete jerk. And it was surprising that Terrence's mother had a relationship with him because he is so difficult. But I think he came from a very harsh. Well, I know, I know. Since I created him, he came from a very harsh Welsh background and he wanted just to succeed. He got involved in drugs. He got a little bit too much success too young. Had things come a little easy, and then reality gives him his comeuppance. I struggled with making sure that he didn't come off completely degenerate, though he was pretty close. But that so that the reader could see kind of where he was coming from, that he did feel like the world had handed him a raw deal over and over every time something happened, even though it was his own fault, as many people who do the same thing, self sabotage. He didn't want to accept responsibility.
- [11:34]
E
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F
Used to describe an individual whose Spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New Teen, the new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you.
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D
So good, so good, so good.
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E
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- [12:46]
B
Check out these boots. They've got the best gifts.
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E
My holiday shopping hack.
- [12:50]
A
Join the NordicLub.
- [12:51]
E
Get an extra 5% off every rack purchase with your Nordstrom credit card. Plus buy it online and pick it up in store the same day for free. Big gifts, big perks.
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B
That's why you rack.
- [13:03]
D
Let's talk about the title Violent Seed. What can you tell us that is.
- [13:09]
B
It's something as we were really searching for a title for this book and came to the kind of came to the thought that everything that happens in this book comes from things that happened long ago and the seed of the violence, the seed of what's going to happen and the murder and all of that started years ago and. And grew like a poisonous weed through the years and ended up in this crime happening. So the seed that's planted by our. The. The deeds that we do when years before have. Have come back in this case to haunt and to haunt everybody and to everybody in the story and to cause an eruption really and of violence.
- [14:11]
D
Well, I thought that it was going to tie into the gardening and was waiting for somebody to have a buckthorn or whatever they have there, you know, some kind of horrible seed that won't. Kudzu.
- [14:24]
B
Well, they're usually. We do have this scene where the thorns. Lawrence. Right, right, right. So. But no. Yeah, but it's a big dinner though. It's kind of poor. Yes.
- [14:35]
D
Can you introduce us to Katharina Montalban? She's the proprietress of the country estate where this Cooking the Chef event is taking place. And why does she keep covering for her wayward nephew instead of letting him face the consequences of his actions?
- [14:55]
B
Well, with Katarina, she also has her. What her motivations are. Some of that started with the things that happened years ago and she ends up with no children and she's taken care basically taken under her wing her nephew who she's thinking will be her only child ever. And that's all she'll have. I think the family ties with her sister and the woman whose child the snap who is. Are deep and I think a lot of families, Latin American families, North American families, whatever those are your deepest ties. And she thinks of him almost as a son, a son who doesn't behave himself ever. But a grown man really, who has never, never accepted the consequences of his own actions.
- [15:53]
D
Yep. Katarina's boss pops in last minute. She has a full house. She's running this amazing chef program all summer. And he pops in with his brand new, much younger wife. Daffodil. Great name for Daffodil. Why is she so upset she gives up her room for him. Why is he upsetting her so much when she's.
- [16:18]
B
She's dealt with him before? He has been micromanaging her. He puts her. Gives her a lot of. And gives her a lot of responsibility. This is her. Her second career, the first career was destroyed, as the reader would. We'll find out, is destroyed. So she comes back. She's really good at what she's doing. She's opened several properties for this company and he just. He will just come in and overrule her and override what she wants to do or kind of take over. And I think she's. This is her success. He really had nothing to do except providing the money and for this wonderful program, for the wonderful hotel. And with everything else going on in her life, it's just. It was like the last straw that he comes right when she's got everything so busy and she's taking and she's dealing with this nephew and she's dealing with Gareth hovering around the edges of her life.
- [17:27]
D
There's a lot of tension. A lot of people have tension in this story and the tension, it's like it's. The rubber band is slowly being pulled and you just know we're not going to name every character, but Dame Connie Snow is the grandam of British cooking. Is she based on a real character like Mary Berry?
