Interview with "Death at Morning House" and "Truly Devious" Author Maureen Johnson

In today's special episode, we’re sitting down with #1 New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author, Maureen Johnson, to discuss her latest book, Death at Morning House!

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?
---
Missed our episode on Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious? Check it out on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
---
Socials:

• Tiktok: @bringyourownbookpodcast
• Instagram: @byobookpodcast
• Facebook: @byobookpodcast
• Youtube: @bringyourownbookpodcast

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction & Authors Against Book Banning
• 15:15 Holly Black, Planners, & Book Tours
• 26:40 Maureen Johnson is not from Rent!
• 29:12 Unique Book Settings & Dual Timelines
• 35:55 The Writing Process
• 41:00 The Westing Game
• 44:30 More Writing Process & Dual Timelines

Transcript

Nikki (00:11)
Hi everyone, welcome to BYOB, the Bring Your Own Book podcast. I'm Nikki.

Kelly (00:16)
And I'm Kelly.

Nikki (00:17)
And today we have a very, very special guest with us, one of my favorite authors, number one New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Maureen Johnson. She's here with us today to talk about her latest standalone mystery novel that was released on August 6th, The Death at Mourning House. Welcome Maureen! my goodness.

Maureen (00:37)
Thank you for having me. We have similar fuzzy microphones.

Nikki (00:41)
Yes!

Maureen (00:43)
I keep meaning to put googly eyes on this, just on this side.

Nikki (00:47)
Yeah, I feel like that would really make it.

Kelly (00:48)
be so great.

You'd have to name him too, or her, or them. You'd have to name the mic.

Maureen (00:54)
Furbert. I just thought of that name, but that's what he's going to be. Furbert.

Nikki (00:59)
I like it. thank you again so much for coming today. Before we dive into questions related to Death at Morning House, I wanted to touch on the organization that you're a part of, Authors Against Book Banning. This is a super cool organization. We just want to know and we want everybody listening to know, how did you become involved in the organization as a co -leader and what is the organization doing?

Kelly (00:59)
and that what it shall be, yeah.

Maureen (01:30)
Well, I am thrilled to be asked. Thank you. So Authors Against Book Banning is a nationwide American organization. I was asked by the National Committee to be a co -chair of New York and Connecticut along with Maris Kreitzman, who's an amazing journalist and writer. We have an epidemic of book banning in the United States. I don't know if you've heard, but we have some weird stuff going on here. And I don't know if you've heard about it at all. It's, you know.

I don't know if you've heard that sometimes things get a little, a little shifty here. But it's in response to the epidemic of book banning. I personally, I have a long experience with book banning. I have had, actually my bannings were quite some time ago where it started with me. It's a surreal experience. The first thing you learn is that book banners don't read. They do not read. They do not read the things they ban.

so for example, one morning I saw my book on, I think it was Fox and Friends in the morning and somewhere in Florida. And these women are being interviewed and there's a picture of my book with triple X under it. I'm what is happening? What is happening right now? And they're saying all these things. I'm like, none of these things are in the book. But the thing is, I know, I wrote it. Like I wrote it.

But sometimes they object to things that aren't in it. Sometimes they very selectively read. They just have a list of stuff they don't like and they personally don't want. And therefore they have decided through their infinite wisdom of not reading anything that nobody will be allowed to read these things. You're always, this is a movement entirely driven by non -readers and attention seekers. That is all that it's ever been about is attention seeking behavior. So.

we need to fight back because these things are being codified. And also it's getting violent. There are librarians, teachers, media specialists, people who been threatened. They're being threatened for everything from firing to physical violence. Even way back, I had two librarians lose their job over my books. So these sexy books that have no sex in them. Like it's surreal, but that's how it happens. You know, it's...

Kelly (03:30)
you

Wow.

Right?

Nikki (03:48)
Right.

Maureen (03:54)
We're here as a resource to help librarians, media specialists, anybody who's, or legislators who needs, you we need an author. We need somebody to come and talk at a school board meeting. We need this information. We need, we're trying to get feedback on this piece of legislation. We just need support. Can you show up? Can you talk? That's what this is about. It's new. It's still kind of getting, we're getting feet on our, on the ground, but we are having success in the New York chapter. We've been working on

Nikki (04:14)
Right.

Maureen (04:23)
The case of a bunch of books that were found in the garbage with stickies on them that said why they were unacceptable and why they had been binned. You usually find when you drill down that most book bannings and book eliminations are driven by only say one member of the community. You you'll find that this one person has been like, I have a thing. I've given up on Pilates and now my new thing is getting on TV, removing books from libraries.

that's really all it ever is. mean, truly I've been, I've seen this for a long time and it's always that. It's always that. And then it's a cause and then it becomes a talking point. And then it just kind of turns into this sort of geode of like, this is, this is bad for kids. And then you'll turn it, you know, and then it just becomes a rock that gets thrown around in legislation and in politics. So that's a very long -winded answer, but if anybody's written a book, please join us.

Kelly (05:11)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Maureen (05:22)
Authors Against Book Banning. It's a very easy sign up form. And if you are an author, sorry, well, if you're an author, but you're an educator, library, anybody who's like, I need help, books being banned in my library, I need support or whatever, reach out to us. They have, we have branches all around America. don't, I'm not sure if you have, I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what the Canadian situation is. I don't know if it's very similar.

Nikki (05:45)
you

Kelly (05:46)
I think it's a little similar, the one of the main problems I find living in Canada is a lot of it is swept under the rug. So I work at a bookstore as a bookseller and I did like half of a library program in school. So we talked about it a bit, but like in Canada, I think there are definitely some books that are banned, but you don't really hear about it. And then we have like a national book month or like book banning week.

Maureen (05:54)
Mmm.

Kelly (06:14)
awareness kind of thing. See, I don't even know what it's called because we don't really talk about it. And it'll like highlight a few titles usually by Canadian authors, but they were banned and now they're not. But there's just like no education about it. And yeah, so like, I couldn't I think it's a little less.

like newsworthy, I guess, right now versus like what's going on in the States. But it definitely still happens here. And it's usually like the same titles over and over. But yeah, I don't know, Nikki, if you have anything to add. I think that's my experience with it.

Nikki (06:51)
Yeah, I mean, I don't... I don't really know. like, it's been a long time since I've been in school, but I took, like, AP English classes and we were allowed to read whatever we wanted. We didn't have any kind of, like, jurisdiction put on us about, like, what books we weren't allowed to study from. I know when my mom was a kid, there were a lot of banned books, but she went to a private school and so they still taught them.

