[Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women and the arts in Virginia and beyond.

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner at Bluebird & Company here in beautiful Crozet, Virginia, with author Elle Cosimano.

Her Finlay Donovan series are full of humor, mystery, mayhem, and they left me wanting for so much more.

Hi, Elle.

Welcome to Write Around The Corner .

-It's wonderful to be here.

Thanks for having me.

-And this location seems to be absolutely perfect.

-I love this.

This is Bluebird & Company, and by far, my very favorite independent bookseller.

-And you call them mompreneurs, who are the owners of this little shop.

-Yes.

-Tell us about them.

-So, Flannery and Chelsea are the owners of Bluebird, and they are the most fantastic mompreneurs I've ever met.

Two very active, wonderful, creative, spectacular moms who came together and created this business here.

And we stumbled into each other several years ago as Finlay was just coming into the world, Finlay Donovan.

And they embraced me into the Crozet book community, and welcomed me to have my first event here.

And we have been fast friends ever since, and they've been tremendous supporters of the series.

-Well, thank you for inviting us here.

And it's just perfect for Finlay, right, the Finlay Donovan series.

But before we get to the books, I'm really curious about Elle, because you have such an interesting background, from, you know, knowing you wanted to be a writer as a little girl, to that period of time where your mom was sitting at the bottom of the, standing at the bottom of the steps when you were writing and said, "Show me your chapters."

A lot happened in between.

Share it with our viewers.

-Yeah, a lot happened in between.

I never really saw myself, realistically, ever pursuing writing as a career, or even having time to pursue it as a hobby.

I had a long and successful career in real estate.

It was a good career; I was very good at it.

But over time, I just felt very unfulfilled, like there was something in my life that I wasn't doing that I was supposed to be doing.

And my mother, in her infinite wisdom as moms, just seemed to know these things, looked at me one day and she said, "You know, you need to do something just for you, just for yourself."

And she was the one who encouraged me and sort of planted that seed that I should take some time off of work to write a book.

And at the time, I told her that was impossible, and there was no way I could make such a selfish, irresponsible choice.

I was the breadwinner at the time, and, you know, my work was very intensive.

And I had a five-year-old and an eight-year-old, and I was juggling about a million things.

And so, I told her, in no uncertain terms, it would never happen.

And then, I left her house, and I went home and I thought about it, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it.

And the next thing you know, I was telling my work that I was going to take a two-month sabbatical.

And I took two months off work to try to write my first book.

And that was, you know, that was more than a decade ago.

-That's so interesting.

Now, did you go back, or once you caught the writing bug and were doing it, you're like, you know what?

I'm not going back to real estate.

-I caught the writing bug.

I finished that first draft that summer, and I went home to my husband because I had stayed with my mom so she could help me with the kids to sort of pursue this little project.

Went home to my husband, and I said, "I think I really enjoyed this.

I might want to keep doing it."

And, you know, he asked a very important question that was, sort of changed the trajectory of our lives.

He said, "Well, are you any good at it?"

-Good question.

-It's a great question.

I said, "You know, I don't know the answer to that."

And he said, "Well, how do we find out?"

And that was sort of what put me on the journey to exploring writing and publishing as a career option.

And it was sort of a wing and a prayer.

We weren't really sure what to expect, if it would ever pay off, if it was something that was realistic, if it was something I was capable of doing.

But I'm very, very thankful I have a very, very supportive circle.

My family is very supportive.

My husband is very supportive.

My kids are very supportive.

And I couldn't have done that, I couldn't have made that leap without having that fantastic circle of support.

-Well, and that circle of support extended a little further, too, because not only did you change your work career, and life, you actually, at one point in time, picked up everything, you moved to Mexico, and you're also changing the family's life.

What was that like?

-That was wild, and, you know, in hindsight, it seems like it was so, so long ago, and it's still kind of mind-blowing to me that it really wasn't that long ago.

You know, my children were, like I said, five and eight, I think, when we started down this path, and we made the decision as a family to physically relocate to Quintana Roo, Mexico, where my parents were retired at the time, because we knew if we were going to do this, we were going to need more than just emotional support.

We were going to need a little bit of, you know, childcare support, and we were going to need a little bit of financial support in order to make that leap.

And so, we sold everything we owned and moved to Mexico with just the kids and what we could fit in the back of the station wagon, and our 90-pound dog.

