Author Ellery Adams discusses her genre-blending novel Invasive Species, the power of public reviewing, and why honesty and horror make the best book club fodder.
Author Ellery Adams discusses her genre-blending novel Invasive Species, the power of public reviewing, and why honesty and horror make the best book club fodder.
This week on Book Gang, we’re joined by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Ellery Adams, whose genre-blending new release, Invasive Species, is a darkly funny, horror-tinged romp set in 1980s suburbia. With more than forty novels to her name—including beloved series like The Secret, Book, & Scone Society—Ellery shares how she’s redefining what cozy, horror, and women’s fiction can be.
In this episode, we dive into Ellery’s journey from cozy mysteries to genre-blending horror and satire, the art of honest book reviews (even as an author), and what it takes to build a world readers want to revisit again and again.
In this week’s juicy episode, we discuss:
📚 Honest Reviews & Reader Connection: Ellery is famous for her candid book reviews—even as a working author—and her willingness to engage in tough conversations on Goodreads. We explore the etiquette (and emotional toll) of public feedback, how she handles criticism, and why she believes honest dialogue between writers and readers makes the book world stronger.
📚Reinventing a Writing Life: Ellery Adams’s journey from cozy mysteries to genre-blending horror is anything but linear. We discuss her bold leap from beloved series writer to risk-taking genre bender, how she navigated industry upheaval and shifting contracts, and what it means to trust your instincts even when readers expect you to "stay in your lane."
📚 Monsters, Myth, and Suburban Drama: Invasive Species is more than a monster tale. We unpack Ellery’s sharp satire of 1980s suburbia, the real-life and mythological inspirations behind Mrs. Smith, and why the monstrous can be both literal and metaphorical. Plus, how horror (even cozy horror!) reflects our deepest anxieties about ambition, community, and what it means to be an outsider.
FREE BONUS BOOK LIST: This week’s bonus book list features 11 Creature Feature Books that every reader should try for spooky season! Patrons of the show will receive a printable list to take to their local library and a bonus spoiler chat with Ellery Adams, where we dig deeper into the monstrous twists in Invasive Species.
Meet Ellery Adams
Ellery Adams is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels. A native New Yorker, she now resides in central North Carolina. Her acclaimed series include the Secret, Book, & Scone Society (Kensington), Book Retreat Mysteries (Kensington), Books By the Bay Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), Charmed Pie Shoppe Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), Molly Appleby Antiques & Collectibles Mysteries (Beyond the Page), and Hope Street Mysteries (Beyond the Page).
In addition to her cozy and traditional mysteries, Ellery writes genre-blending fiction focused on women and their inner monsters. Her latest, Invasive Species (2026, HarperCollins), marks an exciting new direction—one that’s already winning over fans of dark, witty, and emotionally resonant storytelling. Friends in Dark Places will follow in 2027.
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NEW BOOK LIST: 11 Creature Feature Books to Try This Spooky Season
2026 MomAdvice Book Club Books (All 12 Selections)
October Book Club Episode: One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford
Cancer Made Me Do It by Melissa Fuoss
Invasive Species by Ellery Adams (Available on Kindle Unlimited)
The Secret Book & Scone Society
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle
Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
The Women of Wild Hill by Kirsten Miller
The Change by Kirsten Miller
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
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Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
Ellery Adams (00:00)
Hey, I'm Ellery Adams. I'm so glad to be here today. I am a reader and a writer of mystery novels, and now genre blend; I don't even know what you call it? Speculative fiction, cozy horror. I've heard a million different genres, so let's just call it a new endeavor. So great to be here.
Amy’s Warm Intro:
Hey Book Gang! If The Change was a favorite in your stack, you’ll love Invasive Species—a darkly funny, horror-tinged romp where Ellery Adams brilliantly lampoons 1980s suburban life in Cold Harbor, Long Island. The audiobook, brought to life by Courtney Patterson’s pitch-perfect narration, is the best way to experience this wickedly entertaining tale.
Looming over the neighborhood in this cozy horror pick is the mysterious Mrs. Smith, whose crumbling mansion and unsettling presence threaten to unravel the ambitions of the town’s women. Natalie Scott, an aspiring real estate agent, finds her dreams derailed by Mrs. Smith’s eyesore of a home, while neighbor Elaine Bernstein is determined to throw the bar mitzvah of the decade—if only she can get Mrs. Smith’s blessing for fireworks. What's a girl to do?
But as the women jockey for position, they have no idea that Mrs. Smith’s true motives are far more sinister: she needs to devour nine children to step fully into her powers. Only Natalie’s savvy daughter, Jill, and their Icelandic housekeeper, Una—who’s not new to battling monsters—stand in her way.
Featured in this year’s Summer Reading Guide and one of my favorite under-the-radar gems of summer, I’m excited to celebrate this fast-paced plotty story full of razor-sharp satire, with its satisfyingly punchy ending on our show. Invasive Species is a nostalgic monster tale you’ll want to devour in one sitting.
If you’re new here, hi! I’m Amy Allen Clark, the voice behind the Book Gang podcast, and I’m just so happy to have you here. This space is dedicated to debuts, backlist favorites, and under-the-radar gems.
Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Book Gang member Denise shared a moving memoir recommendation: Cancer Made Me Do It by Melissa Fuoss. Melissa was diagnosed with breast cancer at 35 and decided to write her way through it. Cancer Made Me Do It is a collection of stories capturing a young mother's breast cancer journey.
Please check out Melissa's book, which is linked in our show notes today, and most importantly, let this be your reminder to schedule your mammogram and encourage the women you love to do the same.
In this week’s conversation, Ellery opens up about reinventing her writing life—making the leap from beloved cozy mysteries to this bold, genre-blending cozy horror. We talk about building haunting fictional worlds, the unexpected joys and heartbreaks of series writing, and why she believes in honest, public engagement with her readers—even when the feedback stings. You’ll hear how myth, memory, and suburban drama come together in Invasive Species, and why this novel is the perfect gateway for both horror newbies and longtime fans.
As always, you’ll find an immersive bonus book list where I’ve pulled together 13 monster books to make your October reading extra spooky. Patrons get a printable version to take to the library and a bonus episode with Ellery Adams discussing the chilling ending to this delicious story.
And if you can’t get enough bookish conversation, we’ve got you covered. Our October Book Club pick, One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford, is a knockout debut that reimagines horror through the lens of caregiving, and you can dive into last week’s compelling conversation with Leigh to acquaint you with her story, now linked right at the top of our show notes, ready for you to tune in. Join us for our exclusive Patreon Book Club chat on October 29th at 8 PM ET, where we’ll dive deeper into spoilers, themes, and reader reactions from One Yellow Eye. And for our Classics Club readers, don’t forget: we’re moving into section two of Jane Eyre—chapters 14–26—on October 22nd at 8 PM ET. All the details for both clubs are in the show notes, and you’re welcome to jump in anytime!
Now, let’s meet today’s guest: Ellery Adams is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels. A native New Yorker, she now resides in central North Carolina. Her acclaimed series include the Secret, Book, & Scone Society (Kensington), Book Retreat Mysteries (Kensington), Books By the Bay Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), Charmed Pie Shoppe Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), Molly Appleby Antiques & Collectibles Mysteries (Beyond the Page), and Hope Street Mysteries (Beyond the Page).
