The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
Kendra Elliot: Her First Mistake
In this episode, I chat with author Kendra Elliot about her new novel, Her First Mistake.
Kendra Elliot has sold thirteen million books, hit the Wall Street Journal top ten bestseller list more than a dozen times, and is a three-time winner of the Daphne du Maurier award.
She is an International Thriller Writers' finalist and a Romantic Times finalist. She grew up in the lush and rainy Pacific Northwest.
Synopsis of Her First Mistake:
Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten.
Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone.
As past and present and leads and misleads collide, one thing is frighteningly clear. Derrick’s murder wasn’t just unsolved. It’s unfinished. And only the truth—no matter the risk—can save the next victim.
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers from around the globe and publishing professionals. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to Episode 304.
Speaker 1:Kendra Elliott is the Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author of the Mercy Kilpatrick novels, the Columbia River novels, the Bone Secrets series and the Callahan and McLean series. She is a three-time winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award, an International Thriller Writers Award finalist and an RIT Award finalist. Kendra was born and raised in the rainy Pacific Northwest. Here's the synopsis from her latest book Her First Mistake.
Speaker 1:Thirteen years ago, assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn't forgotten. Today, the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood, a marriage that wasn't the perfect love story she'd been promised and a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too a secret about the night Derek died that she has never told anyone. As the past and present and leads and misleads collide, one thing is frighteningly clear Derek's murder wasn't just unsolved, it's unfinished. And only the truth, no matter the risk, can save the next victim.
Speaker 1:Hi, kendra, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. Thank you for having me First up. I loved your book. Her First Mistake. It was a page-turner. I enjoyed it. Let's begin with learning about your life and career before becoming an author and a mother, because there's a huge difference once you enter the realm of motherhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is. I was a dental hygienist for 16 years and I had my kids during that time. I have three daughters and I had my kids during that time. I have three daughters. I started writing, I think in like 2007 or so, and then I sold my first book in 2011. So it took a while. I didn't tell anybody at work what I was doing, so no, so it was kind of a surprise there. I quit my job a few months before the first book came out. I wasn't happy at work and I told my husband you know, if this book thing doesn't work out, give me six months and I'll go find another job and everything worked out.
Speaker 1:What early influences shaped your storytelling?
Speaker 2:I've always loved mysteries. So I think going back as far as like Trixie Belden, you know, when maybe I was 10 or even younger, nancy Drew, all things like that I would read those books over and over and over. I just love the mystery aspect of it.
Speaker 1:Gosh, the Trixie Belden books. Take me back. You know, I'm from Australia and I kind of grew up reading the Trixie Belden books, but not many of my American friends remember reading them. They've all read the Nancy Drew books, but not many have read the Trixie Belden series.
Speaker 2:I don't know why. I'm not sure how I came across it as a kid, but I know.
Speaker 1:Now the Pacific Northwest features prominently in your work. How does that landscape influence your writing?
Speaker 2:I've lived here all my life, so I know how things have changed over the last several decades. I understand it, I understand the people, I understand the landscape, I understand the politics. And people will ask me well, you know, I lived in Florida for a little bit, why don't you write about Florida? But I always, I never, knew in my bones how it feels to be there, how it feels to live there, how to grow up there. So they say write what you know. And Pacific Northwest is where I'm most comfortable. There's a lot of variety here, a lot of weather variety especially, which I like to implement into a lot of my books.
Speaker 1:I read in a magazine article that you dreamed of a place where you could wear flip flops everywhere.
Speaker 2:I had it, I did. I lived in Florida from 2021 to. I just sold it last fall, so I do live in flip flops every day. I lived on the beach, I absolutely loved it, but I found that I kept coming back here, and me and my guy, we actually live most of the time in Utah, so we're in southern Utah, where it's very warm, very dry, but I still have a home here in Oregon too, which is where I am right now, I'm quite familiar with that area of Utah because we used to drive from California up to Jackson Wyoming for many years and it's just a spectacular area.
Speaker 2:It is the one time I have been in Jackson. I believe we got hail or snow in the middle of July.
Speaker 1:That sounds about right. Yes, okay, kendra, do you have a regular writing routine or is your process more deadline driven? Deadline driven Boy, no hesitation with that answer.
Speaker 2:I just turned in a book boy about 10 days ago and I had nine months to write that book and I wrote it in the last two and a half, I think, and so I really that's probably the quickest I've ever written a book, but I kept putting it off, putting it off. I work really well under pressure. I don't like it, but I do turn out some of my best things, I think, when I'm under pressure. But when I do have a writing routine I try to write 2,000 words a day. I usually give myself three or four hours to write those words, or four hours to write those words. I try to write five days a week, often in a coffee shop where I don't have to get up and unload the dishwasher or check the laundry or get distracted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can relate. Those at-home distractions can just kill your creativity. I read that when you first started writing you had six-month book contracts. I did. Does that still happen for you frequently, or do you have more time to write?
