Ally Carter - THE BLONDE WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

[00:00] Cindy: Welcome to Thoughts from a Page, a member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. I'm Cindy Burnett, and I am so glad you're here. I personally select and read every book featured on the show so I can bring you thoughtful spoiler-free author interviews.

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[01:05] I am so grateful.

[01:07] Today, Ally Carter joins me to chat about The Blonde who Came in from the Cold.

[01:12] I am loving all of these lighter mysteries that have been coming out recently.

[01:16] Ally characterizes her books as action adventure romance and I think that is the perfect characterization.

[01:22] If you're in the mood for a fun spy romp with a lot of romance, then this is the book for you. Ally Carter writes books about sneaky people and movies about Christmas.

[01:32] She's a New York Times bestselling author of numerous series and her books have been published all over the world in over 20 languages. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

[01:43] Welcome Ally. How are you today?

[01:45] Ally: I'm doing really well, thank you for having me.

[01:47] Cindy: I'm so glad you're here. This is the first time we have chatted and I cannot wait to talk all about The Blonde who Came in from the Cold.

[01:54] Ally: Thank you.

[01:55] Cindy: So why don't we start out with you giving me a quick synopsis of the book for those that haven't read it yet.

[02:00] Ally: Well, it's a companion novel to The Blonde Identity which came out two years ago and it's a spy adventure rom com second chance romance about two enemies to lovers who wake up basically handcuffed together in the dark and they don't know where they are and they don't know how they got there and they don't know who is chasing them.

[02:20] But somebody very much is. And so now these two retired spies who hoped they would never see each other again have to basically fight for their lives. And as they're doing that, we keep kind of flashing back to previous missions and experiences that they've had together.

[02:36] So we get to see them, you know, going through CIA training, we see them on their first missions, we see them fall in love, we see them break up, we see them go through all of this stuff.

[02:46] Meanwhile, in the present day timeline, they're still trying to figure out who's after them. So I like to think of it as kind of Mr. And Ms. Smith meets the Hangover.

[02:55] Cindy: So I'm glad you mentioned the companion novel because I wanted to flesh that out a little bit because it's listed on Goodreads as number two in The Blonde Identity series. So the characters do come forward in terms of the fact that you have some similar characters in the first book and the second book,

[03:10] but it's really a standalone that can be read as a companion to The Blonde Identity. Isn't that what you would say?

[03:16] Ally: That is very much what I was going for. Hopefully I hit that mark.

[03:20] It's kind of in that old school romance model of, you've got the couple number one from, from book one that, oh, Wouldn't you know it? He's got a hot best friend and then the hot best friend has the next book and then the hot best friend has a brother and,

[03:35] so you kind of go that way.

[03:38] So I wanted to do something in that vein. So if you really love the characters from book one, you want to see them again, you want to know how they're doing.

[03:46] Don't worry, they're in this book.

[03:48] If you did not read The Blonde Identity, don't worry, you won't be lost. This book is meant to stand alone and you should be able to follow everything just fine.

[03:58] Now, might there be a little inside joke or two that might go over your head? Yes,

[04:03] but book one is in no way required reading.

[04:07] Cindy: I think that's helpful for people to understand that while they do tie together, you do not have to have read the first one.

[04:13] Ally: That's correct. Yes.

[04:14] Cindy: Talking about the old school romance, it makes me think of the Bridgerton series and the siblings and they each get their own book.

[04:20] Ally: Yes, that is very. That's a model that's been around for a long time and it's an if it's not broke, don't fix it kind of a thing.

[04:28] Cindy: I agree with that. Well, how did you decide to write these books? And particularly this one.

[04:34] Ally: Well, I, you know, I'd started in, in YA, in middle grade, and so I'd been reading writing for teens for a very long time.

[04:41] I sold my first teen spy series 20 years ago, which kind of boggles my mind.

[04:47] And I'd had the idea for basically The Blonde Identity long ago,

[04:53] and I could never quite crack it. That one starts with a girl or a woman lying in the snow. A guy is standing over her yelling, get up, Alex, run.

[05:03] And that scene kind of came to my mind ages ago.

[05:07] And the only thing I knew for certain was that she wasn't Alex.

[05:12] And so I knew that she was going to be an identical twin of a spy.

[05:16] The bad guys are after her because they think she's her sister. She is not. She doesn't have the skills and the ability to fight them off. And so she kind of teams up and joins forces with her friends kind of partner.