So, you can imagine, there was not much left that you could fit in the back of that station wagon.

-Right.

-And we ended up living in Mexico for more than six years.

You know, my kids had an opportunity to grow up someplace completely new and be exposed to, you know, life somewhere completely new, a whole different life.

And we had a chance to be close to my parents, which, you know, for a mom with young children who, you know, are fortunate enough to have grandparents that want to be active and involved, it was a wonderful thing.

And it allowed me to launch what at the time felt like an impossible dream.

-Mm, I love that.

And I love the fact that you gave yourself and your husband helped you, too, give yourself the time and the space not only to breathe, but to discover you, and what you wanted to do next.

And so, where did that lead you from there?

-So, I had, at that point in time, a finished manuscript for my first book.

And I attended several writers' conferences and workshops and, thankfully, received some great feedback about that first manuscript.

And I decided I would query it and try to land an agent.

And I was very, very fortunate to find representation for that book, and that book went on to become my debut Young Adult Thriller, Nearly Gone .

It published... took a while to get that book, you know, out into the world.

The publishing schedules are long, but we actually ended up getting that book on the shelves in 2014.

It was nominated for an Edgar award... -Congratulations.

-Thank you.

It won the International Thriller Award and received a starred review, my first starred review.

And so, it felt like the beginning of something very promising.

And I went on to publish six Young Adult Thrillers of varying flavors and styles.

And Finlay Donovan then became my debut into Adult Mysteries.

-And your husband could say, "You know, you are good at this.

We found out that you are good at this.

Okay.

I guess the Edgar people and the star reviewing and winning these awards.

All right, we're onto something now."

-Yeah, you know, it's funny because we all talk about impostor syndrome.

And I find this to be so true because, you know, you publish these books and things happen, and you get this feedback that, yeah, maybe you are good at this, but we never really feel all that good at this.

Every book is a new adventure.

Every book is starting at the beginning.

There are challenges with everyone, and I think that's part of what makes the process special and humbling and wonderful.

Every book is a new adventure.

-Well, I read that you work at night, basically, and you're a plotter, so you like to kind of know where things are going.

But there's also, you talked about your network, of supportive networks.

So, enter your friends, Ashley and Megan-- -Yeah.

[Rose] --who are your writing buddies.

They're just good friends, good girlfriends to have around.

How have they played a role not only in Finlay , and we'll get to that in a second.

And I'll never look at Panera Bread the same way, I'll just tell you that.

But, in terms of supporting you in your writing and in the transition from the YA into the adult books.

-Yeah, I was very, very fortunate when I signed with my first literary agency.

I obviously had no idea what I was doing.

This was all brand new to me.

I did not have any formal training in writing.

My degree was in psychology.

I had been in real estate for more than a decade.

I had no idea what I was doing.

And so, I was sort of fumbling my way through this.

And my agent was wonderful, and she said, you know, I have some other writers that I should introduce you to.

And she said they're also sort of in the same stage of their career.

She introduced me by email to Megan Miranda and Ashley Elston, who were also pretty young moms at the time with kids.

We all had kids right around the same age.

We had all come from different careers, completely unrelated to writing.

We were all working on our very first books, and none of us knew what we were doing.

And she introduced us, and basically, you know, put us in an email thread together and said, "None of you have any idea what you're doing.

Go fix each other's books."

And so, hesitantly, we sort of reached out to each other and started critiquing for each other and reading each other's work.

And that was, I think, back in 2011.

And we have been regular critique partners ever since.

They are my, I like to joke that they're my Ride or Die critique buddies.

A day doesn't go by that we don't communicate by text or, you know, by email.

And we've been there for each other as our careers have kind of grown side by side and in really beautiful directions.

And we've all enjoyed a lot of success together, and we've all supported each other through the difficult times.

And so, it's been a wonderful companionship to have that support of other women who were in the same stage of their lives, going through the same things, that I could lean on.

And, yeah, I absolutely adore them.

-And I love the fact that you had the dedication in one of the Finlay books to the two of them.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-So that's a special relationship to have.

So, I'm sure you all do different types of research for all of your different books.

As we're talking about Finlay in particular, I understand that you actually went to some unusual places to investigate and research how Finlay was going to come to be, and some of the storylines that she was going to come to have.