In addition to her cozy and traditional mysteries, Ellery writes genre-blending fiction focused on women and their inner monsters. Her latest, Invasive Species (2026, HarperCollins), marks an exciting new direction—one that’s already winning over fans of dark, witty, and emotionally resonant storytelling. Friends in Dark Places will follow in 2027.
Finally, if you’re enjoying the show, leaving a quick review on iTunes is one of the best ways to help others discover Book Gang—it’s free and means so much to us. And to our loyal patrons—thank you for supporting human creators in a world full of AI monsters. And remember, Book Gang… whether you’re dodging tentacles in suburbia, braving the haunted halls of Jane Eyre, or fending off zombies in One Yellow Eye, there’s always room for one more monster on your TBR. Stay spooky, friends,—and now let’s get chatting!
(transition music)
Book Gang- Amy (00:22)
Well, Ellery, I am thrilled to finally connect with your work. I told you I'm not a cozy mystery reader, so I assumed that that lane wasn't for me. And somehow I was on the Libby app and a book called Invasive Species came onto my feed and I have become your prophet. I've been your disciple for this book. I have taken this book on the road to so many other people's podcasts.
I love this book and I'm so excited because I'm discovering your work right along with all of our listeners today. And I thought I would start with because I had so much fun kind of digging into you as a person and looking up where you are all over social media. And one thing I noticed is that you are a great resource for book reviews. And I think it's a rarity for authors to be honest in their book reviews and offer a little bit of critical feedback as well as you know what you love about the books. Could you tell us a little bit about why you still publicly review books?
Ellery Adams (01:26)
Absolutely. Well, my main goal when I review books is to try to get somebody to read something that I love. I really see it as like a Maven role, you know. Like, look, I read 155, 160 books a year. I love audiobooks, I love print books. not a digital person. I've never had an e-reader. I don't know. It's just a thing with me. I like to hold them at night, and then I like to do errands with them. So I've always got two books going at all times.
And when, you know, you've become a lifelong reader, because I'm not young, so I have a lot of books under my belt as a reader and a writer. When something really blows me away, I want everybody else to read it. I mean, especially if it's a debut author and it's very hard to get discovered by new readers as a debut author. I certainly remember what that was like. And unless you, you know, you've just written Yesteryear, your chances of becoming that astronomically successful are pretty slim.
And just in genres that I know people may follow me for, and then I'll say, Hey, here's this little nugget book, and it's from yeah, 1982 or whatever, but honestly, I give it a try. Or you may love this big name author, but you don't know this author so much. And sometimes it is the big name author because I love a lot of them. and they got where they are because they're fantastic. It's yeah, sometimes they are worth the hype for real. but I don't like to just completely gush, and I think that the reason behind that is none of us are perfect, no book is perfect, so I will occasionally find a quibble, even if I give something four stars or five stars, and I just want people to know that, you know, it doesn't mean that the book doesn't have as much value for me, but I think to be a really credible reviewer, I want to give pros and cons because that's what I want to see from other reviewers. Even when somebody is, you know, gushing about a book online, I'm like, well. And I want to see the other side, right? You know, my only thing that I would have liked more is the ending to be less rushed or something. I'm like, fair, I'm still totally gonna read that. But it just brings some credibility. And like I would never bash an author or a book because even if it's not for me, it could be for somebody else. Yeah, you're never gonna see that from me. And so I think I'm safe kind of with other authors. I hope.
Book Gang- Amy (03:57)
Yeah, I wondered about like the social etiquette of all that because a lot of my friends who became authors took their reviews private or, you know, tried to not make any public commentary on books anymore. And I just find that to be a very fascinating element. And also that I have a lot of respect for you because when I read your reviews, they are fair, but you also are not afraid to say like what didn't work for you.
But the other aspect of this that I think is really interesting is that you're highly engaged on Goodreads. And if people offer something critical about your book, you still like it and comment, like, thanks for reading. And I can see your digital footprint where readers are asking you questions and you're responding and engaging with your readers on Goodreads. And some authors just stay off of that platform entirely. They can't handle that kind of feedback. How did you develop that for yourself.
Ellery Adams (04:58)
Well, it took years. I mean, I do have a pretty thick shell after I mean, I'm on book 45. I think if you had asked me that after book one came out and I read some reviews, I don't think I would be so tough or so stoic. And Goodreads is a special place. I mean, people really I sometimes I think people write reviews on there just to get attention to their reviews and it's really not even about the book. They just say something really inflammatory or or actually just really cruel to kind of garner comments or what have you. I think for other authors I can see why they just don't want to go on there.
I like I love to answer questions. I love when a reader says, Well, why did you do this or why did you do that? I'm like, well, this gives me an opportunity to show people my motives, or to say, actually, I screwed up there. Because I have. I had one book that came out and I changed the character's name in the middle of the book because he was a real person, and I was talking to his sister, and his name, real name, was in the back of my head because I had just talked about him to his sister, and then I started writing and I put in his real name. I didn't catch it during the edits, my editor didn't catch it, and my copy editor didn't catch it. And then it went to print, and it is probably the book is probably eight years old now. I get more comments about this because people love to tell me I made a mistake.
And it's fair because it's a big one, right? We changed the name. So I actually have an automatic answer programmed on Facebook where if somebody mentions one of those two names, it'll just pop up and it'll tell the story. Like I totally made this mistake. None of us caught it. And then because the series ended at that book or the book after that, like Berkeley did not want to go back in and fix it. So it's just out there with this huge glaring error.
Book Gang- Amy (07:04)
No.
Ellery Adams (07:04)
And like I'm fine with just saying, you know, sometimes stupid things happen. And here it is. You know, I'd rather be asked than just like get all these inflammatory one-star reviews, like, change the character in the middle. Because it gives me a chance to explain myself, you know. I will tell you that.
There have been plenty of times I have read a review and boy, I want to respond. I want to be like, you're an idiot. You did not read this closely. That's not what I wrote. You're wrong. But I can't, right? Like that. I can engage in ways where if they're asking a question or you know, they may, for example, in Invasive Species, people from a Long Island assumed it was a particular town that it wasn't.
And so there was one reviewer who said, you know, geographically where where she puts the town is impossible. And it kind of surprises me because she's from Long Island. And I ended up connecting with her on Instagram just totally out of the blue. And I said, by the way, it's based on this town. And she was like, my gosh, I assumed the wrong town. And so I said, You didn't know your geography. I'm like, I know. I saw that on Goodreads.
Book Gang- Amy (08:18)
You're like, Can you make an edit, please?
Ellery Adams (08:20)
Right. She has not, but whatever. She and I now know that I knew where I grew up. Right, right.
Book Gang- Amy (08:27)
Yes, and listeners now you know as well.
Ellery Adams (08:31)
But I did find myself adding to my note on Goodreads multiple times based on people's reviews. Like, no, okay, here. And that's all I can do really is put my own note on the book's page and then just hope people read it. But sometimes readers are not good readers, you know what I mean?