[05:28] I could never make that work as a teen property. And so years ago, I was on the phone with a friend of mine and she said, that's because they're adults.

[05:37] They're not 16, they're 30.

[05:40] And as soon as I kind of flipped that switch in my brain,

[05:44] every single problem that I had with the plot of that book went away.

[05:48] And so I started writing The Blonde Identity. And at the time, I wasn't entirely convinced that I would write a book two, a companion novel for the sister.

[05:56] But then the sister showed up on page and I was like, oh, no, no, this is somebody I have to spend some time with.

[06:03] And I'm really glad I did because I love the character of Alex. I love the character of King, Michael Kingsley.

[06:09] And watching these two idiots be in love and refuse to admit it is just Chef's kiss. I had so much fun with it, and I hope readers have fun as well.

[06:19] Cindy: And are you going to continue the books?

[06:22] Ally: I don't know that I will.

[06:24] That has not been my intention.

[06:26] I don't necessarily, you know, I don't think there's like a triplet that's out there somewhere that we haven't missed.

[06:32] Cindy: The missing sibling.

[06:33] Ally: The missing sibling. Oh, by the way, girls, there was a third one of you, and she is also a spy like that. I don't know that I'm gonna pull that rabbit out of the hat necessarily now.

[06:45] Will I write another spy book? Possibly. Will I write a kind of action adventure romance again? I think probably, pretty definitely. But right now I like where the books end.

[06:56] I like that we have wrapped up those two romances and also those two plot, spy plot lines. And it feels pretty tidy. So I'm happy, I think where it is.

[07:06] Cindy: I didn't know if King was gonna suddenly have a friend that might appear or something like that.

[07:10] Ally: It could definitely happen. I would not rule it out. But that was not, that's not my intention at the moment. But you never know. Like I might wake up tomorrow morning with, oh,

[07:20] oh no, this is, this is what we do next. So we'll see.

[07:23] Cindy: And my girls loved your Gallagher Girls series. I had heard your name long before you were writing these adult books because we owned all of your younger books.

[07:32] Ally: Aw, thank you.

[07:33] Cindy: And I also loved the Most Wonderful Crime of the Year, which we haven't touched on at all. Your Christmas Holiday rom com mystery from last year.

[07:41] Ally: Yes. That is probably what I'm going to be working on next.

[07:45] I can't share any details, but I do want to do another kind of Christmas mystery and everything that I do will of course have some romance in it and I'm, I'm excited about that.

[07:55] I really loved Most Wonderful Crime of the Year. I have heard from so many readers who have told me that,

[08:01] that was the book that they didn't know they needed, but it was very much the book that they needed at the time.

[08:06] And that's meant a lot. I know as a long time romance reader and a longtime mystery reader, it felt a little bit like somebody who, they're that old commercial with the chocolate bar falls into the can of peanut butter.

[08:19] And so that's kind of the way it felt like, like, okay, what if you put these two things together and make a whole new doubly delicious thing?

[08:28] And that was so much fun. I'm really excited about digging in and doing more of those.

[08:34] Cindy: Oh, good. I'm not really a holiday reader. I just don't normally gravitate to those type of books. But I loved that one. I thought it was so much fun and I told everybody to read it around the holidays.

[08:44] Ally: Oh, thank you. I think we've gotten in this habit of thinking that holiday books have to be entirely holiday.

[08:52] the conflict has to be because they're rivals in a snowman building competition or everything has to tie back to the holiday.

[09:02] And I struggle with that as a writer. I kind of have to stop and remember, oh, no, no, this is set at Christmas time because really, I think a lot of people at Christmas time, Christmas is so overwhelming and everybody is so busy.

[09:18] And so I want to write like a short book that somebody can sit down and read over the course of two or three nights, maybe even a night, if they're a fast reader.

[09:27] And they

[09:28] get to experience through the characters sort of all the same emotions that they are feeling at the time.

[09:34] So they're overwhelmed, they are tired, they are wishing that the sun would come out because they're so depressed because it gets dark at 4:30.

[09:46] And those types of things that I think that we all really respond to and relate to at that time of year.

[09:52] Cindy: I think that's right. And it was a nice break. Still got me in the mood for the holidays. And it was festive,

[09:57] but it wasn't heavy and it wasn't snowman building as you mentioned.

