Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capes and taste.com. I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode, we welcome author Christina Henry to the podcast to talk about their upcoming novel or actually novel that's out now. The house that horror built, a wonderful novel that we actually gave five stars to on our website, caseytights.com. But Henry is the author of novels such as near the Bone, Ghost Tree, Horseman, best selling Blackwing series, the Chronicles of Alice series, which has a new printing of Alice available at like, places like Walmart and Tardy and things like that, as well as the recently released last year, good girls don't die. Christina's new novel came out yesterday, April or May 14 at bookstores everywhere. You can check out bookshop.org to get your copy today or visit your local bookstore, the house that horror built. But yeah, Christina came on and talked about the book and so much more. Enjoy this episode. But before you do, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter threads, blue sky, all those things. Subscribe rate, review over on YouTube, on Apple, Spotify, YouTube as well. And check out our website, capesandtaste.com dot. But this is Christina Henry talking, the house that horror built and so much more right here on capes and tights. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome. How are you today?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Good. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's so, like I said, I always feel like it's this awkward thing because we obviously have given each other pleasantries and like that prior to pressing the record button, but you have to do it to start off on a good foot here. But, yeah. So we're here to talk books.
We mainly talk a mixture on this podcast about comics, novels, movies, anything that's in the, in the multimedia, you know, landscape. And so it's nice to have this discussion about a horror novel, which is something that I'm also a big fan of.
And your book, the house that horror built, that is out May 14 at bookstores everywhere. But just start out. I mean, were you a bookworm as a child that led into wanting to create your own stories? Like, how did this love for writing or reading novels start?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I was definitely a bookworm. I was one of those kids who went to the library and took out ten books, and I would be back two days later having read all of the books and checking out another ten books. And I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. So I would say that I pretty quickly outstripped my age group in the library. Like a lot of kids who read a lot. I was always three or four grade levels ahead of what I was supposed to be reading.
But especially, I remember when I was around ten, 1112, I started to drift into the adult section because there really weren't, this was, you know, back in times when dinosaurs roamed the earth. There really weren't a lot of yet YA novels at the time, that wasn't a thing. And I remember reading Stephen King's Christine, and I remember reading flowers in the attic like every other young girl of that time. I don't know why adults let us read that book, but yeah, I was always a reader. And around the time when I was twelve, I read the Lord of the Rings and I decided I wanted to be a writer. And then my dad gave me a notebook and I wrote my first quote unquote book by hand. And it was an awful lot like the Lord of the Rings, but, you know, only about 70 pages long and it had a female main character.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: That's a fun, it's funny how, like, similar to how I think about, like, how it's hard to be a writer as well as something or not writer, but a creator of some sorts and also be up on the current things in your area. So, like reading novels or like, the comic book industry, I've always, we had a conversation the other day about how many Spider man comic books have been out there that how is a cover artist for a comic book not draw something so eerily similar to someone else's version of that? Because there's just been so many of them out there that it's kind of funny that like. Yes, that you think that you all read the Lord of the Rings and all of a sudden I know where you write a book that's very similar to the Lord of the Rings. It might seep in there, but you change a few things and make it your own. But, yeah, it's pretty funny. But that's obviously years later. Now, you have a number of books on the market, you're an accomplished writer, and I'm guessing you're doing this full time. This is your job, right? I'm guessing, yeah.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I homeschooled my son for a long time so that I was kind of half doing that and half writing. When he was little, I used to take him to the park and like, stick him in the sandbox so that I could write for a couple of hours because he was past the age of napping, but he wasn't, you know, at a school age yet. So, you know, I've always kind of been juggling that. But he's going to college next year. Thank God.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Don't say stuff like that. Thank God. Because, like, I have. I have a six week old and I have a three year old, and I'm just thinking, like, my wife and I were both like, okay, we're having one. This is it. We're going to do the three, the one kid. And then my son was so amazing and so easy, quote, unquote. I mean, nothing's ever easy raising kids. But they were like, oh, we could probably do another one. And now we're thinking to ourselves, like, what am I thinking? What did I do this for?
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I had three siblings when I grew up and just be. And I was the oldest, so I was like, the third parent. But I will tell you that, you know, I think from the point of view of a parent, like, a second child doesn't double your work. It, like, quadruples it. So, you know, you think it's going to be like an easy add on, but it's not really. So. Yeah.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: And then timing always works, though. Funny. Cause, like, my son won't sleep now. And I'm like, no, my daughter, who's six weeks old, is the one that's not supposed to be sleeping, not you. And so now we're up all night, not because of her, because of him. It's just the whole thing. But, yes, I have 18 or 18 more years of this, too, until I'm, you know, they're out of the house and I can actually get back to having fun again.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: I like doing it.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: No, I, you know, I do, too. It's just, you know, at some point, you're like, okay, I'm ready for you to fly.
Do your own thing.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Be your own person. Yes, exactly.
But, yeah, so, like, so you obviously found time to write these novels and do all these things, and then you come up with this book, the house of Horror built, this comes out, etcetera, May 14. Is this something that you've had, like, in the hopper for a while that you've been working on, or is this something that, just, like, you finished everything else you've been doing? And this is the next novel to work on.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: So I usually have kind of, like, ideas, just very vague notions, kind of cooking in the background. I'm a really. I'm the world's laziest writer. I don't plot. I don't do anything. I just kind of go with what I'm feeling. And then just, like, I write chronologically, I write by hand, and I just kind of follow the story where it takes me. And I kind of had an idea, very vague idea, of the house that horror built while I was writing.