Book Gang- Amy (08:49)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm excited because you're actually, I'm pretty sure, my first series writer. So this is like a whole new playground for our listeners and for me. Now a lot of our listeners are very into mystery series. So I'm the one who's the outlier on the show. But I'd love to talk about writing series books and what might surprise readers about how difficult series writing is? And I'm also wondering whether it's harder to create a world readers want to revisit for multiple books, or if it's harder to create a brand new world where you just have that one book standalone.
Ellery Adams (09:30)
Well, I think if you're gonna write a long standing series, you're planning on a long standing series, you better love your setting with every fiber of your being. And you better make sure your readers really love it.
I would visit the setting of my series any old day of the week and hang out there because it's just it's a great place. I mean it's not exactly Starry Hollow, but it is small coffee shops, bakeries, you know, little boutiques. It's not not strip malls and you're surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are extraordinarily beautiful. And you've got your hot springs and a river and this bookstore in an old train station.
And it is based on two real towns in Western North Carolina, which I kind of squished together. and it's funny 'cause there's like three different places in Western North Carolina where you can have a meal in an old train car. And that's where I got the idea of having my main character live in a refurbished train car as a tiny home. And it's got all this super, super charming stuff. And I went overboard on the charm because I knew I needed to set up this great backdrop where there was gonna be just a buttload of murders. So I was gonna have this wonderful utopian type place where everybody would want to hang out. And then I'm gonna, you know, fill it with dead bodies up to the roof. You gotta wanna come back if it's constantly violent like this, but it works because this area of North Carolina, which is also an entrance to the Appalachian Trail, and has people coming there in search of healing.
So you've got people coming through and you need to have a source of new bodies. You can't just be bumping off everybody in the same town. and I love creating murders. I mean, I don't know what that says about me, but I love to kill people and I love to create murderers who you kind of see their point sometimes. You kind of understand, even though you don't approve, you understand why they do what they do. And I like to have amateur sleuths who aren't just bumbling their way into something. There has to be an emotional connection to the murder for them to get involved. So it's not just like being nosy. It's not shallow like that.
And that's my whole thing with this series, is it supposed to pack emotional punches as you're reading. And the more attached people come to the character become to the characters, the bigger that emotional punch is. But I also write it so that you can pick up the series in book seven and you'll be okay. That's actually the toughest part of writing a series because you don't wanna add so much backstory that people are bored.
But you have to write enough that they can pick up book seven and be like, okay, I understand who these people are and what their relationship is. I tell people who are new to the series, it is like just joining another book club because it's about a book club. And all the women in the book club are flawed. They have things they deeply, deeply regret, mistakes they've made because they're human.
Some of those mistakes are much bigger than others, and they've lived long enough to have wisdom and experience, but also, you know, done things they really, really regret. And the thing about that is most people who are in that situation learn how to be more empathetic. And so they're big readers and they realize that they've made mistakes and they're trying to kind of make amends. And so there is a lot of empathy throughout the series. Writing a standalone for me for Invasive Species was really challenging because I was like, I'm gonna have to wrap up this whole story at the end. Like, this is not gonna necessarily continue for 10 books.
But people ask me all the time why I've ended series that I've started. And the truth to that is I just felt like it was time and I'm never gonna be one of those writers that just keeps going for the paycheck because readers can tell. I can tell as a series reader when an author's dialing it in and I'm like, you should have totally stopped this two books ago. And then, you know, we part ways. But I just don't really respect that. Like if you don't still love your characters and love the setting and really want to tell a story to your readers, you should stop.
Book Gang- Amy (13:58)
Yeah. That kind of goes back to personally, I think it's because you are a book reviewer and that you engage critically with books that you would care more about what readers would experience with that versus someone who is in it to make money, you know, just specifically for that. I'm not saying that you don't want to make money. I just feel like, you know, right who doesn't? Can yeah, I know they are so expensive and
Ellery Adams (14:16)
Right. Right, yeah, I definitely wanna make money. Kids are expensive. And my cats are expensive. Man.
Book Gang- Amy (14:26)
I hear you, Ellery. We have so much in common. Our kids are about the same age and you know, I get it. Like I I feel like it's it's really disappointing and also just speaking to the economic climate right now, that means a lot to me and it actually enables me to trust you more as an author to know that you aren't just trying to get a paycheck, you are specifically knowing when a series should end. You know, for me as someone who is imagining, you know, you describe this town so beautifully. Obviously I want to just go and live there. That is the whole point. Even if there are a few murders, I mean maybe it would make things a little bit more exciting in my town. I don't know.
Ellery Adams (15:04)
It definitely does. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (15:06)
But I was wondering, do you have a way of visualizing that? How are you visualizing the town? Do you have, you know, any mock-ups of the town? Is there a map somewhere? What do you do as a writer to create a town?
Ellery Adams (15:15)
You know, I really, the series is gonna be re-released next year and I really wanna include a map of the, either a map of the town or a map of the inside of the bookstore because it is very Warren esque. I love little bookshops that have a lot of corners and little nooks and you know, you can just kind of hide in a series of shelves for a while privately, you know, without everybody just kind of hanging over your shoulder, you know, like I love Barnes and Noble, don't get me wrong, it was like my first; I was a bookseller there for a year. That's where I wrote my first book. So I'm deeply indebted to Barnes and Noble. But they're very open and I love bookstores with nooks. You know, there's something that if you're just allowed to browse in private, like holding a coffee, it's such an intimate experience.
So I have been to many bookstores that were great models for Miracle Books, which is the name of the store. But the town I did drive out to Western North Carolina and visit a bunch of towns and the main town that it was supposed to be modeled on when we were going to visit for the day. I had my kids with me. There was a big biker rally. So it was like, you know, a lot of people, loud motorcycles, throwing cigarettes on the ground. I was like, this is not really the vibe I was going for.
Also we went to go visit the hot springs and you go into these little cabins to go into the springs, and I just wanted to see what they looked like for book material. And a rather large, rather hairy, completely nude gentleman like walked across the lawn when we were there, and I was like, okay. Well, I was visualizing something different. So yeah, I was like, I'm just gonna fill that in with the rest of my imagination.
But Biltmore, which is the big mansion that the Vanderbilts built, has a village attached to it, and about 10, 15 years ago, this was one of the most charming places on earth. It didn't have it only had individually owned businesses. Like you couldn't open up a chain of any kind there. And it would have these little front gardens, almost like a Charlestonian back garden, but they were in the front, you know, surrounded by little wrought iron gates and every every every all these houses had plaques with the history. There's actually a really creepy former children's hospital, which has turned into an Airbnb where my family and I stayed. And that place, that place needs to be in a horror book. So we're just gonna put that on the back burner because that place is great. But there was just all this atmosphere.
Now, unfortunately, because of Hurricane Helene, nothing that I wrote about is ever going to be the same because Biltmore was devastated by flooding. So those places that inspired me are essentially gone. So I'm kind of glad that they're still in my head and they'll forever be in this series, so
Book Gang- Amy (18:13)
Yeah. Well, you're keeping it alive in a sense with your work.
Ellery Adams (18:16)
Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (18:16)
Well, I wanna talk about maybe what surprises readers about who actually controls a long running series after publication. So when you launch a series like this who controls this, right? Who is in charge of this? You said you decide when you wanna be done with it. Is that the case with the series or are you on the hook for X amount of books? How does that look contract-wise?