Maureen (07:05)
Hmm.

Kelly (07:12)
Mm

Nikki (07:20)
But yeah, I don't think that it's as prevalent in Canada. I know that in the States, like down south, there's a lot about like books about queer people and stuff and like not wanting kids in school to read about that or that being like a very polarizing subject. And that's not something that we deal with here so much. I find like the Canadian government works really hard to make.

Canada as inclusive as possible. And so that's not something that's really trickled up here so much.

Maureen (07:58)
It's really strange how this is all so way back, you know, when I, did a thousand jobs when I was coming, you know, I was writing and I was also, you know, doing a thousand jobs to pay the rent. And I was a textbook. My specialty was textbooks. I was, I, it was one of those things where you get a job and they're like, do you know how to do this? And I'm, I said, yes. I said, yes, always. Like, you're going to give me a job. like, I, I definitely know how to steer ships. Like I, I, yeah.

Kelly (08:27)
Yeah.

Maureen (08:28)
100 % I know how to fly a plane. boy. But I was a textbook editor and my specialty, got very good at it, was correlating textbooks to all these various, every state in America has a set of standards. And in order to sell a textbook, you had to correlate it to all these state standards. I had memorized them. I was like a walking database of these and I could correlate books, like in my sleep, I could be like, here's your Pennsylvania correlation, here's your Tennessee correlation. But we used to have to correlate, it sounds a little technical, but.

There are, you knew, for example, you would get these lists of content guides and there were all of these things that you couldn't have in the, you knew you couldn't have in the textbook or it wouldn't sell to Florida. It wouldn't sell to Tennessee. wouldn't sell wherever. So we always knew you could never have dinosaurs. Like dinosaurs were always a no -go. You couldn't have dice.

Kelly (09:20)
Yeah.

Maureen (09:24)
because that was gambling. So everything had to be a six -sided number cube. I mean, then it was like the sublime to the extreme. Like you always knew. I was like dinosaurs and dice every time. But you... absolutely not. Swimming pools. Like you just... coffee. There was one that was literally just... there was one that was just danger. There was one that was literally like danger.

Kelly (09:29)
What?

Dungeons and Dragons.

Nikki (09:37)
Ha ha ha ha!

Kelly (09:46)
my

Nikki (09:46)
that'd be a big one in Utah.

Maureen (09:54)
Like how many stories about people making community gardens are you going to put in this English textbook? Like this is, so yeah, it was textbooks. And then I also did, standardized tests. And I had this weird specialty that this was my side gig. This was my hustle for maybe six or seven years. And I have all this experience in textbooks and testing and seeing how restrictive it was. And one of my last acts was to take.

Kelly (09:59)
Right?

Hmm.

Maureen (10:21)
the list of things we couldn't have in a textbook. And I sent it to Harper's Magazine. And I was like, here is it. Cause they used to publish all kinds of stuff in the opening, like things. And I was like, and they published it. And then under the, under the heading text for nothing, like it's this, was just this list of things you couldn't have in there. And now we have book banning and now we have this, this kind of codifying of transphobia, which was weirdly in some ways author driven.

I mean, it's, and then, know, it, especially in the UK, it really, that kind of movement came over from the UK in a very, in a certain way. And then, you know, they're afraid of drag, drag performers reading to kids. And it's become this rodeo weirdness here where it's just all these talking points and people now just people like, there are, there are libraries, there are school libraries and classrooms in Florida right now that have no books in them.

Kelly (11:01)
Mmm.

Yeah, so sad.

Maureen (11:21)
They have no, I want to repeat that. They have no books in them because of the law. I don't know what to about that. So I'm sorry to, I know I'm supposed to be talking about death at morning house, but I'm like, this is much more important. So, yes, I'm very passionate about it. Makes me so mad.

Kelly (11:32)
Mm -hmm.

No, that's okay. Well, I think, I think, I mean, Canada is definitely not perfect. But I think one thing is that we have, like three main political parties. So it's harder to get a majority in the House of Parliament, which is like our Senate, I guess, maybe I'm not a expert. But yeah, so like when it comes to things like we can't teach about dinosaurs.

Maureen (11:52)
Right.

Kelly (12:04)
Some places may feel a little bit like that. Like some places out West are kind of more like traditional, you might say like the South or something, but like not really still like we still to my knowledge, like we teach about dinosaurs. We teach about whatever there's other things that we cover up. Yeah. Other things we cover up, but like it is harder to push your, your singular agenda when there's multiple parties trying to work together in the house to

Nikki (12:19)
evolution, yeah.

Kelly (12:34)
keep it as equal as they can, but it's not perfect. Yeah.

Maureen (12:37)
We're not supposed to be a duopoly here, but we are. Like that's not, it's not codified that we're a duopoly, but we are de facto a duopoly. So, but not for, I'm not trying to just make this about, I'm not, I'm not trying to make this about my book, but that's partially what's that's there. It's dedicated to the librarians and the booksellers and the teachers that are fighting. But part of what Death at Morning House is about, I'm pretty direct about it, is about covering up, covering up your past.

Kelly (12:43)
Yeah.

Nikki (12:45)
Yeah.

Kelly (12:55)
Mm -hmm.

Maureen (13:06)
and refusing to tell stories about your past and literally the elimination of certain parts of history that you're not allowed to teach here. Of the things that really happened. There's a lot of stuff in our history that's very bizarre. the people, when they hear about it, they're like, well, I never was taught about that, so it must not be real. Well, no, you weren't taught about it because you weren't taught about it. Like, that's it. That one always gets me when people are like, well, it must not be true because I was never taught about it.

Kelly (13:06)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Maureen (13:35)
That's not how anything works. You just weren't taught about it. You not knowing doesn't make it fake.

Nikki (13:37)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly (13:39)
Yeah.

Nikki (13:42)
yet you weren't taught about it because some old white guy probably said, people don't need to know this, and then just pushed it away.

Kelly (13:42)
No.

Yeah.

Maureen (13:52)
And none of this is, none of this is really, because part of what you find out in the past, there are two narratives in this book, a 1930s one and a present day one, is what this family, this very rich, famous family in the past was into. And one of the things they are into, and it comes right up, is eugenics, which was super common, accepted every day. It wasn't fringe, really. You could go to state fairs and get a corndog and then go over.