I don't even want to say my previous novel, good girls don't die. I think it was even the book before that. It was kind of just simmering, you know, just had a very vague idea of, like, this woman who goes to work in a house for a horror director who has all of these props in his house. And of course, he's like a weird recluse. And I think I originally actually, my original thought of the novel, it had a different tone, but that's kind of what happens when I sit down to write. It always kind of becomes its own animal. So.
But I wrote the house that horror built in 2022. So this, that's, if that gives you an idea, too, of how long it takes for publishing to go through its process.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: It's funny because I talk to a lot of comic creators, and that's one of those things. We don't find out a lot in the comic book industry that a comic book is coming out until, like, six weeks before the comic book is on shelves because there's this weird promotional period. It's a lot different in books where, like, you're announcing books a year in advance. Like, you're not even, like, the book's not even finished yet, and you're like, okay, preorder this book. It's such a unique thing, but I think it grabs so much more. Like, it gives me, as a person who, like, covering these things, like, the ability to fit it into a schedule of when I'm going to read things too, because, like, I have a stack of advanced copies of books that I need to get through. And if they're all coming out May 14, I don't know when I'm going to read them all, but it's like they're throughout the entire year. Like, I just got one last night for that one that comes out in October. It's like, okay, this gives me the summer to read this book. And actually, you know, you know, ingest what happens in it. Maybe read it twice or something like that. Whereas in, like I said, in the comic book world, it's like, it comes, you get it, like, on Friday and the comic book comes out on Wednesday. You're like, how am I gonna spend this whole weekend just reading this book? Get a review up and so on. But, yeah, it's nice to have that but, yeah, you not only have that, but you've been working on it for a year before that. And so you've been promoting this book in your own mind for two years by rewriting it, getting it to the publisher, and then actually sending it out. And now you're only a couple weeks away from actually putting it on shelves. But the novel is. Well, how would you explain it to those people who are fans of your writing? How is it similar? And obviously, I read it, but for those who haven't, similar or different than something like good girls don't die or any of your other books that are on the market.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: I mean, I think it's different from good girls don't die. Good girls don't die had a really unique structure.
But I think if you read my work, you'll recognize my style. But I always do something a little bit different in every single book. And that's a little bit of it is by design, because I want to challenge myself, and I don't want to get into a rut. I don't want to write the same book over and over again. I know that there are readers and writers who love to do that, you know, but. And I sometimes I do like that as a reader. I can't tell you how many times I've read the same Agatha Christie books over and over again, but I think that for myself, I want to challenge myself. I want to try something a little bit different every single time. So every time I write, I try to change things up a little bit to keep things interesting for myself and also in hopes of becoming a better writer. I think that every author is trying to be better than the book they wrote before.
And with this book, a little bit of that was way I structured it, where it kind of flips between the past and the present so that the character's backstory unfolds in a slightly different way.
And I was really cherry picking events from their life to kind of communicate who they were in the present.
But I think the one thing that stays consistent is, for me, the characters always come first.
I am interested in plot, but only to the extent that characters affect their outcomes. Yeah, that's sort of my big concern as a writer.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: It's great, too, because I even feel like the house itself in this book, I was trying to explain it to someone else. I'm like, it's not a full haunted house story. It's. It's not not a haunted house story. You know, like, it's like, this weird. Like. Or, like, it has, like, this it's hard to explain exactly, and it's a good way, because just read it, and you'll know. You'll understand.
But I was. I was thinking about that, too. It's like that the house itself is almost its own character as well. But, like, I just read a book recently. I'm not going to call it out on here, but the book was so invested in the locations they were in. Like, it told, like, street names so many times, the routes, the towns, and all that stuff. And it was. It was. It was. The area was a place that I lived, so I understood the thing. But I'm thinking to myself, like, what if someone in Chicago or someone in California is reading this book, have no idea where these places are, but you're saying them like, it's, everybody should know them. And I was so focused on that, and as I was reading, I was so distracted. I'm like, who is even in this part of the book? I can't. I know they're on Route 110, but, like, I don't know who's walking down Route 110 right now. And that was a difficult thing. I am a big person. I just recently, I'm gonna talk about in the past five years, really got into reading novels. I've. I've been. Some short stories. I've read, you know, chapter books. I read, um, a lot of comic books. And so, to me, it's still getting into the groove of actually reading the various types of novels out there. And the limited number of people is always a positive thing to me. Cause I only have to keep track of, like, five people, and if they're not, like, pull on back and forth all the time, I am in a good spot. And that's what this book had to me. And it was like, there was very few people that I could keep track of, and I knew where they were, and then it was going on, and that made me happy, for sure.
But I was putting together a list for our website on the top, you know, the most anticipated novels of 2024. And I was researching and, you know, goodreads and all these other places to find, you know, what, the books that are coming out this year. And this book came up, and I was reading the, you know, the description, uh, the solicitation for it and so on. I was like, oh, this book sounds really good. I can't wait. And then I contacted your publisher and was like, oh, I really love to talk to Christina on the podcast, so on and so forth. And then I got really nervous and scared because I'm like, I hadn't read it yet. And I'm like, what if it's awful?