Ellery Adams (18:43)
Well, of course it's all about money and sales. Everything boils down to that with publishing, of course. So if readers are out there bemoaning the end of the series and it was not the author's choice, it was because they didn't sell well enough. so what usually happens with romance series and mystery series is you go by three book contract chunks.
And so I will tell you, I've had two failed series in the past. My very first series, I got a three-book contract, and I'm like, that's it, I'm on my way. This is gonna be this like 10-book series, fantasy, fantasy, fantasy. That was popped pretty quickly.
And here's the tough part is you know, while you're writing book two, that book three is going to be your last. You already know that sales have not been good enough and unless there's some kind of miracle, book three will be the end. And it is very hard to have to write that third book. It's great because you know you can have closure at the end of that particular book, but you also know that that's it for those characters, you know, unless you decide to go the indie publishing route. You really will know if it's doing well because toward the middle or the end of you working on book two, the publishers will approach you with contract for four, five, six.
Book Gang- Amy (20:05)
Okay.
Ellery Adams (20:06)
And if it's doing okay, they will offer you the same terms as one, two, three. If it's done better than they expected, then they'll offer you more to try to get you to sign the contract. No publisher on a book series that's doing well ever wants to talk about when it'll end. They want you to keep going as long as the sales are coming in. So for example with Secret Book and Scone Society, we haven't had any discussions about how long it'll go. I'll know when it's ready and that to be over and then I'll just tell them, you know, I appreciate the offer, but I'm ready to do something new. Like this, this series is wrapped. I'm not quite there yet. I am working on book 10, I think. Yes, and I have a contract till 11. So I think there should be at least 12 and then we'll see.
Book Gang- Amy (21:03)
Have you ever had like a sleeper hit that they were like, no, like someone discovered you and then all of a sudden a series starts taking off again and they want to pick it back up? Has that ever happened in any of your contracts?
Ellery Adams (21:17)
No, because what happened was one of my successful series was with Berkeley Prime Crime, and that was the Book Retreat Mysteries, which are set on the outer banks of or like the coast of North Carolina. And that series did very well. Like it hit the New York Times multiple times. But what happened was I was working on book nine for that series, and I was waiting for my contract to come in for 10, 11, and 12, and it wasn't coming, and it wasn't coming. And it was very strange because the sales were really good for this book. But this is when Penguin and Random House had their merger. And this is like big tea but I'm gonna spill it. As part of that merger, they decided to fire most of their mystery authors who were in mass market. And I would tell you that like 99.9% of us were women, so that was a big female axe chopping across the board.
I just got this vibe because my editor, who was wonderful, and you know, none of this was down to her, was not sending me the contract. She'd always been so organized and she was avoiding my questions about where it was. So I talked to my agent, who I love and respect and totally trust. We've been together for 21 years. We're like an old married couple. And she was like, I've had my ear to the ground and I'm nervous. Like, would you like to approach another publisher? And I said, Yeah, if something's happening at Berkeley, I want to have a safety net.
So we approached Kensington and said, Will you, if this goes down, will you take all of my series? And they call those orphans. So if you write a series for another publishing company and you're trying to give it to another publishing company, those are orphans. And sometimes they don't want those because the series has already started and that they don't want to pick up on book four or five or ten. Even if it's selling well, they want an original series to their publishing house.
So the deal we made with Kensington was they would take one of my series, and they wanted the Book Retreat mysteries because there's only three. So if I was if I was gonna continue with that series, they were cool with that because they were like, okay, we'll take one orphan series, but the other ones were too far along because I had five books in the Pie Shoppe and I had nine books in and that was too many orphans. And they said, but you have to come up with a new idea for us to sell, and if we really like it, we're gonna put it out in hardcover.
So thus thus became the I wanted to write a series about bibliotherapy because I believe so deeply in the healing power of reading that's what I pitched. And they loved it. And I said, and it's gonna be a messy genre blend. I don't wanna make this any kind of clear thing. Are you cool with that? And they were super cool with it. So I just got lucky, yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (24:12)
That's actually really fascinating and I think people will really like latch onto that. I had not a similar experience in that they were letting writers go, but my book was under Penguin and they were merging with Random House during my launch month.
And so they had sent me all this stuff I was gonna get to go do. And then all of a sudden I couldn't hear, I did not hear from publicity at all. Like no one answering my emails, like everyone dropped the ball.
Ellery Adams (24:42)
Yeah, the ghosting was real. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (24:46)
And then of course the book doesn't sell well, right? It doesn't sell enough copies in order to garner a second book contract. And I just felt really like discouraged by that experience. And, you know, I think it really opened my eyes. And I think it has also given me a lot of empathy, especially to debut novelists and really trying to like give them a good a footprint when they first start with their books and their and what they're doing. So I just I find that all quite fascinating. Didn't know anything about the orphan stuff.
Ellery Adams (25:12)
I'm so sorry that happened to you because that's just heartbreaking because you put so much into every book and then and your hopes for I mean, it is literally like sending your child to kindergarten on the first day. You just want the best things to happen for it, this thing that you've loved and nurtured and care so much about. And then when nobody else cares, it really hurts. It really hurts.
Book Gang- Amy (25:37)
Yeah, it was definitely a growing experience for me. And I and I can highly relate to those kinds of feelings about wanting someone who really believes in your work and your projects. And it gives me a great chance to talk about with you Invasive Species, which is the book that I fell in love with and is drawing me in as a reader.
To me, obviously as someone who's on the outside, this seems like a completely huge jump for you as an author. And I'd love to talk a little bit about this story specifically and why you wanted to jump ship when you have such a successful career going in this mystery space.
Ellery Adams (26:16)
Well, I'm a multi-genre reader. I read almost every genre. And I think that the older I've gotten, the more I like really gritty stories. And I'm I'm realizing that something I've never been aware of before because I've always been a horror reader. I've always read it. I've always watched movies. Horror is really kind of developing as a fascinating genre because I feel like I think people underestimate it first of all. There are many horror books that are extremely well written, but also very emotional. Like people think, some people think that when you read horror novels, the only thing you're gonna get out of it is the feeling of fear.
But horror novels, maybe in some ways more than any other genre, are a real incredible hold up a mirror to where we are right now as as humans and in society and kind of tap into that fear and then also provide us with hope and all kinds of other psychological analysis. And I'm pretty fascinated by it. And I love kind of like this emergence of females in horror right now. Like, you know, women are having a moment.
And what has always traditionally been a very male-dominated genre, we still have a long way to go. I still see a lot of horror panels where there's not a woman on there or a person of color on there. So we've got some work to do, but it's opening up. And I love what women are bringing to the field.
And I had never set out to write a horror novel. What I wanted to do was I wanted to write something darker to see if I could, first of all. And to give myself permission to write a story without any rules. Nobody telling me, well, you have to leave these breadcrumbs so that people can solve them. Mysteries are very rule-oriented by nature. They have to be. We have to play fair so that when the reader gets to the end, they can go back to page 30 and see where I hid a clue. Because mystery writers who don't do that are cheating. Right?
Book Gang- Amy (28:26)
Mm.