Kelly (14:04)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Maureen (14:20)
to the eugenics tent and get your baby's head measured. There were eugenics tents at state fairs. And that's what they did. it's that it is genuinely, that's not a joke I'm making up. That is what was happening. It was just like, that's just how it is. That's just how it is. It pops up, know, if you've ever, am I getting too bookie? But if you read the great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan mentions this, he's like, here's,

Kelly (14:28)
Ew.

Yeah.

you

Maureen (14:48)
He's talking about all this incredibly racist stuff and mentioning these books. He's like, this is what's really, all of that was common belief. Like that was, that was basically, that was where people were at. That's what they were accepting as like, this is just, you know, this is just scholarship. This is just, so yeah, we don't, we don't talk about that. It's just, it's here again in another form because we never talk about it.

Kelly (15:06)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Okay, I want to deep dive into Morning House. But first I got to ask about your other very popular book series, Truly Devious, which Nikki and I both love. did an episode on the first book, I think in our first season of the podcast. Love it so much. And so after you're welcome. Thank you. After so many series and the success of Truly Devious, what made you decide to write a standalone mystery in Death at Morning House?

Nikki (15:31)
Yeah.

Maureen (15:34)
Thank you.

Well, first of all, there more Stevie bells coming. Stevie bell six has already started. So yeah. So it wasn't that it stopped. It didn't stop. No, in fact here.

Nikki (15:50)
thank goodness.

Kelly (15:54)
Good.

Maureen (15:58)
So this, for the reader, I'm holding up a little, I don't want hold it up too much, but it is a chart. It's a character progression chart from Truly Devious right through the last book. And these are all like the various notes that I have of what's happening with each character. And this particular chart, obviously you know Holly Black. Holly Black, good friend of mine.

Kelly (16:25)
Yes.

Maureen (16:29)
a genius. She is the person you call at midnight and say, my book is broken. This is, this is really what she's like. And she says, send it to me and call me at four in the morning. And then she reads it. She's also nocturnal and then she reads it and then she tells you what's wrong. She's like, she's like a book doctor. She's like a professor. No, mean, Holly, but Holly and also given the choice, Holly would spend all of her time. We all have, we all have activities we do.

Kelly (16:46)
my god.

Nikki (16:48)
It's great to have a friend like that.

Kelly (16:50)
All right.

Maureen (16:58)
to not write. Holly's are fixing other people's books and or, and she also got me deep into planner culture. she got deep into planners during COVID. And then when I went to her house, she was like, I need to show you all my planners. So here is the happy planner and here's the Erin Condon. And I'm really into the vertical layouts, but also the horizontal. So she is like a whole plan. She's the one that gave me this, this, this pencil case.

with all of these special light, light colored highlighters. She's like, these are good for planners. So I have a lot of Holly related stuff, but this chart I made at overnight at her house where we chugged coffee and she has a great big table and she has a roll of like butcher's paper that she can pull over. So she can fill the whole paper with butcher, the whole table with butcher's paper. And then she slams down like a jar of markers and crayons. And we literally made a giant.

Nikki (17:45)
yet.

Maureen (17:57)
chart and I talked through and we wrote it out of all like these character arcs. and then I rolled it up and I took home this giant scroll, which I then converted to what I'm all curious what the charts are behind here. more of them. I like a chart. As you can see this. this is a box of the woods revision chart. This is how, like how I ended up finishing the book as I went through chapter by chapter and then like noted all the things I had to fix. And I love a chart. I like graph. I like order.

Kelly (18:03)
God.

You are in good company. This talk about different planners. Let's roll out this paper. Look at my different highlighters. I'm like, okay, well, a sec.

Nikki (18:27)
Yep.

Maureen (18:32)
Okay, listen, hold on. Let's go. Then let's go. If we're going to do this, let's do it. Okay, first of all, this is the new planner I got obsessed with and then never used. I overnighted it and spent extra money on it. But here's why it's great. And I'm definitely going to use it in the fall is because it has this spread. I know you guys didn't come here for this, but it's big. has this really long spread.

Nikki (18:33)
Yeah.

Kelly (18:46)
No.

relatable.

Maureen (19:00)
that you can do the whole month in. And then it has these flaps that you can do week by week, but you can see the whole month at once. That's what I really wanted is the ability to see the whole month at once. You guys, I could talk about this forever. And also just things like just printing out, this is a new dossier mystery I'm working on that is a case book. So you literally get a case book of documents and photographs, and then the solution is in the back. So this is actually being finished this week.

Nikki (19:08)
I love that.

Kelly (19:12)
Yeah.

Nikki (19:14)
We could too.

Maureen (19:28)
and I'm illustrating it with my friend, Jay Cooper, cause I did this little guide book called your guide to not getting murdered in a quaint English village. And he's doing the illustri so that's done. That book's been out for a while, but, this is, so these are documents, but like you get, like you get charts, you get like, these are all clues. go through the, you, this is real. This was just the rough draft. These are all, but yeah. So then you print it out, you know, got my highlighters, got my.

Got my Post -its. I'm just saying, I never travel without this many pens and this many, this many Post -its and highlighters.

Kelly (20:10)
God, I love it. I'm here for it.

Nikki (20:12)
Me too.

Maureen (20:14)
If you just, if you just shake me post its fallout, like it's, I have a lot of, I'm my, my, was supposed to be on tour for this book. Okay. I just got a complaint for second. I've had two book tours since COVID started. The first one was January last year, January 23. I went on tour and I immediately got COVID for the first time. First day out, I got COVID. I was one for one.

and I got stuck in San Luis Obispo, California. I quarantined, I got it. I suddenly had a fever of 102. I was really sick and I was like, I just stayed in a hotel. And I was on, because I was on, in Pismo beach. I stayed in a beach hotel. I was tripping balls because I was so sick, but I just opened the window. And so I had a balcony and I just breathed in beach air and laid in bed and watched surfers. Cause you could see them from the window and just was like,

That was my first tour. Here we are. I'm like now touring for death at morning house and nothing can go wrong now. We just needed to, cause my husband's English. We just needed to go to England and visit our relatives and everything was cool. And I was ready to go because technically I should have been gone this whole last week. But then on, then on Monday got a little sniffle. Hmm. Little sneeze. I'm like, I'm just allergic.

There's something in the air. now I have chills. now I'm nauseous. now I'm asleep. Hmm, what could it be? It's definitely not COVID. I was the only person masking in England.