And one of the first places that you guys went in your book critiquing and thinking about things was a Panera Bread, which happens to be an opening for one of the Finlay books.

So, without giving too much away, what would you think was the impetus there for that situation and that conversation, and how it grew?

-Yeah, at the time, Finlay wasn't even a thought in my mind that day that we met at Panera.

Megan and Ashley and I meet annually for writers' retreats where we talk shop, we talk about publishing, we talk about our stories, we brainstorm together.

And it was at one of these annual retreats that we ended up in a Panera Bread for lunch.

It was a very crowded Friday afternoon during the lunch rush.

The place was packed.

I think we claimed the last empty table in the middle of the restaurant.

And as we do during these retreats, we were brainstorming.

And it happened to be my turn to talk through a particularly difficult plot I was working on.

-But not Finlay .

-Not Finlay .

Finlay hadn't even come to me yet.

So, I was working on one of my Young Adult Thrillers, and I was having a predicament.

I knew someone had to die in the book.

I didn't know who.

I didn't know how, or what the aftermath of this was going to be.

And this is what we were talking about in a public setting, with lots of people very, very close by, as we got sort of engrossed in the conversation and forgot that there might be people listening.

And it wasn't until we were chin-deep in the conversation about murder and blood and what happens to the body and who's going to clean it up that it occurred to us that there was a woman at the table beside us who looked deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

And she got up from the table, had not finished her lunch, and left the restaurant, and we were fairly certain it was because of the topic.

-Is she calling 911?

What exactly is she doing, right?

Yeah.

-And we were a little concerned at this point.

And so, we laughed because we think she probably assumed some pretty horrible things about us.

But later on that night, as we were joking about it, someone posed the question, wouldn't it have been hilarious if she had assumed you were contract killers?

And that was sort of the lightning bolt that launched the idea for Finlay Donovan , about this, you know, this struggling author who's having a conversation with her literary agent in a crowded Panera Bread when a woman eavesdrops on the conversation and assumes Finlay is a killer for hire, and attempts to offer her money to kill her husband.

And that was the day; that was the birth of Finlay Donovan right there in Panera.

And so, I sort of honored that moment by letting that be the seed of inspiration for the opening of the story.

-I think I need to eavesdrop a little bit more when I'm in Panera because you never know what you might be hearing, right.

-[Elle] Right, right.

[Rose] But I think that's such a fun story, and it just sets up, really, who Finlay is because I can actually see Finlay doing some of these exact same things.

So, Finlay is how closely aligned with Elle?

-A lot of people, this is probably one of the questions I get most often is, how much of me is in the character of Finlay.

And there is quite a bit.

If I had to pick any of my characters that mirror me, Finlay is the closest.

Her author voice is very similar to mine.

We share a lot of similar frustrations, you know, similar habits in terms of, you know, writing at night.

You know, of course, because for many years, I was writing around my children's schedules the way that Finlay does.

-Well, and a mom of two kids, right.

-Mom of two kids.

And her mom voice is very much my mom voice.

You know, my children are grown, they're 18 and 21 now.

But I remember very clearly what it was like to have to, to try to, you know, be doing, to try to be holding down a career with two small children who are making messes and getting in trouble and all of these things.

So, in those senses, she's very much like me, but I'm very fortunate to have a lot more support, I think, you know.

And so, there are things about us that are different, too.

-What I love, and I'm sure you've talked about this many times, is the balance of the mystery and the humor that makes her so very real.

So, the fact that you can jump in and be like, oh, I'm just going to use my experiences with my children when they were little, and I'm going to write it and people are going to laugh because they lived it and they know it wasn't funny at the time, and it was harried at the time.

But now, when I look back, it is kind of funny.

The humor just seems to be a natural for you, a natural ability to bounce back and forth between humor and, it seems odd, murder and intrigue, and all the other characters and people.

-Right.

-Do you find that it's just kind of natural for you to do that?

-It's funny because I'd never written humor before.

I'd never even tried it.

And if you had asked me a few years ago if I'd be capable of writing funny books, I would have told you, absolutely not.

I'm just not a funny person.

And yet, obviously, they seem to be working.

But I think some of that just comes from a very authentic place inside me, you know, that's my humor.

That's, you know, Finlay's voice very closely mirrors my own.

And as authentic as I am to that, I think that's part of why it works.