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Well, that's a possibility.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: I'm like, what if I read it? I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is really bad. And now I have to try to talk to someone. And then I read it, and I was like, oh, never mind. I really want to talk about it because it was phenomenal. It was like I mentioned, it has this mystery, suspense, horror, family relationships sense of unsettling moments that you're just like, when, you know, most of us read at our house. And so, like, if they're talking about a house that has more going on than the normal house, and you're like, it's dark. I have kids. We just mentioned it's dark out because they're all sleeping. I'm like, I don't know if I want to read this anymore. Can I read this outside in the sunlight? Because it has all that in it. And I think that's what's great about it. And I think that the title pulls you in. The COVID is amazing. I will say that, too. The COVID works really well. It makes even more sense after you read the book. But it's. It's all of it together. I mean, it, like, was phenomenal. So I'm really, you know, not to pat you on the back fully here, but, like, it's really well done. And I'm very happy that you came and decided, decided to talk to me about it.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Well, I'm really glad that you liked it. I will say, as a reader, as a writer, you're always a little nervous when stuff goes out because you just don't know how people will take the book. And the truth is that a match between a reader and a writer depends on a lot of things. It's not just the book. It's kind of like what the reader brings to the book. If you loved the writer's last book and you're like, this one's a disappointment now because I loved the last one so much, or the mood that you're in or the last thing that you read that was not this writer that, you know, blew you away or put you in a bad mood, and now you're, like, taking that negativity into the next book that you read. It could be you had a rough day. It could be you're just not in the mood. I think that kind of thing is underestimated where, like, the reader brings themselves to the process of reading. And it's not just the words on the page. Like, you, you're bringing your anticipation and a bunch of other factors to a book, and that can affect what you think of it. So. But as a writer, I unfortunately cannot control that.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: I only can control the book that I write, and I try to write the best book that I can. And, you know, my editor tries to edit the book in the best way that she can, and everybody tries to do their job as far as marketing it and getting the word out and all that stuff. But there's so many things you can't control as a writer. And I think that after having been in this business for 14 years, which is crazy to me, you just have to learn to let go.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Yes. Well, it's going to sound like some sort of humble brag or some sort of like, oh, my gosh, like a first world problem. But I get, I am lucky enough to get either Netgalley or digital or even physical advance copies of these. So there's also that slight pressure of someone gave this to reviews, you immediately are like, well, I don't want to, like, just crap on it either. So, like, you have to, like, also take yourself as someone in the media, someone to say, no, you have to step back. They gave you it for an honest opinion. So if you don't like it, tell the world you don't like it because there are people who aren't going to like it. So if you're just out there saying they're amazing all the time, then there's no integrity in the idea of why, why you should get a review from someone like ourselves or anybody out there. And I, and I think that it's a different, I don't know, it seems to Goodreads or these places that have rankings and things like that. It's nice that it's weird to see that the months leading up to your release and then the months after your release, you have this. The people who physically went out to the store and bought the book or the person who just got it sent to them in an email or in the mail for advanced copy. What the differences is on sometimes same thing with movies and those rotten tomatoes and things like that, where you, all the critics get to see it weeks in advance, and then you see all the people actually go see it on the opening weekend. The rankings start to go because of the people.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Like with movies, sometimes you'll see a really big difference between the way critics conceive it and the cinema score, which is the people who've actually just walked out of the film.
The thing is, the only thing. I try not to go and look at reviews. If somebody sends me a review, I hope it's positive.
People who tag me in negative reviews are mean.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: I don't get that. I've always said that. I don't understand that. The only thing I can think of is that you're trying to pull you down. Not that everybody's trying to do that, but why would you send the negative?
I don't see that.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: I think part of it is people have an idea that their opinion of the thing is a critique, and I think they're not really clear that, like, like I said, like, when a reader reads a book or you watch a movie, like, you're bringing yourself to that experience so your opinion of that reflects yourself. It's not like an unbiased judgment of the writing or the film or whatever. And I think people, some people may think they're being helpful, but it's like, this is not formal criticism. The editing process happened a year and a half ago. I can't change the book now.
So it's just not really a nice thing to do. But the thing I don't like about rotten Tomatoes or Goodreads or Amazon, whatever, like, with these kind of, like, number rankings, is, I feel like it really, it gamifies, like, people's opinions in a way that I think is not good. Like, I don't know. You can have an opinion about a piece of art, but, like, even the way people give stars can vary. Like, for some person, a three star is a great review. For someone else, a three star is a terrible review. And so, like, that mismatch, even between readers, I think, causes miscommunication. But again, as the writer, no control.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Well, we have that. My day job, I'm a graphic designer, creative director for a brewery, and I designed beer labels.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: That's cool.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: I have a dream. I have a dream job. I get to do this on the side and do that like this. It's great. But though, we have this app called Untapped, and it's a beer ranking app. And so people go in there and rate their reviews and so on and so forth. The one downside, I would say, if I have a complaint about Goodreads, is there's no half stars. I do think that would be the next thing, because I do think there is a difference between, like, a three and a half and a four or a four and a half and a five. Like, there is that thing, but it's like a lot of people, you see them write in their reviews, like, it's two and a half stars. I gave three stars, or whatever it may be. But in the beer, one, it's always like, one star. I really like this beer. Well, why did you, why did you read it? One star, then? I'm so confused right now. Was it an accident? Like, what's going on here? And so there is that, like, if you actually read someone's review versus what they wrote as a thing, you can kind of get an idea whether or not three stars is a good review for someone or not. And the only thing I can think of is, like, for you as or someone as a creator, is to read them and be like, okay, your last three books were written in the same style. And then all your reviews, all the negative reviews are about how people don't like that style. You might go, okay, for the next book, I might switch it up. That's the only thing, I think that it would be beneficial to you to know in the long run, not only thing, but one of the things that could be beneficial to you.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: I mean, maybe, but on the flip side of that, you know, you're not going to please everybody. And, you know, I, I can't really write to an unknown, like a vast unknown group of people out there who may or may not like, you know, what I've, what I'm doing. So the person I honestly have to please first is myself.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Then my agent, who has the book, and then my editor, who approves it for publication. You know, and that's really where it has to stop, because you just can't. I mean, look, I am basically off Twitter. I pop in very occasionally just to post, like, book news. And I went on this morning and somebody told Stephen King, Stephen King, your book, you used to be a good writer. And he responded to his credit and he said, those were the days. Huh. But, but, you know, the point is, is like, you're not going to please everybody all the time. You know, somebody who sold as many books as Stephen King, and this person's on Twitter who's probably created nothing.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Is telling this man, but he used to be a good writer.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: That's where we live in, where people have the ability just to say whatever they want. There's no, like, if I were to say, I, one day I was going to meet you and I have something to tell you, but, like, six years from now, I actually met you in that timeframe, I probably either forgot what I was going to tell you or my opinion of it would have changed. This is like, I have an opinion. I read your book. It's awful.