Speaker 2:It's kind of varied, but there were several years where I would turn in a book every six months and I would also write a novella. Melinda Lee and I were doing a novella series. We've written 20 of those, and so we were kind of packing those in along with. We both wrote the same type of schedule every six months. A couple of years ago I think it must've been during the pandemic I actually took like two. There was two years, I think, between releases for me. It was just too hard for me to write. I had four adult daughters living under my roof and it was just too much, too many distractions going on. But now, um, I've had an eighth month deadline. My last one, I said, was nine months, but I see that my next coming ones are six and seven months. So they're tightening up a little bit again. And do you have much control over that? Yes, I do. I have to prove all my deadlines myself, I guess.
Speaker 1:Kendra, when you begin a new series, do you already have a sense of how many books it will include, and do you plan the final scene early on and build toward it?
Speaker 2:I don't know how many books each series will take. Right now I just signed a contract for the third and fourth book in this new series, so I know it will be at least four. I suspect six. For some reason, six is a good number for me. My Mercy Kilpatrick series was six books and I wrote those every six months. I was a little burned out by the end of six books, but it's a really good.
Speaker 2:The readers like it. If they find a character they like, they want you to keep writing that character, writing that character they like. They want you to keep writing that character, writing that character. And when a new reader picks up book five, they'll read it. And then they go back and they buy one, two, three and four. So I, yeah, I like, I like that a lot. And no, I don't know my final scene. I'm a pantser. I don't plot, I write by the seat of my pants. Essentially I don't know the last scene until two-thirds of the way through the book, sometimes even more. The only thing I know is the bad guy will get his due.
Speaker 1:That's good. That's about all I know Now. What has your experience been like working with developmental editors across multiple series? Have you stayed with one or worked with several to keep pace with your projects?
Speaker 2:I've been really lucky to have the same developmental editor on all my books, all my novellas. Charlotte Herscher is just amazing. It's a real gift, I think, to be a developmental editor and do it well. She has a light touch. She doesn't change my voice. She doesn't try to change the story either, she just enhances it.
Speaker 1:And did she come with a publishing company? She did. I'm guessing you keep her busy.
Speaker 2:They do and everyone at my publisher that has her just absolutely adores her Kind of funny. She used to be at Ballantyne and I had really admired some of her authors there and they had raved about her and I thought, oh, she just you know, does wonderful work. She just you know does wonderful work. And then when I got my first publishing contract it turns out she was no longer with them and she was going to be my editor and I was really fantastic.
Speaker 1:While we're talking about editors and publishing, I would love to hear your publishing story, from your first finished manuscript to finding an agent and landing a publishing deal.
Speaker 2:I wrote three books before I got an agent. I consider the first two practice manuscripts. They are nothing that will ever need to see the light of day and in fact I don't even know where they are. I don't think I could find a computer file now and in fact I don't even know where they are. I don't think I could find a computer file now. But yes, it took me, I think, three years to get an agent. Tons of rejections along the way. Someone asked me the other day about how many rejections I'd had, and at least 50 over those three books. And it took her a year to sell the book that Montlake finally purchased. That book sold close to a million copies, so I think it did okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, I guess so, and you've had quite a few translations of your books done too right.
Speaker 2:Croatian Norwegian. Some really random things.
Speaker 1:Another author I was speaking with the other day mentioned languages that their books were now getting translated into and I was fascinated because a lot of the countries were quite small and, as you know, translations are expensive. But I think that's a good thing. It shows that the interest is there.
Speaker 2:It's very interesting. They send me copies and a book will show up and I don't know what the language is. I can use my phone and Google Translate to figure out what language is this. Because it's so. It wasn't Croatia, it was Estonia.
Speaker 1:Well, I just hope that the American publishers are reciprocating this, because there seems to be a real niche market for translated books here in the US. I agree, your series often feature crossover characters, and Her First Mistake is no exception. Do these characters appear unexpectedly while you're writing or do you plan and outline them into the stories from the start?
Speaker 2:Just, while I am writing. I have no plan for them, they just show up. I don't know their backstories. Noelle, the heroine of this book. She popped up on the page and in a previous book. I think she's been in two or three previous books, but in one of them a character had asked her some personal questions and she had just totally brushed them off Because I didn't know the answers. But I had a hunch that someday I would want to explore what those are and that's what makes up most of this book.
Speaker 1:Who are some of the other familiar characters that pop up in this book? To this book.