[10:00] Ally: Exactly. And don't get me wrong, I love me a Hallmark movie, I love me a Christmas book. But I have to write books that have quite a bit of external conflict.

[10:10] And so I think that that's why, and there is definitely a long standing tradition of the Christmas murder mystery, especially in the cozy realm.

[10:19There are a lot of like poison

[10:21] sugar cookies floating around out there in the book world for a reason.

[10:26] And so I just really wanted to write a book about that.

[10:29] But instead of teaming up with your like cranky elderly neighbor or your mom or your 4 year old or whatever to solve this murder, you're teaming up with a hot guy.

[10:41] And so that's kind of the angle I wanted to take

[10:44] Cindy: I'm sure it really appeals to readers.

[10:47] Ally: I think so.

[10:47] Cindy: Yes. So I think these lighter mysteries are really having a moment. And I would say yours is half mystery, half romance. Is that how you would characterize it?

[10:56] Ally: Yes, that is. That was very much my goal. I was very proud that when I toured for Most Wonderful Crime of the Year last year, I did events at Poisoned Pen and Murder by the Book.

[11:05] I also did books at Love’s Sweet Arrow and The Ripped Bodice. And so it's very much a book that you could put in the hands of a mystery reader or you can put it in the hands of a romance reader.

[11:16] And I was really proud of that. And that was very much the goal.

[11:19] Cindy: I used to work at Murder by the Book. I love that store.

[11:22] Ally: Love that store.

[11:23] Cindy: Yeah, it's wonderful.

[11:24] Ally: It's actually referenced in the book. Like that's actually a joke in the book. And so I did that very much on purpose because they're mystery writers and so they're talking about doing events there.

[11:35] Cindy: Exactly. So tell me why you think lighter mysteries are having a moment.

[11:40] Ally: I think that

[11:41] nothing ever happens in a bubble, of course.

[11:44] And so, when the world gets heavy, people either want to read light things or they want to read really, really dark things.

[11:53] And I think that we are in a time in history where there's a lot of worry and there's a lot of stress and sometimes people want to turn off the news and step away from the phone and read about something that is guaranteed to have a happy ending.

[12:09] And the bad guy is definitely going to get caught. They're definitely going to get punished. And I think that that's a little, that's part of it, I think. I think people also really like that a lot of the cozier mysteries tend to be on the shorter end of the spectrum.

[12:22] And so like I said, you can sit down and finish one in a night or a couple of nights. And it's not this three week process of trying to chip away at this massive book.

[12:34] You kind of get that little quick in, quick out satisfaction of it, which is nice. I also hear a lot from readers who are reading almost exclusively in audio now.

[12:45] And so we have these wonderful audio productions. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year had an amazing audio production.

[12:52] And I think that that's bringing a lot of readers to the space because now they're able to read with their ears.

[12:59] And maybe people who don't have time to sit down and read, especially during the holidays, especially here as kids get ready to start back to school.

[13:07] You can read in the car on your way to and from work every day or on the treadmill or wherever. So I think there are a lot of things that are kind of contributing to the boom.

[13:14] But I'm very happy that the boom is happening.

[13:16] Cindy: You mentioned audiobooks and I historically have really only listened to nonfiction because that just worked better for me.

[13:22] But really recently, I would say the last month or so, I've done a couple of fiction titles and I've really enjoyed them. I have to focus a little bit more just so I don't miss any of the plot points.

[13:31] But I have really liked it.

[13:33] Ally: I'm a big audio reader. I had a day job for eight and a half years,

[13:38] and in that day job I had to do a lot of driving. And so not every day, but it wasn't uncommon for me to spend 10 hours in the car and in the state of Kansas, which is lots of wide open spaces.

[13:51] And so I got to know the librarians at the local library very well. And there was a time where I had listened to pretty much every audiobook that they had on tape because I just went through them really fast.

[14:02] But I think that that's a big part of what sort of made adult me into a reader, was access to audiobooks.

[14:09] Cindy: It does really make the time go by when you're on a long car trip.

[14:13] Ally: Yes, for sure.

[14:15] Cindy: So let's talk about the CIA. How did you do your research for including the spy school and the CIA and those components of the book into your story?

[14:24] Ally: Well, it's, it's funny you asked that because I was just thinking about it and,

[14:29] I've been writing spies now for 20 years. And so the first time I wrote about Spies was 2005.

[14:37] And of course the Internet existed, but it wasn't like you could follow the CIA on Instagram or what have you.