You write a review and it's out there in the public, and then if someone responds, like someone like Stephen King, then it's always out there because then people screenshotting it and all these things. But someone who's also written as many books of Stephen King, Stephen King knows that they're not all good. He thinks they're good, but he probably doesn't think they're not all the best thing he's ever written. There has to be something in there that's like, if someone's like, oh, it wasn't that great. Like, yeah, well, I didn't like it that much either.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Well, I think sometimes, like, in the moment, you're satisfied with it, and then when you look back on it, you're like, maybe I could have done x, y or z.
But the flip side of that is that as a writer, you're just writing in whatever moment you're at personally. Right? Like, whatever, you know? And I do think writers, especially as you have a longer career, and I'm definitely seeing this myself. Like, this is my 18th book.
I can sort of see myself changing and growing. And it's like sometimes, unfortunately, readers are literally seeing your growing pains, you know? Right. Like, you're shifting to the next thing. The next book is going to be great, but maybe this one wasn't quite as great as it could have been, you know? But you're just, you're, you, you're learning and you're doing the best you can in that moment.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Yes. And you evolve as a writer. You evolve. You learn things and things. I mean, we've seen it in the music industry, too. Like, I follow musicians who all of a sudden, their fifth album is completely different than their 4th, 3rd, 2nd or whatever. And you're like, what happened to them? Where did they go? They grew up. They evolved. They had families. They had death and life and all this other stuff that happened and then all. You cannot help yourself but put that on the page. And that's one of the things that, my biggest argument, I had an argument with someone at the local comic book shop this week about AI. And that's one of my biggest, like, things about AI is that there's, AI doesn't have any feelings. So, like, that's one thing we'll never get. If things start to get written by AI or drawn by AI, they don't have the fact that they have to sell this book to pay their mortgage. They don't have the death, the life, all those things that went into it. So it's just emotionless. And we're gonna, it's gonna likely show on the page that it's actually emotionless. And that's one of those, you know, sad things about AI. And he was trying, this guy was trying to tell me that, like, ten years from now, things are all going to be AI. And I'm like, please don't. Please stop saying that.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: But if that's true, then everything's just going to be the same. Because, I mean, first of all, I have very strong feelings about AI because 13 of my books were fed into a large language model without my permission. So, you know, my sweat, my blood, my work was taken without compensation to teach a computer how to write. Like me, basically. Right? But the thing that happens when these machines take all this stuff is they just make a kind of aggregate, right? So everything is sort of flat, it's average. And I don't think that a computer is going to come up with a fresh, original idea. A computer is going to say, you know, like, this is popular, this is popular, this is popular, and then, like, how do I take these popular things and make something that's still popular? You know, it's not going to, but, I mean, Hollywood is very excited about this because they really don't want to have to pay writers.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: And that's the thing. And that's, you know, it was one of the arguments ahead. It's like, I would think that the only argument I would have for someone saying, I say I'm a graphic artist, so say I took all my graphic art stuff for the past ten years and put it into a model so that I can spit out new ideas that are in my style and so on and so forth. And then I can use that as a storyboard, then you to write, to create original things to say, this is like, okay, I'm getting a sense of what I've done over the past ten years, and I want to make something similar. So I'm using this as a thing, but then it's all your own things, and your computer's telling you your own things. And again, it's not going to give anything new, but at least it's going to give you an idea of what you are as a creator. Um, but when you start just using blatant, random things on the Internet where they're grabbing information from everywhere that's not yours, then that's a huge thing. It's stealing, it's unoriginal, it's all that stuff. So, yeah, it was a whole discussion about it. I'm like, please don't do that.
Yeah, I don't want to have this AI. The new thing is going to be like, when you go to a bar, you're not supposed to talk, like, what, politics and religion? It's like the third thing they're going to have to add to that thing nowadays is AI chart.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Yes. Somebody brought it up at a book event that I had in the fall, and I was like, I am now like Madeline Khan and Klum. Like, I have flames on the side of my face, you know, because I can't. I'm so angry. I mean, it was very raw at that time, too, because I just found out, like, very recently that my work had been stolen, you know? And it's absolutely infuriating when you have, you know, people who create these large language models saying, well, if we had to pay creators, we wouldn't be able to do this. It's like, so maybe you shouldn't do that.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Sounds like a sound argument there, I tell you right now.