Speaker 2:Who are some of the other familiar characters that pop up in this book? Mercy Kilpatrick is probably the most popular character that pops up in this book Earlier she has a six book series, but she's also the main character in three books in my Columbia River series. Two books in my Columbia River series Got to keep it straight. But I've used her as a secondary character in several other stories too. People can't seem to get enough of her and her love interest and what about your character, Alice? That was a new character for this book.
Speaker 1:I like her a lot.
Speaker 2:The structure of this book is a little bit different. I had asked my editor hey, what would you like to see? Because I was looking for some motivation and some ideas for this book. And she said I would love to see a book of flash forwards. And I said what? What does that mean? How is that different from flashbacks? And I had to sit down and think about it for quite a while, and so what I did was I started the story 13 years in the past, in a different point of view, but I would put in small flash forwards to today just because something big was going on. That started 13 years ago. But the first half of the book is pretty much set in the past, and when the stories actually come together, everything continues on in the present, and it was fun to write that way. I'd never done that quite before and it's great for you to have a change.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, very much so, and have you spent much time in Bend Oregon? It's definitely on my list, looks beautiful.
Speaker 2:It really is beautiful. My family vacationed there when I was a kid, so that's one of those things where I've seen it develop over the last 40 years or so and I know what's changed there.
Speaker 1:I know what's going on there and I can put that into my stories You've spoken a bit about Noelle, but I was wondering what inspired you to develop her character further and dedicate a two book series to her. Did she stand out to you early on For some?
Speaker 2:reason. When I first wrote her on the page, I thought okay, what's going to be unique about her? What's going to make the readers say, oh, I want to know more? And for some reason it popped in my head. Have you watched, ted?
Speaker 1:Lasso. Yes, I have twice in fact.
Speaker 2:She reminds me of Rebecca in Ted Lasso and visually I could see that. And I don't visually see my other characters, if that makes sense. I never say, oh, they resemble this movie star, this TV star, I don't use them as inspiration. I think this was the first time I had actually used an actual character to form my character. So she reminds me of her a lot.
Speaker 1:I was actually surprised and I'm not going to give anything away about the career path she chose. I found that fascinating and it worked really well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it tied well with Alice, I think, being such a big influence in her life. Yeah, in the previous books that Noelle has popped up in, she's already a detective, but you don't know how she got there. You just know that this woman has a lot of money. You know that just from some references in the previous books, so I had to come up with how she ended up in that position, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I bet it was Okay. Let's talk books. What are you currently reading, and has it influenced your own work or creative thinking in any way? Or do you find yourself just picking up a book and reading it for fun?
Speaker 2:I read for having fun, definitely. I said I wrote this past book in two and a half months, that I just turned in and my brain was just tired. When I'm like that, I will go to historical romance and I will just plow through Julia Quinn, stephanie Lawrence. I've been doing some Karen Marie Moaning stuff that I've read for the last boy 15 years. I'll just read them again, just because it's comforting to my brain.
Speaker 1:I have a few books that I reread constantly for that exact reason. They are comforting. But you know what? There's not a lot of people who are rereaders when I speak to authors and booksellers. I have a stack of books that I love to reread and I swear every time I read them I discover something new. Does that happen to you?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, definitely. And I think I reread because I was such a huge reader as a kid, but we did a lot of books so it was just normal for me to reread a book, reread a book. That's just how it was.
Speaker 1:You still have many of the books that you read as a child. I do not.
Speaker 2:I've moved a lot in the last couple years. I have pretty much donated all my physical books and everything on my Kindle now. Research books I have those, but fiction is almost all on my Kindle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I read on a Kindle for about two years, maybe three years, but I do like to read a physical book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a big change. I had probably 700 books at one point and then just kind of slowly started getting rid of them. A lot of them I re-bought. I bought again on my Kindle.
Speaker 1:Gosh about. I don't know how many years ago now, but I donated over a thousand books. It took me weeks to clear everything out and afterwards my husband said to me you would never even know that you just donated a thousand books. Because I have so many books? When I can, I purchase first editions or I pick them up in yard sales, and I love children's books. I have all my books from my childhood except for one which I don't know what happened to it, and then I have multiple editions of children's books that I love. It's hopeless. Are any of your daughters writers?
Speaker 2:No, and one of them reads my books. They are the girls are 27, 25 and 23. And the oldest one has always read the books. But the other two it's not their genre, so they don't have a lot of interest, which is fine. But no one has showed any interest in writing.
Speaker 1:Well, they have to find their own paths right. Yeah, Kendra, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your latest novel, Her First Mistake, and I highly recommend it. And thanks for being on the show. It's been great chatting with you. You're welcome. It was lovely meeting you.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with Kendra Elliott about her latest book, Her First Mistake. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever. Go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on Instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, Mandy Jackson-Beverly, Theme music provided by Brian Beverly, and my executive assistant and graphic designer is Adrian Ottahan. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.