[14:45] And so 

[14:47] most of my research came from the International Spy Museum which has a wonderful sort of reference section. They have a great gift shop and bookstore.

[14:57] And so I was there for a tour, for a conference one time, and I just went in like as a tourist,

[15:03] and they loaded me up on all kinds of great sort of tradecraft type books. And I ordered some more online later.

[15:10] I also found one of the best resources actually are spy movies. And back in the day,

[15:17] you could buy or go rent a DVD of the movie. And on the DVD they would have extras.

[15:23] And one of the extras was frequently they would have former spies that they would hire as consultants.

[15:30] And then those consultants would go through the movie or they would do interviews with the consultants, talking about the various things that

[15:38] the consultant sort of weighed in on. And so a lot of my training montage type things, a lot of the things from the Gallagher Girl series and even the things featuring the farm in this book,

[15:51] those all came from that. So there's a, there's a movie, an Al Pacino movie called The Recruit that is about Colin Farrell, I think, and he is a recruit at the CIA.

[16:03] And so he goes to the Farm. And so in the DVD extras of that,

[16:07] they have interviews with all of the consultants who used to teach at the farm.

[16:11] And so you better believe that I was watching that very, very carefully and taking a lot of notes.

[16:16] Cindy: You're, like, transcribing the whole interview.

[16:19] I'm always so curious about that and how close you get it correctly or how different it might be. It's just interesting to think about since a lot of that is so secretive.

[16:28] Ally: It's so secretive. And the nice thing, too, is, like, anybody who knows what I've gotten wrong is probably not going to be reading this book to begin with, because it's a little bit like I grew up on a farm, and so I really struggle with cowboy romances or

[16:45] farming books, because I see the things that people did wrong, and so I just kind of naturally select out of those situations. And so I tell myself that anybody who has been to the farm is probably not reading this book anyway.

[16:59] And 

[17:01] I've always prided myself on the basics I get right. I really think I try very, very hard to express the fundamentals of tradecraft.

[17:11] And I have a lot of respect for people in the clandestine services. And so I try to use terms correctly when I can.

[17:19] I try to have the same types of training exercises and things. Are they going to be exact? No. No way.

[17:27] And I struggled a lot this time with things like, okay, so when you go to the farm, when you are actually at camp,

[17:34] Are you staying in dorms? Are there army barracks? Are there little apartments or houses? Like was there a big cafeteria? Those types of things I really.

[17:45] struggled with.

[17:47] But then I just kind of had to shrug and be like, you know, what? It is what it is.

[17:51] And so I did the best I could. To all of our clandestine people who might be listening to this, I'm sorry if I got it wrong.

[18:01] Cindy: Exactly, and I'm sure you didn't. I'm sure you were very close, if not right there. But that's how Alex and King meet. So I was thinking as I was reading, I wonder how she came up with some of these details or knew exactly what it was all looking like.

[18:15] Ally: Yeah, that was a big worry for me. And at the end of the day,

[18:20] I did the best I could with the publicly available information. And then I just kind of said, I'm going to try to stay true to the spirit of it.

[18:28] And hopefully I did.

[18:29] Cindy: I'm sure you did. Well, what about writing a dual timeline and a dual point of view? How was that for you?

[18:35] Ally: Dual timeline and dual point of view are not for the faint of heart is what I have learned.

[18:40] They are very challenging in a lot of ways. I eventually figured out that you're really plotting and writing two different books that have to lay over each other seamlessly.

[18:54] And that was really the challenge. I didn't want to just be bouncing him back and forth. I wanted every sort of POV switch or especially timeline jump to mean something and to be there for a reason.

[19:07] So, for example, if they are in the present day timeline and they see something that he's like, okay, well, that's our clue.

[19:15] Do you recognize this? And she's like, oh, great. And then you flash back to why they would recognize that.

[19:23] And so it's very much everything is there for a reason.

[19:27] And 

[19:29] it was fun though, because it was very, very satisfying when things did click together and you realize, oh, okay, so the dark night of the soul of the present timeline has to be the dark night of the soul of the past timeline.

[19:44] And the point at which they kind of start trusting each other and working together in the present timeline is also the point that that needs to happen in the past timeline.

[19:54] And when I realized that those things were sort of naturally dovetailing, it was very, very satisfying. But again,

[20:00] dual timeline, not for wimps.