Also, the other, the other biggest one was like, has anybody seen Terminator? We all know AI is not a good thing.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Yes, I know. That's my son's argument all the time. He's like, do these people not know about Skynet?
[00:28:38] Speaker A: But it's funny. So you see your book, the house that horror built. It's like I said, it's a mixture of a bunch of different things that I liked. It was not straight up terrifying. There was emotional moments, there's family moments.
You know the funny thing also, your main character's name is Harry, which is funny because I have a co worker who, his name is Mary, but goes by Gary, and he confuses the hell out of it. So I was okay with that. Like, my wife was like, how are you being able to. This person's name is Harry. Obviously, it's a nickname.
But, like, how are you able to keep track of this? Not male, female? It doesn't matter. It's the character in the book. I don't really care what gender the person is, but it was very easy for me because I'm like, I have a friend at work who's, you know.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Goes by Gary, and she's a female. And she's like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
I could understand that being a little bit confusing for somebody, but I liked it a lot in that aspect. But I can side with her. I can feel for her in multiple reasons. And one reason was I have been on the side of, like, these cool luck things of, like, my job that I have now that I've had for seven years, I kind of, like, somehow locked into, in a sense, like, one small job and connection with one person led to that, and then this to a person where I was the only full time employee for a number of years. Now I, like, sit next to ownership in meetings and things like that. Like, I have a way bigger role than I've ever should have been able to give in the first place because of these things. And so when Harry has this ability to go to a work at a iconic director's house, I felt like that would be me. That would be someone. Be like, okay, I need a job. But your job is actually going to be at this really famous person's house.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: But she. She treats it so professionally. You know what I mean? So she's like, she's not. She is a fan, but she's not a fan. Blowing it up and the first day on the job, hey, can I get an autograph? Things like that. So it's like this weird, like, she's been lucky enough to work in this house, but also not, you know, making it awkward in that sense until it becomes awkward for other reasons.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is that, you know, and I really hope comes through in the book is, like, her priority is to get and keep a job for her son, right? So, like, she's not going to do anything to mess that up. You know, especially the book is set during the pandemic. And, like, if you, you know, had certain types of jobs, like, those jobs just went away during the pandemic. And I was really trying to communicate like that. She's really feels like she's hanging by her fingernails. And, you know, it's really important for her to keep this job because it pays well. It's fairly easy, right? You go to this house, you dust things, you vacuum things, you change the sheets, you leave, you know, and she's trying so hard because she just wants to make sure she has this stable life for her son. And that, I think, adds a layer of friction in the story, because when the freaky things start happening, happening, normal people are like, get out of the house. And she's like, I can't, because I have a son and I need to feed him and I can't get another job. You know? So that was also important that, like, you know, because there's always, you know, that horror audience argument of, well, why wouldn't you just leave? You know, there's this strange stuff that's happening. You know, all this stuff but she can't. You know, she's trying, but she can't.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: And it's not just the strange things that are happening at the house. You know, I'm not going to give anything away, but other things happen in personal life that, that also forces her to think that she has to think about her son as well. Like, it's not just the house, it's other things that are going on. It's like, okay, I absolutely need this job to pay for things. It's not one of those things where it's like, I can make do for a little bit. This is like, no, no, no. I'm, like, going to be in a really big situation if I don't have this job. And that's. You could feel that. And as a parent, I think that's one of those things that I've always complained is like, I never was going to be like this. When someone says, when you have your own kids, you'll understand, what are you talking about? And then I had my own kids, and I'm like, okay, now I understand. And you feel that as a parent, you feel like, well, what would you do in this situation? And I think that's one of the things why the tv show and the comic book walking Dead are one of my favorites ever. It's like, well, what would you do in a situation to protect your kid? Would you, would you kill people? Would you, would you stay in a house? That's some crazy things are going on just to make sure you can put food and stuff on the table.
And I would. And that's not, you know, that's the feeling I got out of it. And so it added that emotional element to it and that relationship element to it, on top of it being a pretty terrifying story. And so that, to me, had multiple levels on it. And that's why I was, like, riveted to the whole book. I'm like, TMI, like, on the toilet. Like, it's like every moment.
That's the thing. I tell people how many books I read in a month. They're like, oh, you read ten books this month? I'm like, yeah, it's because I try to find every moment I can, because a lot of times there's so many books out there, I'm trying to pick the good ones, if that makes any sense. And so, like, I'm riveted to it. So, like, I'm at work, you know, waiting for someone to come in the office, and I'm, like, scrolling through, reading a couple pages. I'm waiting for water to boil. And I'm reading a couple pages, and. And I felt like I got through it in no time. And I can't wait now when I have a physical copy to go through and actually read the physical copy, too, because I feel like it's another element of reading a physical book than there is a digital book, in my opinion. But, yeah.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I think so. I can't read books digitally. I mean, I know it's convenient for a lot of people. Like, my husband has a lot of, like, vision issues. So, like, for him, he loves his Kindle because he can make the font as big as he wants. A lot of people like the convenience of carrying the thing. But I like the sensory experience of a physical copy. I like to smell the book. I like to hold the book. I like to see how far I am in the book and how much farther I have to go.