Kelly (21:42)
you

Maureen (21:53)
I got COVID again and it right three days before my tour. So I have, or actually, no, I'm sorry. It was a week. It was a week before my tour. I'm, I don't know what day or time it is anymore. I've lost all sense of it, but it tanked the U S tour and I, it has been reassembled and I am starting again this weekend and I will be doing half this U S tour and then going right to the UK to do a full UK tour. And then I will come back and I will finish the U S tour.

Nikki (21:55)
Noooo

Well, the good news about you already having had COVID is you'll be immune for a while, so you get to enjoy this time around.

Kelly (22:22)
my gosh.

Maureen (22:30)
Look, I'm not so egotistical. I don't believe that the universe is telling me so, but at the same time, I'm like, okay, you're two for two. And two of those, by the way, have been Boulder, Colorado. Boulder, Colorado is like, you are absolutely just against us. Like, yeah, Boulder's like, so I am going to Boulder this upcoming weekend. I will be on a plane on

Kelly (22:34)
you

Shots fired, Boulder.

Maureen (22:54)
Saturday, I'm going to be there Boulder. Nothing can stop me now. She said as a piano fell on her from the sky. So I feel like something's going to stop me. I've been walking through the Boulder to the get the plane and someone's going to just like jump on me Secret Service style and be like, no, you're not.

Kelly (23:08)
God. You're going to feel the moment the air shifts in the plane, like I'm in Boulder. Like you're just going to know.

Nikki (23:14)
Yeah.

Maureen (23:15)
Well, you fly to Denver and that is where my agent and best friend lives. So I'm just going to stay with her. But here's the thing, Boulder, Boulder bookstore. We may be bringing a puppy because she just got a new Jack Russell puppy. He's a little tiny guy and he has two little hearts in his fur. So they named him the doctor and they call him Doc.

Nikki (23:30)
gosh jealous

Aww.

I love that.

Kelly (23:43)
and he had a few heart spots and they're just so sweet.

Maureen (23:48)
Can you imagine who you show up? That will be the second time also that we have maybe shown up for a Colorado signing with the dog because I've also done the tattered cover in Denver. And on the way we were in the car and there's a, there was a golden retriever just walking down the street alone. And we stopped the car and we're like, what's happening? And so we got the dog and he happily hopped into the trunk. And then we drove around, we couldn't find the owner and we were calling and nobody was answering or like this golden retriever is.

coming to the bookstore with us. So we were going to be like, it's us and this golden retriever we found on the sidewalk. And then at the last second, the owner called and we were able to reunite them. So I might be the author that either doesn't show up in Colorado, but if she does, we'll bring a dog that she finds.

Nikki (24:35)
Well, I mean...

Maureen (24:35)
I'm not against it.

Kelly (24:36)
Would you ever, would you ever write a animal companion for a sleuth in one of your books?

Maureen (24:42)
Sure. I will make this personal guarantee though, that an animal will never ever be hurt or killed in one of my books. Because I, look, I know it's a little, I just personally can't write it. And I'm just that person. Like I can't even watch the secret life of pets because some of the pets are sad in it. I'm just, I'm like, these animated pets are sad. I am that much of a, of a.

Nikki (24:49)
Thank you.

Kelly (24:50)
Yay, thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nikki (25:07)
Yeah.

Maureen (25:09)
I can't watch John, I've watched John Wick, but I've started it a half hour in that I've, was told what happened and I just was like, okay, it's not for me.

Kelly (25:12)
yeah, that. Yes, I would be John Wick. Honestly, I would be him. I have no training. I'll get me some. I don't need it. Just a woman scorned. Yeah.

Maureen (25:24)
yeah!

Nikki (25:26)
Yeah.

Maureen (25:26)
you hurt my dog? Okay. Looks like I'm an assassin. I 100 % understand that.

Nikki (25:33)
Yep. Yeah, I can read some gory stuff. And as soon as it's about an animal, I'm like, this is the worst thing ever. like humans, I'm like, yeah, murder that guy. Let me read about it. It's fine.

Kelly (25:33)
Yeah.

Maureen (25:41)
Nope. Mm -mm.

Kelly (25:42)
Yeah.

Maureen (25:47)
You know -

thought about this and I'm like, it's, I think it's partially because we, okay, we are human. At least, you know, look, if you're not and you're listening, you know, but whenever I see animals on shows, I'm like, they don't know they're acting. They don't, they're not acting. They're not, they don't know what TV is. They don't know what movies are. They're just being a good boy. Like they don't know. And I'm always thinking about that is that they are, they are doing their own thing. They have no idea.

Nikki (26:08)
right?

Kelly (26:10)
Ew.

Maureen (26:16)
what a John Wick is. They're just, they're just in, they're just getting treats and hanging out and they, you know, they don't know. So in many ways I'm like, it's, they, I don't want to involve them in a bad way.

Kelly (26:16)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Nikki (26:23)
Yep.

Kelly (26:29)
Yeah, yeah, agreed.

Nikki (26:30)
Yeah.

Maureen (26:34)
Anyway, death at morning house. Is that what I'm supposed to say?

Nikki (26:36)
you

Maureen (26:40)
I'm so bad at publicity. They're like, talk about your book. I'm like, do you want to hear about pens and dogs?

Kelly (26:41)
you

Nikki (26:42)
You

Kelly (26:45)
Hey, that's okay. We have a so -called book podcast, but we'll go off on tangents about like musical theater, about who knows what. And then I'm like, yeah, so this book we read, bringing it back, you know?

Nikki (26:56)
Yeah.

Maureen (26:57)
musical theater? Guess who knows whenever there is a regional production of rent? That would be this one right here.

Nikki (27:06)
I love that.

Maureen (27:07)
When your name is Maureen Johnson, a name I had before rent was rent.

Kelly (27:12)
Ugh.

Nikki (27:14)
Yep.

Maureen (27:15)
Question I got in beginning, are you named for her? Is she named for you? Are you her? Did you cheat?

Nikki (27:21)
Are you

Kelly (27:25)
my God, people.

Maureen (27:27)
I am the morning John to really does live near the 11th Street. I live in the East Village so I live where this like Yeah, I have been to it's not the life cafe anymore, but that that bar restaurant. I have been there It's in my neighborhood. I Feel and I know Anthony so I call him pookie So am I I'm like we're meant to be together pookie. He's my pookie

Nikki (27:42)
Yeah.

my gosh, that's too good.