[20:04] Cindy: And do you write straight through or did you write one of their stories first and the other one second and then put them together?

[20:11] Ally: That is a great question. And I actually went back and forth on that a lot.

[20:15] I ended up writing it as you read it.

[20:18] But I think a person very much could have written all the past and then written all the present.

[20:25] That is not the way I chose to do it. I tend to write as you read,

[20:30] even like anything that I do. Even like copy edits.

[20:34] I tend to do it,

[20:36] start at page one, go to the end, start at page one, go to the end.

[20:41] Because you just never know. plot out everything pretty intricately,

[20:47] but they're always like little inside jokes and things that I don't know are going to be in there until I've put them on the page and then they keep cropping back up.

[20:56] Cindy: And your banter,

[20:57] that was something that I really enjoyed in these last two books was how much fun the banter is. And when you look at reviews, that's what so many people comment on.

[21:06] Does that come naturally to you to have this witty and snarky banter between your characters?

[21:11] Ally: I really love writing banter. That's one of my favorite things in the world to write.

[21:17] So it makes me happy when readers like it as well. It's just kind of something that kind of comes naturally to me.

[21:25] I've just always liked dialogue. I've always. I guess maybe I have an ear for it, I don't know.

[21:31] But that is definitely the easiest part of the job for me.

[21:35] Cindy: Interesting because I have heard authors talk about that when they haven't written a lot before.

[21:39] That the way we speak is different than the way you tend to think about writing dialogue. So if I were to go sit down, which I am not a writer at all,

[21:47] and have characters talking back and forth, I probably wouldn't write it as we actually speak. Like, it takes a little bit of work to make it sound natural on the page.

[21:56] Ally: It does.

[21:57] I used to hear when I was writing YA, people would say, oh, just go to someplace where there are a bunch of kids and record them, which is A, creepy and B, you get in trouble these days.

[22:09] Exactly.

[22:10] Totally counterintuitive. Because you don't want to write them

[22:15] like they actually talk.

[22:16] That would be very, very boring and would never actually

[22:21] have

[22:23] the impact that I think people are going for.

[22:25] And so there's that.

[22:27] But it's also not like stilted, informal and well, yes, sister, we have not seen each other since, you know,

[22:34] nobody talks like that either. So you really do have to kind of find that middle ground.

[22:38] Cindy: I've heard several authors say that they didn't write any contractions originally and then the editor would come back and be like, okay, people do not speak full blown words all the time.

[22:48] That they're constantly abbreviating or contracting words. And then also with respect to kids, their slang changes so fast too, that you don't want to have something immediately no longer matter or be relevant.

[23:00] Ally: Exactly. The last thing you want is to try to hit a moving target like that because A, it's going to change and B, the slang that the kids are using in your town is different than the slang kids are using in my town.

[23:13] And so just write good dialogue and you know, make sure your characters have voice.

[23:20] And that is what comes from you having voice.

[23:24] Cindy: What about pivoting from YA to adult. How did you find that?

[23:28] Ally: I found that very natural. I think in part because The Blonde Identity was a book I'd been trying to work on as a YA book for a really long time. And so once I sort of made the switch of oh, what if they're adults?

[23:43] Like, what if instead of these being 16 year olds, what if they're 30 year olds? And all of the plot problems went away at that point.

[23:51] And so it felt very natural just to sit down and write that. I also had the huge advantage of I'd been writing YA for so long that my sort of first generation readers had grown up.

[24:04] And so mostly girls who had read me when they were 12, 13, 14 years old,

[24:11] They're now 28 and they are excited about reading me as adults and reading some more mature material from me. And so it really did, it worked out very, very well.

[24:22] I was extraordinarily lucky.

[24:25] And I know that,

[24:27] that's probably not going to be everybody's experience,

[24:31] but I was definitely one of the lucky ones.

[24:34] Cindy: Did you find anything different about it? Was there one that you thought was easier than the other?

[24:40] Ally: No, not really. And well, that's not true in a lot of ways. Adult is a lot easier for the particular type of book that I write.

[24:49] So I write action, adventure, romance.

[24:51] And when you are writing that for a 16, 17 year old character, you need a really good reason why that character can't just call 911, like, okay, there's this Russian assassin who's been on my tail for the past five days.

[25:06] Yes, go to a fire department, go to a police station, go get some help.