Ellery Adams (28:27)
Like there are some unreliable narrator things that I really don't like because I feel like that's a cheat. Like there's no place back in the book where the reader can find the breadcrumbs. Is it really a mystery? I don't know. I would say no. Those aren't my kind of books. If they're just blackout drunk for half of the book, then there's nothing that we can track. So yeah, yeah, I don't like that.
Book Gang- Amy (28:48)
That's not enjoyable at all.
Ellery Adams (28:51)
That's just a personal peeve. I didn't start out writing this book. I started writing a women's fiction novel, which had some mythological influences. And it was coming across as kind of cheesy. And my agent was like, I don't think this is it. Like, I get what you're trying to do here, but I I don't think this is it. You know, go back to the drawing book. She's very honest. She's from New Jersey, very blunt. She doesn't like something.
Book Gang- Amy (29:18)
Yeah.
Ellery Adams (29:19)
She just tells you this is not working.
And I love that and respect that from her because it makes me want to be better. So then I tried something else. I was gonna write this book about a woman who was the prison librarian, basically. And she had gotten out of prison and all this stuff was going on. And she was like, Well, this my agent said this is closer. This is closer. Go back.
And I was like, Well, I've always wanted to write about my neighbor, Mrs. Smith, from when I was younger, because we don't really know her story. And I really definitely felt like there was something super off about her. And we were all genuinely scared about stepping foot on her property or going anywhere near her house. I'd love to write about her. And then I thought, but that's not deep enough to just have a monster story. And I love these Greek retellings because I love that these female monsters are getting their own voices. And so that that's been a huge influence on me, like the Natalie Hayes, the Jennifer Saint’s, Madeline Miller's, I love the voices of these females whose stories have been taken over by men for the past hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. They're coming out now, and I'm here for all of it. I read all of them. You know, and some are better than others, but I was like, that's what I want. I want to have a monster who you're kind of like, I kind of get where you're coming from and actually it's the humans in these novels who are terrible. Monsters aren't so bad. So that's kind of what got me started on writing Invasive Species.
Book Gang- Amy (30:57)
And how long did this book take you?
Ellery Adams (30:59)
It took a little over a year. I kind of chugged along and thought everything was going great. Again, showed it to my agent and she was like, I feel like you're holding back, like you're hearing your current readers going, like, this is too scary, or this is too we don't like the language, or you never write about sex. I feel like you have to turn those voices off and go again.
And she was right. I was really kind I didn't even realize it, but subconsciously I was like, I don't know who's gonna read this because I'm not known for this kind of thing. that that kind of gave me the freedom to just tell the story I think the way it needed to go.
Book Gang- Amy (31:39)
Okay. Well I want to talk about those readers and the response that you've gotten from it because first of all, when I had reached out to you, you had said, this is having a hard time finding its perfect audience, which genre benders tend to be that way. Like I I have had tons of genre bender authors. Like we did Aftertaste, Shark Heart.
Ellery Adams (32:02)
I love Shark Heart so much. Five stars, everybody. If you have not read that, it was absolutely
one of my favorite books the year it came out. It's genius and
Book Gang- Amy (32:09)
My gosh, gorgeous story.
Ellery Adams (32:11)
Beautiful and so emotional.
Book Gang- Amy (32:14)
Yes, and Emily did an interview. So if you guys are curious about digging into her backstory because she was a screenwriter, it's just a magnificent interview, one of my favorites I've ever done. She's a class act,
Ellery Adams (32:24)
I'm gonna have to watch that because she is amazing. The book is amazing.
Book Gang- Amy (32:28)
For sure. But I know that, you know, books like that and Invasive Species as well has had a hard time finding its reader. And then when you have this established audience with these established expectations, this voice that's running it in the back of your head, and you have to push yourself as a writer out of that. What has that been like as a writer and the response you've received?
Ellery Adams (32:50)
Well, it's been terrifying to some extent. I really, you know, when it came out I personally I love this book and it's hard for me not to because it's so autobiographical, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but it is dedicated to our Icelandic housekeeper who took care of us when my parents were away and she was just such a huge part of our lives. And I kept thinking about like when it came out. Like she just passed away last year, so she didn't get a chance to know that I wrote it or that it was coming out. like I wish I had talked to her about it earlier, but I had so there was so much joy in me when I was writing this.
Like I loved the experience so much. And it just felt like, I can do this, like I can go in this other direction. I can be more than this one person, you know, like, or have these other sides to me. And it's been wonderful finding new readers who love the book and hope that I write more in this. That's been wonderful. The other side of that coin, and I did expect this, is that some of my current readers really hate this. And, you know, they want me to stay in my lane. And they're all all women, you know, and I hate the - I don't I don't I don't hate that they hated the book. That's totally their prerogative and I expected that from some people.
But I hated that they're not supporting me as a woman supporting another woman trying a different endeavor. Because as a reader, I see this from other authors and I'm like, she's gonna try to write a thriller now or she's gonna write a thriller now. It's out. Like I'm gonna read it. I'm excited to see this other side of her. And I think if I liked the writing in this historical fiction, I will probably like the writing in the thriller. But I am much more open to all kinds of content. Like there is no trigger warning that is gonna make me not read a book. There just isn't one. I will read everything.
Book Gang- Amy (34:51)
Same.
Ellery Adams (34:54)
Because I feel like even things that bother me, I'm gonna learn from that experience. Like, why is this bothering me? And for me, like the thing that bothers me most is always animal cruelty. And I have to just sit with it while I'm reading within a book. And then I do ask myself, like, why was this particular scene here? Like, what did this do? Was this just an emotional manipulation, or was there a need for this? And I'll usually find the answer, but the stopping and pausing is like that's what I owe the author, right? It's a moment of reflection about like, why am I feeling this? And is this, you know, should this be here? And there have been times where I have commented on Goodreads, like I saw absolutely no reason to add that scene and it felt like manipulation. Whereas I think they could have done something else to evoke that same emotion. And that's just a me thing, right? But that doesn't mean I would not still support that author on her next thriller, right? If I loved the rest of it.
So that was kind of disappointing because I could see people on Goodreads who had given me great reviews for the mysteries and then really slammed this one because it wasn't their taste and they don't want me revealing this other side of myself. And that's been hard.
Book Gang- Amy (36:21)
I'm sorry. I am a little baffled why because I feel like to me this had almost I would call this cozy horror. You know, if there is such a genre, I which I believe there is.
Ellery Adams (36:34)
Right, which apparently there is, and I did not know until my publisher had it on one of the graphics. I was like, What is cozy horror?
Book Gang- Amy (36:39)
Because it is hitting kind of the the mystery beats, like we're trying to understand Mrs. Smith and like it's hitting all of those kinds of beats and you definitely have like a supernatural element to it. I just think that, I consider this to be cozy in the aspects of the work that you do, it makes sense to be in this wheelhouse. I'm excited that I discovered it this way. But I had asked you, I'm like, are you in Christian fiction mystery? Because the things that are the elements that are bothering people, right? some of the language or a sex scene or something like a sexy scene, those are the things that bother them. And I'm wondering are mystery readers more in that vein that they're expecting like a Christian fiction selection from you.