Maureen (27:55)
I always call him Pookie when I talk to him. I'm like, I get to call you Pookie. My name's Maureen Johnson. I'm just allowed. He accepts that.

Kelly (28:02)
Does anyone ever call you mojo for fun?

Maureen (28:05)
I got that as a kid. I never liked it. I like it, but no, no, no, I'm okay with it now. But as a kid, I don't know why as a kid, I was always like, don't call me that. You know how you're a kid and you just have an aversion to things that you can't quite explain. I just never got the mo because I think mo in my head always sounded like a 50 year old guy with a cigar that ran a bar in Queens. Like, there's mo.

Kelly (28:08)
I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Nikki (28:29)
Yeah.

Maureen (28:31)
But now I'm like, that sounds awesome. Call me Moe. And let me be some guy with chomping a cigar, running a bar. Hey Moe, what do you want to know? Sounds great.

Nikki (28:39)
I love that.

Kelly (28:42)
Yes.

Nikki (28:46)
So I wanted to ask for so the settings of your book are so lifelike. Yeah, your book. Don't worry, there's plenty more time for us to get into tangents about other things. I can guarantee you the people listening to this just want to hear your thoughts about anything like that. It doesn't have to be just about death at morning house. But this question is about death at morning house.

Maureen (28:51)
my book, right.

Kelly (28:57)
You

Maureen (28:59)
Great, great, great, great.

Great.

Kelly (29:05)
Yes.

Nikki (29:12)
In Truly Devious, the book took place in and around Burlington, Vermont, and the feeling of being on the mountain was super captivating. just, the first couple chapters of that book, I was like, I am here. And as I was reading, nothing in my world existed other than that book. In Death at Morning House, the protagonist Marlo Wexler ends up on Thousand Islands in upstate New York.

Kelly (29:33)
Mm

Nikki (29:39)
What drew you to set the novel there this time? Like what was intriguing about this area?

Maureen (29:47)
So as a mystery writer, have a job of, it's a really sta - it has a lot, when I think about mysteries, they're very stage -like. You're really setting your characters on a stage. You're giving them a place they can't really move from because you need them to all have been in the same place and you sometimes kind of need to keep them there. That's why mysteries are always trying to contain characters in a setting. A remote house. A mountain. that, the reason

truly devious was set there was I needed to put them on a mountain. And so I kind of look for the bit of geography or the location that seems right. And for that type of school, the history, everything, Vermont, Burlington turned out to be perfect. I knew I wanted the island mysteries are classic. I wanted to think of a good island. And I remember hearing about the Thousand Island as a kid. My I think my postcard I saw at my aunt's house or something of these.

all these little tiny islands. There are 1800 islands in the St. Lawrence River, which is a huge river. And you can have an island with just one house on it. Like it's wild. Like you go there and it's literally just a house in the river with nothing. Like you step out the front door and you have one foot and that's it. You don't go outside except in a boat. I don't know what you do, but you don't go outside.

Kelly (30:50)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Maureen (31:16)
So some of these are very small and some of these are bigger islands and a lot of them were personally like they were purchased because this was a playground for the super rich. So they would purchase islands and build mansions on them and they would spend their summers there, yachting from house to house. They would do things like the poker race where you race from island to island and pick up cards or it was a bootleggers paradise because that's a point between Canada and the United States.

Liquor would come down, so they'd have, they'd race the police in these speedboats. They would dump their liquor in the river. Sometimes they dump it with salt. So when the salt dissolved, the liquor would rise and someone would come and pick it up. So it really is littered with liquor bottles, like old liquor bottles and history and police chases, pirates and 5 ,000 shipwrecks. So it's, it's a good Island setting and you could keep them there because you can't, you know.

You have, I thought a lot about how many, exactly how many yards from the shore this house would be. Is it swimmable? Is it, can you swim to another island? And in this case, I made it so you can't. This is again, it's a shipping channel. You can swim in parts of it, but you can drown very, very easily swimming in it.

Kelly (32:24)
Hmm.

Mm -hmm. I loved hearing about all of the fun like Prohibition era factoids and tidbits and sometimes I was like this is too cool to be real but it has to be real because that's how life works. Yeah like yeah it's wild.

Maureen (32:39)
It's real. It is actually real. That's, that's what I found out when I went up there. I, you know, I went on a bunch of tours and I met a teenage tour guide and I talked to her throughout. She was one of my contacts. And so you find out all these, when you go, when you do the boat tours, they tell you all about like, yes, the, would have these runners that would, would go across the river at night in boats with the lights off.

or they would dump the stuff overboard or they would leave it on an island and it would get picked up. So that a whole river crossing is full of old booze. And it's really kind of romantic and fun. But from that tour guide, I was like, this is the coolest job ever. She's just like, yeah, I live here. We jet ski to work. Like you go for, you have to get from island to island, like to do stuff. you jet ski to get over there, to get to this house or this island.

You either boat or you jet ski to get from place to place. It's amazing. And I was like, I need to move here because it also looks tropical. The water is super pure. It's really clean and it glows green like tropical water. there's parts where you look and these houses are kind of candy colored and the water is tropical and people are just, I'm like, what am I doing wrong with my life? Like, why am I not here? This is great.

Kelly (34:01)
You gotta get yourself an island, honestly.

Nikki (34:02)
Yeah.

Maureen (34:03)
The only thing is, you have a fire, there's a thing in there about a boat being called the Last Chance. That's real. That boat is, the fire boat is actually called the Last Chance. Because if you have a fire on your island, they are your Last Chance. So that is not made up. That is real.

Kelly (34:15)
my god.

Nikki (34:21)
Well.

Kelly (34:21)
my God. See, I don't swim. So I just, that's not good, good juju for me. I'm just gonna stay on land.

Maureen (34:29)
Yeah, if you get on trouble on the island, you're close, so you can boat to the shore or another island, but you have to have a boat or some other means. And if there's a fire, you have to get the fire boat.

Nikki (34:38)
Right.

Kelly (34:38)
Yeah.

Nikki (34:41)
It was like always my dream to live on an island, like my home when I was a kid. And so reading this book and like seeing the setting, other than the creepy stained glass faces and everything, I was like, I could do this, but I wouldn't have a bunch of kids. It would just be me and every room would be like for a different hobby I have.

Kelly (35:04)
Ha ha!