But in terms of the balance between humor and thrillers and humor and dark mysteries, I also think that there's something authentic about that, too.

Humor is, for a lot of us, a coping mechanism for stress.

-Sure.

-And so, it's hard for me to see those kind of deep, dark stories without that little bit of light in them, too, because I think for so many of us, that's just naturally how we react, you know.

And so, I feel like maybe that's why it works, that we bring that balance, that this is life and there's good happening while there's bad happening, and we're all just handling it the very best we can.

-Well, and this cast of characters.

So, we'll introduce the viewers and the readers who haven't touched Finlay yet.

So, you've introduced us to Finlay, a single mom who's recently divorced, two little kids, struggling writer.

She's got a fun agent who's a little bossy.

But the nanny, Vero, who you've inserted in here, is a perfect combination.

So, introduce everyone to Vero and some of the other characters.

-Yeah, so we meet a character in the first book, Veronica Ruiz or Vero, and she is the children's nanny.

She's Finlay's babysitter, essentially.

And, when I started this story, had never seen this story being about two women.

I had just assumed the story was about Finlay until I started writing the first scene when we see Vero on the page with Finlay.

And at the time, just as a writer, I needed Finlay to encounter an obstacle.

You know, she's in a precarious situation that could get her in a lot of trouble.

And, of course, my job as the writer is to make that situation more complicated, to throw a hurdle at her.

And so, I threw a hurdle at her in the form of her children's babysitter, who stumbled into the crime scene, as it were.

-And who also has her own background that we learn throughout the other books... -Exactly.

-...that becomes a little dicey and kind of gets Finlay in a little more precarious position that she can't believe that she and Vero are dealing with this again.

And what are we going to do?

Who are some of the other characters?

-Yeah.

So, Vero ends up becoming sort of a mast of the story.

She becomes Finlay's counterpart, her partner in crime, as it were.

And this has since become the story of these two women.

So, of course, Vero now has this very full backstory that's coming into play as the series is growing.

And so, we're meeting her cousin Ramon, who owns a garage and a towing business in town.

And, of course, we meet, down the road, we meet Javi.

And Javier is a former love interest but also a childhood friend of Vero's.

So, we meet them in the series as well.

And so, those are all people that are part of Vero's backstory who are sort of coming now into the story as her character.

-And it's fun because we also have the love interests for, you know, for Finlay.

-Oh, yeah.

-So, we've got the hot cop Nick, and Julian.

But then, I love the fact that you added the nosy neighbor in here with Mrs. Haggerty, right.

-Yeah.

-And some of the other characters who are players.

I think it's so interesting that you hook us throughout the book with humor and mystery, and then murder, for, you know, what they're going to be doing.

But then, at the end of every book, you kind of lead us in by leaving a cliffhanger right there at the end.

-Yeah.

So, we sort of have a rhythm now with the series where every book sort of has its own standalone mystery to be solved within the context of that story, but we also have this fantastic, overarching plot that's growing.

At the very beginning, we didn't know how many books were going to be in the series, so I only knew that we were going to have the first two.

And so, I knew I needed to leave a little teaser at the end of the first book to get people excited for the second one.

But then, as we were writing the second one and we realized there were going to be more, I thought, well, how fun is this to have this sort of launching point, this sort of, you know, place to pique everybody's interest for the next book at the end of the story?

So, we've sort of gotten into that rhythm of, you know, little cliffhangers at the end of each book that immediately draws into the next story and kind of lets us know where we're going.

-Well, it works.

It absolutely works.

And Carol and I both absolutely loved it.

Waiting to see, oh, my gosh, here we go.

Let's pick up the next one and see where she's going to go with it.

Would you be willing to read something for us?

-I would love to.

-What are you going to choose?

-Why don't we start with the opening chapter of Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.

So, this is the... -Perfect.

I love those covers, by the way.

-Yeah.

This is the first book in the series.

And so, every book has a unique color for the cover.

And we always start and tell people, start with the pink.

But this opening is... -I wore this black shirt, by the way, just... -To go.

-Yes.

-Yes.

But, yeah, everyone's very fond of the first chapter of the story, and I think it's what draws so many people in to relate with this character.

We can all relate with the morning, like, we start with Finlay.

Chapter One.

"It's a widely known fact "that most moms are ready to kill someone by 8:30 A.M. "on any given morning.