Ellery Adams (37:25)
Well I don't think it's a Christian fiction thing necessarily. I think that they want me some of them want me to write what they would call a clean novel. So no cursing, no graphic violence, no graphic sex. And, you know, even though it's a cozy horror, there are still strong horror elements, and horror elements very rarely go with totally clean. We're looking at the darkest side of people. You know, and it is something I struggled with 'cause I had to just like let myself be free to do it.
And I really enjoyed some of the more graphic scenes with Mrs. Smith. I really enjoyed writing those because I have held all of that back in my mystery novels. I don't get really graphic with the details of each body. At the same time, those people who have read The Secret Book and Scone Societies and love that series and love my writing there know that I treat violence very seriously and I treat murder seriously. I'm never flippant about it. And one of the things that is very important to me to show in the mysteries is that murder impacts more than just the inner circle of the victim. It is much bigger than that, and it's corruptive and corrosive, and it's something that will change people, and they'll never be able to go back to the people that they were before. So I've always done that.
And to some mystery readers, my series is too dark for them because I do explore the emotional toll of a murder because I just can't be flippant about violence. And in that way, you know, I always tell people like, well, that series is really not a cozy mystery series because I don't treat murder lightly. Not that all cozy mystery writers do, but I consider that just a traditional mystery series. And it is grittier, I think, than some cozies because of the way I treat the emotional impact of violence.
Book Gang- Amy (39:31)
Hmm. Well, I'm here for it. Like I I love this book so much. I am a horror reader. My readers know that. I love movies and I, you know, love to take myself to the movies every week and I love to see a horror film.
Ellery Adams (39:44)
Me too.
Book Gang- Amy (39:45)
And this book just really ticked my boxes. I wanna start out with these women that you have set up in this neighborhood for us. There's a lot of ambition going on. There are people wanting to sell houses. We've got a real estate agent. There's social standing, what they look like, their careers that they are going after. And, you know, all of these things are happening before this monster appears or reveals itself to them. Is that competition already the kind of horror that you wanted to explore?
Ellery Adams (40:19)
Yeah, I mean I definitely wanted to have I think that horror works really well in isolated places, small isolated places. And I grew up on a basically was like a village on Long Island and we were really surrounded by water. I mean we had the harbor, the ocean, we had marshes, we had rivers, there were not a lot of stores around us. Everybody on the street knew everybody else on the street. And this was 1982, and women are entering the workforce in droves, but not necessarily happily for many different reasons. And they're really starting to judge each other during this time period. And this was kind of deliberately set up by corporate America.
Who is, you know, putting out these advertisements saying that, you know, you have to be all of these things, women, and you have to be good at all of them. You have to be a mother and a career woman, and you still have to make all of your food homemade, and you have to run and keep yourself looking good, and you have to satisfy your husband, and you have to be this wonderful socialite and hostess. I mean, what the hell? We can't do all this stuff, right?
Book Gang- Amy (41:31)
Right.
Ellery Adams (41:33)
And they also set it up so that if you got a job on Wall Street, right? And you were in a finance department with another woman, if there was a promotion, you had to beat out the other woman, not the men. The men would get the promotion. They'd have to beat out the other men. You only have to beat out this woman because you're never gonna get that men's promotion anyway. And only one of the women could rise.
So this set us up to start going again, competing against each other. And that was not happening in the 70s. In the 70s, we had this sisterhood, these feminists who were trying to make it so that we could get into Wall Street. And they did it. They did their job. And then in the 80s, we kind of screwed it up by turning on each other being like, you're a bad mom because you have a latchkey kid. Well, you're a bad mom because you're not modeling independence by getting a job. Well, you're not a mom, so you don't even have any value, or you're too old to have children. So your only value should be in watching someone else's children. Right?
And we're doing all of this because we're so stressed about perfection that we cannot attain and success that we cannot attain and the sexual harassment at workplaces, like the things are making us kind of unravel. And that's what's happening on this little suburban street. And it was happening on suburban streets and streets all over the United States in the 80's. Like relationships were falling apart. I mean, I tell people when I do book events, and this always makes them gasp, that on my street there was a hundred percent divorce rate.
Book Gang- Amy (43:19)
What? Are you serious? Wow.
Ellery Adams (43:22)
Mm-hmm. Including my parents. Nobody made it through this period unscathed. It was no joke.
Book Gang- Amy (43:27)
Yeah. I mean it was such a great like flashback for me, you know. I'm Gen X and you know, it tapped into a lot of feelings. I think you had described it in past interviews as like Stranger Things meets Desperate Housewives and it's like being tapped into that suburban drama, but also we have this creeping dread with Mrs. Smith and I had so much fun like going virtually through her yard and how you have this property all set up. I know that Mrs. Smith is a monster. But she's also, you know, a victim in a lot of ways as well.
Ellery Adams (44:01)
Yes.
Book Gang- Amy (44:02)
So tell me a little bit about how you wanted readers to feel about this character.
Ellery Adams (44:07)
And that is she was definitely a victim in real life because she did not come out of her house and you know, she didn't decorate for holidays or do trick-or-treating on Halloween and we didn't really see her and an unknown woman in a suburban neighborhood full of families, and when I talk to readers about this, they're like, we had a woman like that too. We all call her the same thing. We all call her a witch or we say she's crazy or, you know, she's a serial killer, or we we make up that and they're all negative. Nobody ever says like, well, she's in there like probably running her own business from home or you know, we never considered that she might have a mental illness and maybe had terrible crippling social anxiety or agoraphobia. We we never gave her any grace.
It was this automatic assumption that she was sinister and in some ways like emotionally or physically deformed. You know, I mean, this is when you don't know somebody in the 80s, you mix up stories about them. And because we liked the idea of having our resident witch on the street. I I think this is something that doesn't exist anymore because when I talk to audiences about it, so many people who are Gen Xers Or Boomers were like, yes, we had a house like that in our neighborhood. We had a woman like that. We all talked about her. They all remember her name. There's so many places that have had this, Mrs. Smith. And I think one of the sad things is not anymore. You know.
But I wanted her to be talked about in this negative, sinister way and then actually kind of have it be true so that she could kind of punish humans for just being the selfish, destructive species that we are.
Book Gang- Amy (46:03)
Yeah. It's so fascinating to me, you know. I feel like we don't really know our neighbors. And I think that's something that book clubs could talk about is that, you know, in order to be tapped into Mrs. Smith, you would also have to be aware of like her name and who she is. And like we live in neighborhoods now where we often don't know the stories of the people that are around us. And, you know, we even had a situation where our yard, I will admit, is not the greatest, right? So I get Mrs. Smith's yard being a little bit unkept is like really setting things off.
But our neighbor across the street really keeps a meticulous yard. And it just happened that one day, you know, we were outside and she was kind of coaching us on what we should be doing in the yard, you know, where you're like, okay, we're getting a little free coaching. And I said, you know, I've been really sick. I've been in and out of the hospital and you know, I'm dealing with a lot of health things. And I think it almost was like, like there suddenly a light bulb goes on, right? These people aren't just not keeping up with the mowing
Ellery Adams (47:11)
Right, there's something else going on.