I like everything about that process. So, you know, there are books stacked everywhere in this house, and they're all mine to hear, too.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: And it's like, I do a lot of hybrid reading, too, with books that are already on the market. So, like, I do some audiobooks in the car on the way to work, and then when I get home, I'll, like, you know, find out where I am, pick up in the novel and. And so on and so forth. So my wife was like, you bought that on audiobook. Why are you bringing. Buying the physical copy? I'm like, I'm doing both here. Okay. I'm trying to get both of this stuff in there. And there's some. Obviously, I have to. A lot of these digital ones I have to read digitally, but, yes, the same thing. The iPad. At night, my wife usually falls asleep before I do. And so lights are off in the bedroom. So, like, having this backlit device that I can actually read it where you're not trying to have a book, one of those old book lights.
I just can't do that. And plus, you have to hold that up. So I have a little, like, a, uh, stand that holds it. So there is some benefits to it. But, yes, there's still nothing compared to, like, physically cracking open your book, smelling it, and seeing that, too. And then as an. As an artist, there's a cover, too. So, like, yeah, every time you pick that book up, you see that cover. When I pick up my digital book, I see it once, and then I scroll past it.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah, you never see it again.
So you listen. You'll listen to an audiobook and read a book at the same time. So, like, somebody's reading it to you, and I do that. Sometimes they're reading it.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: I do that. There's times I do that, too, because there's certain ones. Like, I just read Anthony Daniel's c three po biography about his Star wars thing, and there's, like, sound effects and things like that. And it's kind of cool. It's a benefit if you don't know how to pronounce someone's name or a location because someone says it to you. Not. Not that that audiobook narrators always get it right either, though. That's the thing, too. There's always some mistakes there, too, but, yeah, and then I've read some Star wars books that are audio drama to start and then was put into a novel. And so, like, there is that. People's voices and things like that. That. But most of the time, I do, like, I read it in the car. Like, I listen to the book in the car, and then when I get to the location or I get home at night, I find out where I am in the book, and I turn the audiobook off, read to a chapter, and then go to the chapter on the audiobook that I pick up.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: Is it what it kind of. I'm curious, what kind of impact does that have on your reading experience? Like, are you thinking. Because when I read a book and I haven't listened to the audio, you know, there's, like, almost like, my own voice. Right. Like, reading it. When you're reading it and you've heard someone else read it, are you. Does it impose the narrator's voice on the book when you're reading, or is it still.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: It depends on the narrator. Some people are really good at, like, doing different voices for different characters. So it kind of helps, you know, obviously, in a book, most of the time, your words are all the same font, all the same weight. They're all the same. But you go from character to character. And so, especially in books that have, like, I'm reading right now, the midnight feast from Lucy Foley, and she has, like, each chapter is a different person. And so if you listen to it, if I had the audiobook to go with it, it would help me even further, because I now know what Bella's voice sounds like, because someone's using some sort of, like, they're making a new voice with their own voice, the narrator. And so, like, it helps me decipher where. Who is who. And so, as I'm reading this, I'm like, okay, I can understand this is Bella, and I understand where we are with Bella or Owen, whoever. And so there is. It's a different thing. And sometimes there's books I just read solely on. On audiobook, and sometimes there's books that I read, you know, solely physically. And a lot of times that's the advanced copy. So, like, your book, I read, you know, digitally on my phone, but, like. Or on my iPad, but still, I didn't get to read the audiobook yet because there is no audiobook. Some of them have them, but, like, most of the time, yeah.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Usually audio comes out the day of the release. That's interesting.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's a fun thing, but it's a way to get not through a book, but way that you're really entrenched in a book.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: You don't miss an opportunity. I'm doing the dishes. I can read the book because it's in my ears and I can do that. And I'm pretty good at those kind of mundane tasks, doing it or driving. The second I'm like, with my kids or something, there's too much going on. And I'm like, wait, what just happened? Who just died?
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. I usually, I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I generally listen to books I've already read.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: So for that reason, so that if I. Because I'm a long distance runner, so especially when I'm running, I like to listen to books. And sometimes, like, my brain will, like, drop into meditative state and I'll come back and, you know, I'm like a chapter ahead of where I was. But it's okay. I've read the book before. It's not a big deal. I really like to listen to classics, actually, because I, you know, I know them really well. I'm listening to Eddie Izzard's reading of great expectations right now. And in a way, it's like discovering the book for the first time because she does these wonderful voices for the characters that I would never do. And, you know, when I'm reading the book to myself, but I. The one series that I've only ever listened to on audio and never read the books is Ben Aranovitch's Rivers of London series. And that's because I found the first book, I think, as an audio, picked it up kind of on a lark, listened to it, loved it, but now I can only hear Kavanaugh Holbrook Smith read the book to me. Plus, Ben Aranovich is british, and he does all of these regional accents that he writes into the book. I'm not from the UK. I have no idea what those accents sound like, but Kobna does them on the audio.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Yes.
And that's the same. I read Shabbat, say Wab. I can't say his name very well. Rice, who's native american or native and crusted snow. Yes. And that narrator, so like, there's a narrator that actually speaks the language and speaks the dialect and accent sense that you expecting from the words that are different than what I'm used to as, you know, American English speaking person. Like, this is not like this. Yeah. And also like this Lucy Foley book, I'm guessing it's based in the UK, so you probably would get a lot of british sounding voices and things like that and so on and so forth. So there is these. And I do, I'm a huge benefit. I say, you know, audiobooks are huge because I think there are people who will out there who can't sit down and read a novel.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: And Fitzroy. So it's a huge thing for that. It's that it's the whole, you know, long trips. You know, I listened to a lot of podcasts too, but like, the novels and the trip, and I'm going to do that. I read physically Adam Caesars clown on the cornfield series, and he's got his third book coming up. And so for that, as I get prepared for that, I will read number one and number two via, or listen to them on audiobook as I get prepared for that because I probably do that at the same time I'm reading something else. And so, like, you know, that's the, you know, not the same time, people, not. Not me reading another novel while I'm listening to it. But I'll get caught up a lot faster listening to an audiobook than I will reading a physical novel. But, yeah, I'm excited. I mean, is there going to be an audiobook for the house that horror built?