Maureen (35:05)
It's

Yeah. I mean, it's beautiful, but the thing is you really are, you know, if you want to go to town and see people and get stuff, you have to take a boat. want, if you need groceries, you have to take a boat. So in the winter, either you don't stay there or you have enough provisions in case you're iced in or there's a storm. they have ice, they have things to cross in the ice, but it's, it's dicey in the, on the off season and in, and you know, if, and again, if there's a storm, you, you're beast.

Kelly (35:10)
Yes.

Nikki (35:34)
Yeah.

Maureen (35:40)
You have to have a generator and enough provisions.

Nikki (35:43)
Yep.

Kelly (35:44)
Well, Nikki, maybe I would visit you. Maybe I wouldn't, because I'm like, that's too much for me.

Maureen (35:51)
It is pretty. It's real pretty.

Nikki (35:52)
Yeah.

Kelly (35:55)
say even though some truly sad at times and some scary moments always happen in your books, I always find them super cozy and for whatever reason, even though people are dying, like, I love this, I want to stay here, you know? But I'm also always trying to solve the mysteries alongside the protagonist. And so usually not very successfully. So kudos to you, but

Do you like dropping these breadcrumbs for us? And how do you find the right balance of like, how much do I drop when? If you can share a bit about that.

Maureen (36:32)
That's all the, yeah, mean, mysteries are games and there are mysteries out there. There are types of mysteries that are not solvable. Like sometimes police procedurals aren't solvable by the reader because you're just following the police as they collect evidence or find things. A classic, what's called a fair play mystery, which is this, what this is, means that it can be solved by the reader given the

The information in the book, you don't need external information. and you don't, and you know, for example, it might turn up in a, in a certain type of mystery that you haven't met the murderer. You know, it's DNA and you find the person. In these kinds of mysteries in fair play, the, the people responsible are always there in the group, in the setting. And it's up to you, the reader, with the information given to figure it out. It's a game. It's a puzzle.

I always start writing mysteries from why. Always. I sit and think about why, because it's a serious thing, even though it's, it's, it's a mystery, murder mysteries are weirdly fun, but they are gruesome. And you have to really know why this happened. And then I pull out the who and the how, and I write the end. have, I figure out all the technical aspects of it and why and how everybody relates to what goes on.

Kelly (37:40)
you

Maureen (37:56)
And from there, I can start pulling threads and working backwards. Okay. Here's how this person, this is why this person wouldn't talk about this. This is why this other person wouldn't have noticed this. This is why this other person is ignoring this, et cetera. And then I kind of pull towards the front.

Nikki (38:14)
Alright.

Kelly (38:14)
interesting. That's kind of like the opposite of how you write other genre fiction I feel like in a way because yeah.

Maureen (38:20)
Well, I often write the end. I, I've never written a book in order. Ever. Ever. I've never written anything in order. I've never written an essay in order. I've never written, I write bits of it. Like that might kind of core sentiments or ideas that I have. luckily now I used to always just do it in word, but I use Scrivener, which is a

Kelly (38:25)
interesting. Cool.

Mm.

Maureen (38:45)
a program used by a lot of writers. And it's very simple, but it's that you can make individual files for things. So I can write a scene file and you can move them up and down. You can combine them. And that's a great tool if you write like me and you are writing in different sections that you sometimes need to reorder or label because some of this takes place in the past. Some of it's in the present. So I can see by marking like where I'm putting in my past sections.

Kelly (38:58)
Hmm.

Maureen (39:09)
And sometimes I can move them up and down like, okay, actually I want it between chapter 16 and 17 and not where I have it. So.

Nikki (39:16)
Right.

Kelly (39:17)
Okay, yeah, not all of us have a block roll, butcher paper roll on our table. I wish. block.

Nikki (39:22)
you

Maureen (39:22)
I re

Scrivener is a great program. It's almost, yeah, I would say most writers I know that I hang out with use it. and then you just export it as a document. but it just, it's very simple, but it allows you to write sections, group things in chapters and scenes and things like that.

Nikki (39:42)
Yeah, I haven't used Scrivener, but I've used, I've dabbled in Dabble, which is another kind of like writing tool like that. And I love it because it has the kind of cue card layout that people like to use sometimes. So instead of having it on a big white board or on a cork board, you have it actually like on your program. And it is so nice for organizing and everything. Yeah, that's super cool.

Kelly (39:43)
That's cool.

Maureen (39:56)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

It, I don't get into the really, cause it has a billion technical settings. You can do tags and set, like there's, you can, if you want, you can drill this thing into the ground. I never get into all of that. I just basically use it to write things in sections and then I'll label them occasionally a color, but that's it. I don't do all of the, you can do things where you label exactly what characters show up in what scenes and then you can sort by character and you can sort, like you can do all of that.

Nikki (40:37)
Right.

Maureen (40:38)
That's, it's one step too fussy for me. but I like to keep it divided and then be able to do my sections. I move my hands a lot. I'm always like, and this moves here and this.

Nikki (40:47)
for sure.

Kelly (40:50)
That's okay. I'm too close to see my hands. got to bring them up.

Nikki (40:55)
Yeah, like this.

I'm going to skip around a little bit. Is Wexler a call to Turtle? Okay, I knew it. I loved the Weston game when I was a kid.

Maureen (41:03)
Yes.

I'm gonna tell you guys a secret. I'm gonna tell you guys a secret.

I was, I've never told this, I'm not sure if I'm assigned an NDA or anything, but I was offered the job of writing the sequel.

Nikki (41:22)
we need a sequel.

Maureen (41:22)
A long time ago. No, it never came to pass for like complicated reasons. Like it just, and I thought about it and I declined because I was like, this is, it shouldn't be. I don't know. I've never, have, I have feelings about when a serious, like when books are taken over by other writers. I don't, I don't know. Like I get it, but I don't love it.

Nikki (41:27)
Right.

Mmm.

Mm

Yep.

Maureen (41:50)
And I was, but I was like, that is a higher compliment has never ever been paid to me than that. Like it's. Yeah. So I was actually offered that job at one point and I was like, and I never get to talk about it, but I was like, I'm like, I'm just going to say it. And I was like, this is, I mean that, that, that, that would have been, yeah. But I was like, shouldn't happen. Let it be.

Nikki (42:00)
my gosh.

Kelly (42:05)
Yeah, it's just us girls here.