Book Gang- Amy (47:13)
Or you know they're not doing their part and maybe from the outside it does seem like that right that we don't care about that or that that's not important to us it's just that in the grand scheme of things this isn't important to us right now and if it's really bothering you feel free to do anything you want to our yard to make it what you want right
Ellery Adams (47:25)
Right, right. Come on over.
Book Gang- Amy (47:28)
But I do think that you know the sense of that cozy suburbia of knowing who is there and and also fixating on that I just I hope, I hope that, you know, we have more grace for each other. And I do think post-pandemic, I feel like there's just been a nice slide regarding a lot of things that we used to expect from our neighbors.
Ellery Adams (47:46)
Yeah, I definitely would agree.
Book Gang- Amy (47:49)
Well, I wanna talk a little bit about how you wanted the youngest and the oldest characters to become the heroes in this story. Why are those the perfect people to do that?
Ellery Adams (48:00)
Well, I definitely borrowed from Stephen King, you know, who is definitely the master. I love him. for the youngest because I've always read him and I've noticed he's one of the best actually coming of age authors out there. And people are always surprised when I say that and they're like, Well, he's not literary fiction and I'm like, Well whatever he is, he can write such a believable kid. And you can really see the kid change and grow in all of his stories out of necessity, you know, out of a hard scrabble situation. And I do it's one of my favorite things about his writing.
And I forget at one point he had done an interview and people were like, Why do you use kids? Like, why don't you have adults? It's kind of, you know, are you writing these books for kids? Which he's not necessarily writing them for kids at all, but he says kids see things we don't see anymore as adults. And that is so true. They are gonna see the clown in the drain, because they believe in very black and white things. They believe in somebody being very good and they believe in somebody being evil. They believe that monsters exist. And we grow out of that after a while and think, you know, people are monsters enough. We don't need something under the bed.
But in this situation, even though Jill is not very young, she's 12, she's definitely not an adult yet. And she's a storyteller. She's a writer and a reader and a storyteller. So she is going to be more open to the idea of a monster next door. And then I wanted the oldest character to also believe because that's like an archetype of old fairy tales. In old fairy tales the wise old woman had so much value. Unlike today's society, once you were silver-haired in kind of the Victorian and Edwardian fairy tales, you gained this importance for your wisdom. And people would listen to you.
I wanted to have this older character be kind of a lower economic class than the other women in the book to kind of be less valued because she wasn't of their economic class and she was it didn't have their interests, she didn't care about clothes, she she loved her garden and her family and she she knows what's important. So she has a wisdom they haven't gained yet, but would also be dismissed in modern society as having not a lot of value. So I want to go back to that time period in story where the silver haired woman was very, very valuable and she was really proving that old archetype.
Book Gang- Amy (50:48)
Well, this leans right into, you know, if you could create the perfect book club evening, what would you like to see book clubs discussing from this novel?
Ellery Adams (50:59)
Well, I would definitely want them to talk about the name of the book, which is Invasive Species and who is the real Invasive Species? Are there multiple ones? Again, is Mrs. Smith a true monster? Is she just following her biology? Is she evil? What's her motivations? What makes the women monstrous? What makes them unfairly monstrous?
Because again, when we go back to mythology and we look at any woman who is ambitious and is going after her own desires and feeding her own hungers and goes outside of societal norms for her own independence and ambition, she's a monster. You know, she deserves to be on her own island. She's a threat. And in some ways, all of these women, whether their goals are shallow or not, are pursuing something that through story we have learned women are not supposed to pursue. So I would want that whole discussion of like, well, what does desire mean for women? What does ambitious ambition mean for women? And what is extreme emotion mean for women?
Book Gang- Amy (52:16)
Mm, this is so good. Well, I was going through your books and your website and one of the things that you have is called a book prescription, I believe. Is that what it's you call it a book prescription?
Ellery Adams (52:29)
Mm.
Book Gang- Amy (52:29)
And there's these PDFs where we will link to it in our show notes where you have these book lists that people can get into these books that were recommended by a character named Nora Pennington. And it made me think I did see a book prescription obviously for this book, but if Nora was maybe making recommendations of books for this town, what books do you think she would be recommending to her?
Ellery Adams (52:59)
Well, I've heard people say that Invasive Species is like a great gateway book to horror. And
Book Gang- Amy (53:05)
Yes.
Ellery Adams (53:06)
I would love so much the idea of recruiting people into the horror genre slowly, like let them dip their toe in with this book. And then if they said, Well, I loved this book, what else should I read? I mean, I think I would start off by saying there are a couple of Greek feminist retellings that I would point you to. My absolute favorite of all of these is Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes. It is a Medusa story. There have been multiple Medusa stories, but not like this one. To me, this is the top-notch. It cannot be outdone. It is so perfect and so emotional. And it's weird to think that this woman with snake hair becomes a sister to you as you're reading, and you just want, you just want so desperately for her to have a different ending than she's going to have.
And then from there, there's a wonderful demon possession novel called Diavola by Jennifer Thorne.
Book Gang- Amy (54:07)
Yes, we picked it for book club last year. So good.
Ellery Adams (54:10)
I loved that book so much. It's not overly gory or overly scary. It is a character-driven book. I'm all about, and Nora therefore is all about character-driven novels. I've never really been a plot-driven person. I like those are great. They have their place. I'm all for the characters. If I can't connect to the character, the book doesn't work for me.
I also love classics. I do, I'm part of a book club called Quiet Classics, where we kind of try to find obscure classic novels that we have missed in our reading education. Just speaking of classics, I would tell people to read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. And I would say just for a little taste, read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. It is just one of the best atmospheric short pieces I've ever read. And then if you were brave enough after all of those things.
Kirsten Miller's The Women of Wild Hill, if you liked The Change, this is more of a witchy novel. They do punish a bunch of billionaires in this book, which is so satisfying.
Book Gang- Amy (55:18)
Ooh. Okay, sold.
Ellery Adams (55:20)
It is so satisfying, ladies. Like, let me tell you, any anger you've ever had feel snuffed out by this book. It is fantastic. And then just for like absolutely weird, almost historical gothic, I would say Victorian Psycho.
Book Gang- Amy (55:39)
Yes.
Ellery Adams (55:40)
By Virginia Leto. I think I'm saying that right, is the author of that. And that that's just fun because it's if you love Jane Eyre or you love books about governesses, like, you know, maybe the governess is tired of being the governess and she wants something more for herself.
Book Gang- Amy (55:55)
She's a little diabolical.
Ellery Adams (55:58)
Yeah, and and turns diabolical and but you have to be a little braver for that one because again she will go after some children and as a mother I seem to not have a problem with that.
Book Gang- Amy (56:08)
Love it. I love this. I love this so much, Ellery. We have to have you back just to talk about books because you are so well read.
Ellery Adams (56:14)
A hundred percent.
Book Gang- Amy (56:15)
It is such a treat to talk to someone who is so well read and also knows what will tick our boxes. And, you know, I know that you have to be a really diligent reader if you have to create these book prescriptions. I people are gonna have so much fun with your work and I'm gonna have so much fun because this is a delight for me to be discovering it for the first time now. I do wanna ask, you know, I loved Invasive Species so very much that I want to go back to Cold Harbor. If this is successful, could there ever be a book two?