[00:41:20] Speaker B: Yeah, there is. Lisa Flanagan's going to read it. She actually did the reading for good girls don't die and that there's three different narrators in that they're all female. And she did an amazing job just kind of distinguishing the characters and the voices. And so I asked if she could come back for the next one because I just think she's incredible. I love people who are like, really perform a novel. You know, I always like it, actually, when actors read books because they'll perform it, you know, they're not just reading, they're performing the book to you. And I really enjoy that.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: And I will say, if anyone reads a biography or a memoir of anything and the person read it, who wrote it.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Also phenomenal. I'll tell you that, rich, right now I loved, I read Anthony Daniels, read his own on audiobook. But like, I've read biographies for a number of actors and comedians and things like that. And when they read it themselves, it's just like, it feels like you're in a room having a conversation with this person telling them your life story.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I just downloaded Sam Neill's biography so that I can listen to that. He reads it. So same thing. Yeah. You just read for something like that. Yeah, like a biography. I do like to do that.
Listen to the person who wrote it, read it because they're telling their story the way they want you to hear it.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really, it's really good. But, yeah, I mean, I'm a big proponent for it. You know, honestly, nowadays there's so many options for people to read books, which is amazing, including still people. There's libraries out there. I don't know if there's, if you knew that there's still a library, but yeah, there's, there's just so many places that you can get these things. And when you go to promote it, it's like someone can't be like, well, I can't get it. Well, no, you can. Yeah, there are places I can't afford it. Again, go to the library and borrow it.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Please go to the library. Please don't pirate them.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: No. Split the cost of a book with someone else. Let them read it first and then you read it. Do something to get a book that you can actually physically read and not steal it, because that's just not fun. And so, yeah, so if audiobooks is your thing, I'm so for it. And when, I'll do that, too. Now that these books that I've read over the past couple of years that are advanced copies, I'll likely go back and when I revisit them, I go back to them. I'll probably listen to the audiobook because I've, I'm going to take it in a different way, the same thing. If you watch a movie that gets, our book gets added, adapted to a movie, then it's always fun to see the version of what you read on page. And a lot of times it's not as good, I'll tell you that much. Well, there are a couple. There are a couple.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: I think they're different. You know, I say this from a person who's been on the verge of having my work adapted a couple of times. And I have a couple of things potentially process right now, so please cross your fingers for me. But I always say, like, a book and a movie are siblings.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: It's not, they're not twins, you know, so they, they resemble each other, but they are not the same child. And so because the film is a different medium, there's different demands for a film audience, for a t film audience versus a tv audience versus a book audience. Like, they're all different. So when you're a writer and you're having your work adapted, you really just have to, again, just like with reviews, you have to let go because there's, it's a different medium. It needs something different. And, you know, the people who do that hopefully know best.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: You know what their medium needs.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: And I'm like, why would you want to watch a word for word adaptation of your. It just seems weird sometimes to see, like, what? Like, I just read recently, Hannibal and silence the Lambs, and those movies and books are eerily close, like, the source material and the movie sounds of the.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Lambs is very, very close, like, right on top of the book, which wasn't.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Bad because they're both phenomenal. But there are other ones where it's like, I don't really want to just see what I read. I want to see someone's interpretation. There's visualizations. I've seen the cool things about reading comics that are been adapted from books as well is the same thing. You're using visualization to tell some of the story. And so there's new things. You're just going to get in the background that they're not physically say to you or tell you they're not going to tell you this person looks like this because you can see that person looks like this.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: Right.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: So it'd be really weird if you walked in the room and you're like, when you've got glasses on and this person, we can see that that's on the screen, that you have to write on your pages that this person has glasses and brown hair and all that stuff, which is different. But, yeah, there's some, and I've actually liked some movies sometimes more. There's been times where, you know, I think Jaws, in my opinion, is a better movie than it is a book.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: It is. Yeah, I agree.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: And so there's that, too. So, but it also, who depends on who's adapting it as well. Like, who the team of creative team adapting your, your source material is also. It matters there. But I mean, I can see this movie. How's the hori. Horrible. This book become a movie? I could see that happening.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: I could, you know, cross your fingers for me.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: The funny thing is, it's like people were like, I can't say anything. In all likelihood, most people out there are trying to sell their stuff outside of the book market as well. So.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, I can't even tell you. Somebody asked me, I get this question all the time. People are like, would you consider turning your book into a film? I'm like, yes. It's not up to me if you.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Had all the money in the world in your own studio, that you could do it yourself. But other than that, yeah, it's not really up to you at that moment. So it's a long process to it. It's not one of those things that if you announced today that this was being made into a movie, it might still be five years, if not more, before the actual movie comes out. And so people a lot of times see the adaptation news and they're like, oh, my gosh, I'm so excited. Like, just pump the brakes. Sometimes it takes forever to actually have it happen.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: I mean, sort of famously, the mag, right? He had been writing that series for years. It had been like, option and then reoption, and the option came back to him and he tried to get, you know, what did it take, like, 1015 years for him to get that made into a film? John Scalzi talks about this all the time, how old man's war has been repeatedly optioned and things don't go through. This happens a lot. I had, one of my books was optioned for two years. They were going to turn it into a tv series if we had a studio attached.