Nikki (42:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, I yeah, literally we had written down for like later in the questions. I'm a huge fan of Ellen Raskin's The Westingame. Huge. I read it when I was in grade four for the first time and I've read it so many times since and I get it like the ending of that book is so like all encompassing and poignant and like

Maureen (42:22)
Mmm.

Nikki (42:41)
There are so many ways that you could derail that by making a sequel. And I just, I'm so happy that you like named Marlo Wexler because I saw that on the, I don't know if I saw it in the cover or like when she's introducing herself in the book. And I was like, the Westingame. And I knew immediately that I was going to love this book.

Maureen (43:07)
I consider her a distant relative of Turtle.

Nikki (43:11)
Yes!

Kelly (43:14)
ready yet. I'm like, wait, I don't want to know. don't know. So I'm glad this has remained spoiler free. I'm excited because I know Nikki and I have similar tastes and I love mystery books and we grew up reading different mysteries. So it's like super fun. We can share them with each other. So I'm like, it's on my list. I got to get to it.

Nikki (43:17)
You're gonna love it.

Maureen (43:17)
It's good.

It's good.

It really, it's, it, yeah, it's, it's, it's very, it's so well structured. and it holds up in terms of like, it's from 1978, but it holds up in terms of diversity or holds up in terms of just like, there's stuff about it where you don't re it's sometimes you go back and you read stuff and you're like, yes, oof, ee, and the Westingame is really not like that.

Kelly (43:56)
You

Maureen (44:03)
And it's really just about people in this, that live in this, in this, this big building. Sunset towers and I don't know, I don't want to spoil it for you, but it's so good.

Kelly (44:16)
gonna circle back to a previous part of our conversation because I want to get more info on your dual timeline stories that you love to do which we love to read. I am super curious and I think we kind of got a bit of the answer but I want to hear more about do you write the two timelines separately like all in one go and then piece them together or do you write them in tandem? Yeah.

Maureen (44:42)
they, they kind of get written because I don't write anything in order. get, they, they're, they're weirdly easier to write than the present day pieces for me. They're always easier. I don't know why, but they're always easier. and sometimes I have to figure out how to break them and divide them. So sometimes I write a big chunk of it and then I'm like, actually, this is one section. This is one section. Because they're reveals. They're there. You just get these glimpses. You get, it's really selective.

Kelly (44:51)
okay.

Maureen (45:12)
when you get to look back and see what happened in 1932. So it's a bit of a balance because I'm trying to describe and give a full mystery of deaths in 1932 while doing a whole set of discoveries in the present of what happened. And I try to do these dual solves where you find out what happened in the past and what happened in the present. So it's a lot of tweaking and measuring.

Kelly (45:33)
Mm -hmm.

Okay, yeah. And I found at the end of this book, I won't say because we're going to keep it spoiler free. There was a section at the very end that made me very, very sad. I'm sure you know what it is. Yes. And I was like, even though people died, I felt like that was the true tragedy of the book.

Nikki (45:38)
Right.

Maureen (45:51)
Is it a letter?

That was my favorite part to write.

Nikki (46:00)
Yep.

Kelly (46:02)
It was so sweet and sad and romantic and just so many things in one. I was like, why? Why? At the very end, when I'm like, we're gonna calm down now? No, we're not gonna calm down.

Maureen (46:17)
It did feel when I was getting to the end, I'm like, stuff is happening now.

Kelly (46:22)
Yeah. Yeah. I was like, this is a whole other book. You know, like I'm ready, honestly. Just saying, but...

Nikki (46:23)
Yeah.

Maureen (46:30)
A lot, a lot went down.

Kelly (46:34)
Yeah, and we just got a little snippet of it.

Nikki (46:34)
Yeah.

Maureen (46:38)
There are surprises at the end.

Nikki (46:39)
You

so many and they're all great, like awful but great.

Kelly (46:44)
my gosh.

Maureen (46:49)
There's a lot of really awful stuff that happens in here.

Nikki (46:52)
Yeah.

Kelly (46:53)
yeah, and we loved it.

Maureen (46:56)
lot of terrible things happen.

Kelly (46:59)
but not to animals, so we're cool.

Maureen (47:00)
No, in fact, there is a cat in the book where I thought, are they going to have to be mean to this cat? And I was like, what if I turn it around and make it so that the cat gets rescued and lives the most awesome life ever with a rich person who poaches salmon for it twice a day? I'll do that. So that is literally what I did because I cannot, I just can't. It's the thing. I can't do it. I couldn't write it.

Nikki (47:00)
No.

Like, yeah.

Kelly (47:20)
Yeah.

Nikki (47:26)
If there's ever an option, make the animals royalty at the end. Just... Yep.

Kelly (47:31)
Yes. my God, yes.

Maureen (47:32)
I just, I can't, I can't do the, you know, obviously I don't do Bambi. don't do any of the, you know, I don't do those things. No.

Nikki (47:40)
Yep.

Kelly (47:40)
Yeah, no, no, never again. Saw it once, never again. My children will not be subjected to that. It's like, I can't. So I get it.

Maureen (47:46)
No. No!

Nikki (47:53)
So in both Truly Devious and Death at Morning House, the second plot line that's woven through takes place during the Prohibition era. Can you tell us a little bit more about your fascination with the time period? And would you consider writing more books with dual timelines in other periods? I know Box in the Woods has a 70s, I believe, timeline.

Maureen (48:19)
Mm -hmm. Yep. And...

Nikki (48:21)
but like, are there other areas or periods you're wanting to explore?

Maureen (48:25)
So there's Nine Liars, which came after Box in the Woods. Nine Liars is the most recent Stevie Bell and that past mystery takes place in 1995. So much more recent. It has a lot of, and it happens, it takes place in England, it has a lot of Britpop in it. Yeah, I mean, I think that you look back for periods that feel rich, like things that you are personally drawn to.

Nikki (48:35)
yes, yes it does.

It was so fun.

Maureen (48:56)
I've wondered, I'm like, why do I keep using these dual timelines? But then it kind of occurred to me that mysteries are about history. History and mysteries are linked. They're all about looking back and trying to reassemble what happened and pick through the pieces and try to figure out how we got to where we are. And it kind of doesn't matter if you're trying to reassemble a broken pot to try to put together the

the myth that's depicted on it and why it was used and how it was used. Or you're trying to figure out how the body got here. We're always just trying to figure out how we got to where we are. And what was it like before? And how did it lead to now? And mysteries are just about going back and trying to reassemble. So yeah, mean, what Beth at Morning House is about in a broader sense is...

literally some parts of American history that we try to ignore. Like I said, and the eugenics tense and things like that. Like these, these things have consequences. And when you try to block out and say, and just say, I'm not going to teach it. We don't want to talk about it. Then you get to the people that say it didn't happen. Because we don't talk about it, ergo, it didn't happen. It's a very, very dangerous way of thinking. So,

Nikki (50:16)
Right.