"On the particular morning of Tuesday, October 8th, "I was ready by 7:45.

"If you've never had to wrestle a two-year-old "slathered in maple syrup into a diaper "while your four-year-old decides to give herself a haircut "in time for preschool, "all while trying to track down "the whereabouts of your missing nanny "as you sop up coffee grounds from an overflowing pot "because in your sleep-deprived fog, "you forgot to put the filter in, "let me spell it out for you.

"I was ready to kill someone.

"I didn't really care who.

"I was late.

"My agent was already on a train "from Grand Central to Union Station, "where I was supposed to meet her "for a brunch reservation "at a restaurant I couldn't afford "so we could discuss exactly how overdue I was "on my deadline for a book I had started three times "and probably would never finish because... "Jesus, look around me.

Reasons.

"My two-story colonial in South Riding "was just close enough to the city "to make 10:00 sound reasonable when I'd scheduled it.

"It was also just far enough outside the city "to convince otherwise sane people "to buy life-size inflatable dolls "so they could slither into the HOV lane "without getting a ticket, "or without being subjected to a drive-by shooting "by any of the rest of us who had not yet sold our souls "to buy inflatable dolls of our own.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd liked South Riding, "before the divorce.

"Back before I'd known "my husband was sleeping with our real estate agent, "who also sat on the board of the Homeowners Association.

"Somehow, I'm guessing that's not what the saleslady "had in mind when she'd described our suburban mecca "as having a 'small-town' feel.

"The brochure had featured photos of happy families "hugging each other on quaint front porches.

"It had used words like 'idyllic' and 'peaceful' "to describe the neighborhood, "because in the glossy pages of a real estate magazine, "no one can see through the windows "to the exhausted stabby mommy, or the naked sticky toddler, "or the hair and blood and coffee on the floor.

"'Mommy, fix it!'

Delia stood in the kitchen "rubbing her fingers over the patchy wet stubble "where she'd scratched herself with the scissors.

"A thin bead of blood trailed over her forehead, "and I smeared it up with an old burp rag "before it could drip in her eye.

"'I can't fix it, sweetie.

"We'll take you to the hairdresser after school.'

"I pressed the cloth to the bald spot "until the bleeding stopped.

"Then, with my cell phone tucked between my shoulder and my ear, "I crawled under the table "and scraped together the fallen strands of her hair, "counting unanswered rings.

"'I can't go to school like this.

"Everyone will laugh at me!'

"Delia cried big snotty tears "as Zachary rubbed toaster waffles in his hair "and gawked at her from his highchair.

"'Daddy would know how to fix it.'

"My head smacked the underside of the table, "and my two-year-old erupted in a fit of wails.

"I got stiffly to my feet, "brandishing a fistful of my daughter's wispy locks.

"The rest of the trimmed bits "were stuck in the syrup on the knee of my pants.

"Biting back a swear "my two-year-old was certain to repeat "for weeks in the grocery cart if I voiced it aloud, "I tossed the hairy poultry shears into the sink.

"Sometime around the 47th ring, the call went to voicemail.

"'Hi, Veronica?

It's Finlay.

I hope everything's okay,' "I said sweetly, "in case she'd been crushed to death in a car accident "or burned alive in a house fire overnight.

"'I was expecting you at 7:30 "so I could get to my meeting downtown.

"I guess you forgot?'

"My cheerful lilt at the end of the sentence "suggested this was okay.

That we were okay.

"But this was not okay.

I was not okay.

"'If you get this message, give me a call back, please,' "I added before hanging up.

"Because my children were watching, "and we always use our pleases and, 'Thank you.'

"I disconnected, dialed my ex, "and jammed the phone back under my ear "as I washed all hope for salvaging the day from my hands."

-Well, it's great, Elle.

And I think if people remember, okay, we go to Panera, someone slips her a note, and the murder and the cover-up and all those adventures are about to happen.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

-It's been wonderful.

Thanks for having me.

-My special thanks to Bluebird & Company here in Crozet for having us.

And to Elle Cosimano for just giving you a little taste of the Finlay Donovan series.

Check out more of our conversation online where we're going to get into the characters and a lot more about the books.

I'm Rose Martin, and I will see you next time Write Around The Corner .

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women and the arts in Virginia and beyond.