Like, there was a producer, like, it was ready to go, and then the studio declined to make the pilot, and that was it.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: You know, and I'd like to say it's up until cameras start shooting that it's not real. But nowadays, honestly, it actually doesn't really not real until it actually is on the screen. Because we've learned different companies who have been like, make an entire movie and then say, yeah, we're just not going to release. So it's not real real until it's on the screen.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: But yes, on that subject, my son is still mad that coyote versus Acme is apparently not going to be released.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: See, we're all like that. I'm a comic book fan, and Batgirl was supposed to come out and things. So there's these things that is possible still that no one actually gets to see it and maybe there's an entire season getting ready to be made. You make the pilot, send it out there, and then that's it. It dies. It goes away because it didn't get watched or whatever. But yeah, it's a fun thing and it's, it's one of those things, though. You got to go back to the material and the thing. This was written as a book. You wrote this as a novel.
It's meant to be ingested as a novel. And so in the end, if it ends up being just a novel, you won't be distraught over it. You'll be disappointed it didn't go any further. But this is what you set out in the first place to make. And to me personally, it's a wonderful novel. I think that people should get out there and buy it at your local, local bookstore. Bookshop.org is a great place for people to buy it if you can't get to your local bookstore, because it does support local bookstores. And if audiobook wise, if it ends up on Libro FM is a good place too because that also supports local bookstores in a portion. And you own the physical media, it's not, anyway, it's DRM free, so you actually physically own the audiobook when you buy it, which is really cool.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: But I just want to add really quick. So if people pre order the book or even if they buy it the first week it comes out, because I'm not sure when you'll release this, I am doing a giveaway, a free giveaway of signed book plates if people like to have items to a signed book plate to go into your book. If you're not in Chicago and cannot come to my launch event on May, on May 14, you just need to go to my threads author Christina Henry or Instagram. You'll see a post about it which gives you all the info. If you pre order the book, you can email me and I will send you a free book plate to go in your book.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: That's awesome. I love those things. Our buddy Daniel Krause did that for whale fall, too, which was really cool that if he did, they get like a bookmark and something else with it as well, which is really awesome. I did it. I even did it and he came to the signing. So I'm like, I'll do both. I'll pre order it, get the book plate, and I'll have you sign a different copy. So yeah, it's always fun to do that. And I think that it's one of those things that it means a lot more to me on a book, on a shelf that has a book plate or assigned thing in it because it just, I don't. It's one of those ones that I don't think that I'll donate. It's always going to live with me. Do you know what I mean? Like even if it's not personalized to me, I still think it's one of those ones. That one's signed, I'll keep that on the shelf. So that's pretty cool to do that. Yeah. And pre ordering is huge people. I mean, I don't like, I know it's sometimes budgeting wise and all those things is different for some people. But like if you, one of the things is if you are going to buy it on the big smile store, they actually don't charge you until they ship it. So if you are still trying to do it, like you can still preorder ahead of time and other places are similar to that as well. But yeah, buying local is nice. And if you can't, there are options online.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: Yeah, bookshop dot.org is a great option and you can usually set a store to support.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: So even if the store isn't right near you, which you're like, oh, I love this indie bookstore that I visited in another city, you can set that store to support and a portion of the profits will go to that store. So Bookshop.org is a great option.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: And our website, during our review for House of Horror built and for this episode, there'll be links to buy it. And that's links through to bookshop bookshop.org too. So if you don't want to, you want to make it easy, you can just click the link and go to that as well, which is awesome. But the house that horror built hits shelves May 14. You also have, you have Alice that just hit a new printing. Is it a soft cover? What's the.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: It's a, it's a new cover in a slightly discounted price. It was actually an edition that they made especially for Walmart, although it's gone into some other places, targets grocery stores, things like that. Just sort of, it was a way for my publisher to try to reach out to people maybe who wouldn't have seen alice came out nine years ago who maybe wouldn't have seen it or don't have a bookstore near them because a lot of people don't have a bookstore in their town, but they might have a Walmart or a target. So it was a way to kind of reach out and try to reach some people who didn't have an opportunity maybe to see Alice the first time around.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. And then you have good girls, don't die came out in 2013.
[00:52:32] Speaker B: It came out last year.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: So 23. Sorry, 23, yeah, 2013. It's the 14th. That came out in November.
So the paperbacks out there on the market, too. So grab that is also available in audiobook as well. But, yeah, I'm in love with it. You know, hope people learned a little bit about the book, but also about who you are as a writer on here. And I'm thankful that you took some time out of your day to come chat with us. Went a little longer than I had said, but I hope that's okay.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: That's okay.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: I had a great conversation. So I'm really, I'm really glad to have met you. And I'm hoping people buy it in droves because I think it's well worth purchasing. You know, I gave it five stars out of five, honestly, on our website.
[00:53:10] Speaker B: So thank you.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: I'm pretty happy. And, yeah, it's also another thing on the review thing. I think it's funny. The reviews are for all you people out there, not for you as a writer. Like, it's like one of those things like when I some writes a review is to get you to potentially buy the book. The writer is. They made the book. You have copies of it. You don't need to know how good it is. But, yeah, so check that out. We have a review online, too, so. But, yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Christina, for coming on.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: Thank you. I have a great time.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Thank you.