Ellery Adams (56:47)
if it is successful, and I have to say at this point the sales have been very soft, so I don't know I
Book Gang- Amy (56:53)
No. We've got to fix this.
Ellery Adams (56:54)
I don't know if HarperCollins is going to ask me to write anymore. I was hoping in my again, we tend to have these fantasies when we start on a new endeavor, we writers had this fantasy that it was gonna do really well, and then I would write a prequel set in Iceland, and then I would write a book three with Jill's children.
Book Gang- Amy (57:16)
I want this.
Ellery Adams (57:17)
Yes, I would love to do that, but at this point I think that's pretty unlikely. So maybe when it comes out in paperback it'll do better. I do understand 100% that thirty dollars for someone who's trying a new genre is steep. You know, I totally got that. Though it is on sale for twenty dollars now. But you know, get it from your library, audiobooks on NetGalley, you know, just see if you like it.
Book Gang- Amy (57:45)
The audiobook is spectacular, listeners. It is so good. Your narrator was amazing. It felt like a movie. Have you listened?
Ellery Adams (57:52)
Everybody has said that. That's wonderful. I listened to part of it and I usually don't listen to my audiobooks because I try not to get someone else's voice overwriting mine, but I was so curious about this one that I had to listen to it and I was like, she's nailing this.
Book Gang- Amy (58:08)
She really nailed it. So yeah, that is how, you know, she captured me. I could not stop listening. I remember just standing in my kitchen. I'm like, this is so good.
Ellery Adams (58:18)
That's awesome.
Book Gang- Amy (58:19)
Like I was telling my husband, he's not a big reader, but there are certain books that I'm like, you will love this. And it tends to be horror, even though he doesn't like scary things. He will go on that adventure. Oh my gosh. I have to convince him. Yeah.
Ellery Adams (58:28)
Oh my gosh, we have the same husband. My husband is not a big reader. He's all sports radio.
Book Gang- Amy (58:35)
Yeah.
Ellery Adams (58:36)
But he will occasionally do an audiobook, and he can't stand horror. Like when we lose, when we lose a marital bet, I make him pay by watching a horror movie. Even better.
Book Gang- Amy (58:47)
Wait, Ellery, are you going to movies by yourself too? Do you go by yourself? Same.
Ellery Adams (58:50)
Yeah, I don't. I have no problem with that. But when he loses a bet, I take him with me and he screams like a little girl and it makes all the people in the theater laugh, which I think is hilarious. He thinks that's mortifying, but I'm like, it's so fun to take you because you amp up everybody's emotion. Yeah, he does not like horror.
Book Gang- Amy (59:06)
Yeah. Is there anything better than people reacting to horror films? Like there is nothing better than that. I get so excited. and honestly, the last one was Obsession. I don't know if you've seen it yet..
Ellery Adams (59:18)
Yes, we went.
Book Gang- Amy (59:19)
Okay. The reactions and then people talking in the bathroom after and being so wanting to continue that experience. And like I haven't had that feeling.
Ellery Adams (59:27)
Yeah, did your movie theater have the post-it notes? Our mirror in our lady's bathroom had post-it notes, the same ones from the movie.
Book Gang- Amy (59:38)
Are you serious?
Ellery Adams (59:39)
Yeah and then I told my husband to use the bathroom before we left, and he was like, Why? I don't trust you. I'm like, just go in there. And he went and he came out and he was like, The post-it notes were on the mirror. How cool is that? It was like, I love you, I love you, I love you, Nikki.
Book Gang- Amy (59:51)
That is very cool. I was thinking like I haven't had oh my gosh. Well I haven't had a reactive audience like that in ages. And I remember the last one being Get Out and I was like, I get so excited going and there being people reacting and like, you know, screaming. So your husband would be a delight. Sit him next to me anytime. I would love that. I think that's amazing.
Ellery Adams (1:00:12)
Well, you probably feel like I do that I was so ecstatic when Weapons got an Oscar.
Book Gang- Amy (1:00:20)
Yes.
Ellery Adams (1:00:21)
Because I was like, finally, there is an audience that recognizes that there's a story. It doesn't, you know, everyone thinks that a horror movie is a slasher movie.
Book Gang- Amy (1:00:32)
Right. It's true.
Ellery Adams (1:00:33)
I find slasher movies kind of boring actually because you know how they're gonna go.
Book Gang- Amy (1:00:35)
Me too. I actually don't enjoy that at all.
Ellery Adams (1:00:38)
It is the creepy psychological sneak up on you supernatural horror. I mean, they can be so brilliant and Weapons was brilliant.
Book Gang- Amy (1:00:48)
Yes, and these new films like that are coming out that are getting Gen Z out to the movie theater. Gen Z, who doesn't really care about movies, they don't want our old franchises. They want new, interesting stuff that engages with the world that they live in. Also like it has nods to the YouTube that they grew up on. I love it. I'm here for all of it. I'm excited.
Ellery Adams (1:01:09)
I'm here for it too. And they should stop shoving our franchises down their throats because they've had their day. It is time to invent something new. Let's go. Yeah.
Book Gang- Amy (1:01:18)
It's so true. It's so true.
Well, I'm convincing everyone to read this book for sure. It's gonna change. I'm gonna change the trajectory of whatever's happening with soft book sales.
Ellery Adams (1:01:23)
Thank you. You'll single handedly make sure there's gonna be a prequel.
Book Gang- Amy (1:01:29)
This is a word of mouth book. I think that it just needs to find its perfect reader and I'm gonna help you get that audience no matter what.
Ellery Adams (1:01:37)
Thank you. I appreciate that. Sisterhood.
Book Gang- Amy (1:01:39)
I do wantt to ask you like our final question that we always ask on the main show? And for those of you that finish the book, you can join me and Ellery behind the paywall. It's $5 and that keeps us independent and commercial free
Ellery Adams (1:01:53)
So worth it.
Book Gang- Amy (1:01:54)
And give space to writers like Ellery to tell their stories. I am so grateful. But I would love to just ask you what you're feeling proud of, whether it's with this project or with life in general. And it gets a chance for me to just say, I'm so grateful for this connection. I think I found a new forever friend.
Ellery Adams (1:02:08)
Me too.
Book Gang- Amy (1:02:09)
I can't wait to read all of your books. Like this is such a delight. I can't believe how much we have in common. But more importantly, I just love this story and I want our readers to engage with it. But I'd love to hear what you're feeling proud of right now.
Ellery Adams (1:02:24)
I think I'm just feeling proud to be part of of an ever growing book world. I feel like there's we constantly read books are dying, readings dying, and I constantly see the opposite of that everywhere I go. I'm especially proud to be a female reader because I feel like female readers are just killing it right now. I love the passion of Gen Z readers and how they are changing the marketing and the types of books that are being put out there. I might not love them at all, but that's kind of irrelevant. I just love the power that they have as consumers.
And I love the fact that, you know, I can be this old middle-aged fart and people still think that I have something to say. So I really appreciate that because I love what I do and I don't ever want to stop. So it's you know, it's very nice to be able to do this and to have people interested in what I write. And I just I'm a really lucky girl.
Book Gang- Amy (1:03:26)
Well, Ellery, it's been an absolute delight. Listeners, I will meet you guys on the other side.
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