Maureen (50:22)
Yeah, I don't know. just have always been drawn to these things. I get very caught up in them.

Nikki (50:27)
what I love about the dual timelines in your books is even though, I mean, I was just born in 1995, but like the 90s, I was kind of like not super like coherent of what was going on. And reading about the 70s or the 30s, even the 90s makes me like nostalgic for a time that I wasn't even alive.

which is like so special. And I mean, obviously there are like horrible things that are happening in these books and crimes, but it's the essence of the time period and truly devious when they're talking on the rotary phones or the music that's being that they talk about playing in Nine Liars, the like structure of the house and what everybody was doing in Death at Morning House.

It makes you really nostalgic and feel like you are actually living in this time period. And then you also get to relate to people that are doing things in the time where you currently reside. And it just gives you everything to have those two time periods happening simultaneously.

Maureen (51:41)
I will say that now, since Nine Liars came out, the movie Saltburn came out and I feel like they are like, I'm like, did you like Saltburn? Would you like a slightly YA version of Saltburn? Man, I love Saltburn.

Nikki (51:55)
Yeah, I did too. I loved it.

Maureen (51:58)
I saw it on a plane, so I think they cut out some super gross scenes, which was perfect. Like I heard there were some really gross scenes and they, I think they toned them back for the plane.

Nikki (52:05)
Yeah. There were definitely some like scenes you don't want the person sitting next to you on a plane to look over and see you watching. I will say. Yeah.

Maureen (52:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly (52:16)
Or maybe you do depending on who's beside you.

Maureen (52:21)
Man, I loved it. I loved it so much.

Kelly (52:25)
my gosh, I think we have to wrap up soon, unfortunately, because we don't want to take up too much of your time. I know you have other interviews. I do, honestly. But I guess if I could end on one little question. Do you think there's any future Marlo Wexler books that could come about? No? Okay.

Nikki (52:30)
I know.

Maureen (52:32)
Don't you want to see more planners?

Nikki (52:34)
course.

Maureen (52:47)
No, this is meant to be a one and done, but Stevey6 is already begun.

Nikki (52:54)
thank goodness.

Kelly (52:54)
Okay. Yeah.

Maureen (52:55)
Stevie six and Stevie seven plus the dossier. Like there's a lot to write. So people are just like, what are you writing out? What are you doing? I'm like, I just feel like, what do you do? What do you do all day? What are you doing in there? Yeah. I sit in my desk. There's a lot of sitting involved.

Kelly (53:00)
Yeah.

Nikki (53:08)
You

That's okay, because you have lot of stationary to keep you company.

Kelly (53:11)
I don't mind. Yeah.

Maureen (53:14)
Although I will say a lot of writing is like, we were like, how long have you been doing? Like I clean up the kitchen and I fiddle around, but that's sort of what I'm thinking. I like to give, let me paint something. I can paint something all day. And like just a job where you can just do something repetitively and think is perfect. And for, you know, if I had a lawn, I'd be mowing at console.

Kelly (53:14)
Yes.

Maureen (53:41)
Except I wouldn't because I like to rewild lawns so that butterflies will come. But you know what saying? Like a nice repetitive, sweeping, vacuuming, like anything where you can just kind of be like, kind of go into a zone.

Kelly (53:47)
Yeah.

Nikki (53:55)
Right.

Kelly (53:55)
So feel like I need to start writing more so I can clean my house more is what you're saying to me.

Maureen (54:02)
well, that's the other thing is like when you are avoiding writing, you're like, well, obviously I have to, I have to bleach my doorknobs. Like it's just always, you just get into some weird task where you're like, but I need to repolish everything. Don't you understand the knobs of the stove? I need to totally re - I must clean this. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. If you know, if you've seen that I've pulled out the fridge, then you know that there's,

Kelly (54:09)
Okay.

Maureen (54:24)
That's every... That's every writer, though. That's... You know, you will suddenly find that somebody is like... Just do... You know, that's a classic thing. I lived in this crappy old apartment in Queens where you could do anything to this apartment and it didn't matter. And I repainted that thing so many times. I can't even tell you. I once, in the middle of the night, I ripped out the kitchen floor with my bare hands. I was just like, this gross lillium floor is gone! And I just pulled it up.

Kelly (54:25)
There's a call to Holly on the way.

Nikki (54:26)
Hahaha

Maureen (54:54)
And then I went to Home Depot and got like new floor tiles and put them down because I was like, I'm on book deadline. Time to take up the floor.

Nikki (55:04)
Honestly, I have a lot of procrastination issues and that really resonates with me.

Do one productive thing to avoid the productive thing you're actually supposed to be doing.

Maureen (55:14)
Yeah, I'll

Look, I have a chapter right, but have you seen my new steamer?

Kelly (55:20)
yeah.

Nikki (55:25)
Yup.

Maureen (55:27)
I did buy a steamer so I could like steam all the corners of things, but then it got recalled because every time I used it, it did burn me. And then it turned out I had a national recall. So I was like, maybe I'm not going to steam things. So that's my steamer store.

Nikki (55:38)
no.

Kelly (55:39)
it.

Maureen (55:40)
Yeah, you have to return it because they're like, have to cut the cord off and return it because I was like, yeah, this thing has burned me every time.

Kelly (55:47)
Ha!

Maureen (55:49)
Yeah. On that note, it's Death at Morning House.

Nikki (55:49)
gosh. On that note, thank you so much for joining us today, Maureen. This has been a blast hearing all of your stories and having you answer all of our questions that we have been dying to get answers to for years at this point.

Maureen (56:07)
Thank you so much!

Nikki (56:10)
And thank you all for listening. If you'd like to keep up with Maureen and her goings on, you can go to her website, MaureenJohnsonBooks .com or Instagram at MaureenJohnsonBooks. If you'd like to keep up to date with us, you can follow us on Instagram at BYO Book Podcast or on TikTok at Bring Your Own Book Podcast. And remember, if you want to read a mystery, pick up a Maureen Johnson book. Until next time, see ya!