[25:09] So it was very freeing to then write a book where the adults and the characters are the proper authorities and you don't have to sort of thread that needle of this person needs to have agency.

[25:22] These people need to be the ones sort of saving the day, but they also need to not be idiots.

[25:28] And you can do that now with adults. That makes it so much easier.

[25:32] Cindy: I hadn't really thought about that part of it. That's interesting.

[25:36] Ally: Yeah, it was definitely a challenge with YA. It was almost impossible in middle grade. I did it twice,

[25:44] but I don't know how many more times I could have pulled it out. Because again,

[25:48] when you're talking about a 12 year old and you're saying, okay, you found this half dead billionaire on the beach, but don't call 911. Don't take him to the hospital.

[25:58] Take him back to the mansion and nurse him back to health yourself.

[26:01] That's a hard needle to thread. I did it.

[26:05] But it's very, very challenging

[26:08] Cindy: Don't want to be inciting all these 12 and 13 year olds to do things like that.

[26:12] Ally: No. And it's not even necessarily that.

[26:15] It's that,

[26:16] then you've got parents and librarians and the kids have no problem with that whatsoever. They're like, of course the kid's going to save the day. Big deal.

[26:25] Parents and librarians, they also have to sort of suspend disbelief.

[26:31] Cindy: And it's just hard to do absolutely. Well. Tell me about the title.

[26:35] Ally: The Blonde who Came in from the Cold is of course a play on The Spy who Came in from the Cold. The thing about a series or a set of books or a duology or what have you is that book one kind of sets the tone,

[26:48] it sets the template.

[26:50] And so The Blonde Identity was the title of that book very early on.

[26:54] And I wasn't entirely sure what the Book 2’s title would be.

[27:00] And then one day this title kind of came to me and I thought, they're probably not going to go for that.

[27:06] It may be a little long. It may be that's an older book and movie at this point. Newer readers may not get the reference,

[27:14] but the publisher has been very supportive. So it's very much. Again, these are very self conscious spy books.

[27:22] They know,

[27:24] They don't live in a world without James Bond. 

[27:28] My protagonist Alex, she is a spy because when she was a kid she loved spy movies.

[27:35] And so there are a lot of kind of winks and nods and nudges to the sort of 

[27:41] cultural place that spies hold.

[27:45] And so I really wanted titles that sort of pay homage to that.

[27:49] Cindy: And that's what I like so much about the book. It is really fun and there's sometimes this wink, wink and the title's perfect, it's long, but you know exactly what it is and so it's very easy to remember.

[28:00] Ally: Thank you.

[28:01] Cindy: Well, Ally, before we wrap up, what have you read recently that you really liked?

[28:05] Ally: Well, I have been on mega, mega deadline and so I have not been reading as much as I should be. Probably the last book that I finished that I really loved was Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood.

[28:18] I am an Ali Hazelwood fan girl and love everything she touches.

[28:23] I'm also reading/listening to Even Superheroes Need PR by Elizabeth Stevens and it is a lot of fun. Talk about sort of your wink wink, nudge nudge.

[28:33] Kind of a genre within a genre that does that but with the superhero genre and is very fun. And I've also been, now that I'm working more in the mystery space, after The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year,

[28:46] I'm trying to go back and sort of pick up the classics that I might have missed along the way. So I've been going down some Agatha Christie's and some things like that.

[28:54] So it's been a lot of fun.

[28:56] Cindy: That does sound like a lot of fun. I love Agatha Christie and I've seen a variety of them in recent years, but I haven't seen staged versions of them.

[29:03] But I have not read one of hers in so long and I really keep meaning to do that.

[29:07] Ally: Yeah. And now they've got a lot of them on audio, so just FYI.

[29:11] Cindy: Oh, that's a great idea actually. I like that. Okay, good.

[29:14] Well, Ally, thank you so much for taking the time to come on my show. It's been really fun to chat.

[29:19] Ally: Thank you so much for having me.

[29:23] Cindy: Thank you so much for listening to my podcast. I would love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook where you can find me at thoughtsfromapage. If you enjoy the show and have a moment to rate it or subscribe to it, wherever you listen to your podcasts, I would really appreciate it.

[29:37] It makes a huge difference. And please tell all of your friends about Thoughts from a Page.

[29:42] Word of mouth does wonders to help the show grow.

[29:45] The book discussed in this episode can be purchased at my Bookshop storefront and the link is in the show notes. I hope you'll tune in next time.