- [17:47]
B
It's had. She was. In fact, that was where the. That those programs were, where the seed of this book came from. I started watching Mary Berry and I just loved her. I ordered her book, which was, you know, not. Not exactly being printed all the time anymore. And I got into watching her on the great, big, great British Baking show. And then I saw Paul Hollywood and Paul Hollywood is. Who's a very nice person though, became the kind of the. The person that I. They scareth on. Not his personality, but who he looked like and that kind of thing. Wow, that's so I got his book and. And read that. So I got really into that and was watching it. I was really disappointed when she was taken off the show or when she left the show, but that's where I was starting to think. And then I was going to the Cotswolds and I based the manner. Whitethorn Manor. I based that actually on a house that's in the Highlands that I stayed at with my husband. I just moved it down to the Cotswolds, which. The Cotswolds. I don't know if you've been there, but it's a wonderful place to visit, a lot of wonderful food. It's very, very picturesque, but also very hospitable to tourists and to people who like to eat good food. Lot of really good restaurants. So. But I use some of the. Some of the food was actually from the 1. The place in Scotland that we stayed at.
- [19:29]
D
Oh, did you take notes on your. On your. What you were served and then use those?
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B
Oh, yes.
- [19:35]
D
Oh, my goodness. That's a great idea. There are a few more characters I mean, we could spend all day talking about. This is such a rich book. There's so much going on, but just a few more characters. Connie Snow's niece is there, Penny. And we learn early on that she's having an affair with the much older Gareth. What is it about him, aside from his pretty face, now that I know he looks like Paul Hollywood? I mean, we all had crushes on him. How does Gareth attract so many women of so many ages?
- [20:09]
B
And, you know, that's a question I think that we could ask in everyday life. You just like, why would she go with him? What does she see in him? He's good looking, he's. He's glib, he's telling her what she wants to hear. He was her teacher at the. At the cooking. The cooking class she went to. And she also knew that there was something, you know, something kind of naughty or bad boy. The bad boy attraction that so many people have.
- [20:44]
D
Oh, there's so much. What. What did you love most about this one? This is your fifth book in the series.
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B
Right.
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D
And what else, can I ask this? What else do you see happening for the reads?
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B
Well, they. The. The fact is, this book, I was actually almost finished with the book I was going to do next, which was in Aberdeen, when this book just popped up. And I knew I was seeing all these beautiful gardens in the Cotswolds. I was really into the cooking show culture, I guess, watching it. I wasn't doing it. And so the book just sort of came, but it had to come between those two books. So now I'm not going to give a spoiler what happens at the end, but the next book will probably be back in the Highlands and there's going to be a lot of changes in the main characters lives. I don't want to give things away, but a lot of big changes in the main characters lives and that will be in the Highlands and then the next book is in Aberdeen and it has to do with the oil, the North Sea oil industry.
- [22:02]
D
So do you see yourself continuing writing in the series?
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B
Yes. So I have another series that I'm also working on.
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D
What's the other series?
- [22:14]
B
The other series follows a priest who, an American priest who is actually an investigator for the Vatican for the sexual scandals and for other kinds of misdeeds. Not just, not just the sexual stuff, but also financial. And he is, I put, he is in a town that's like Notre Dame, but not Notre Dame. And he starts. He also has to move around to different places because he's investigating crimes. I have one book in that series finished, not published yet. And then the other book is the next book is. Takes place in Santa Fe and that the first one takes place in the town that's similar to South Bend.
- [23:06]
D
So are you coming out to the Midwest to research?
- [23:09]
B
I did already.
- [23:10]
D
You did already?
- [23:11]
B
Okay. Yes, yes, I did. And then the, the next book, I went to Santa Fe. I have that book half done, so. And then I have some short stories coming out as well.
- [23:23]
D
Wow. So much going on. Thank you so much for talking to me today. Mary, it's been a pleasure and I wish you the best of luck with.
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B
All of these books. Thank you so much for having me. It's been fun. I really enjoyed talking to you as.
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D
Always and thank you for joining me again. This is G.P. gottlieb, author of the Whipped and Sipped mystery series and host for New Books and Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. Today I've been talking to Mary Price Burke about her latest excellent mystery, Violent Seed. Hope you all have an excellent book to cuddle up with today. And always happy reading.