The science of sleep with Holly James

[Music Playing]

Adam Sockel:

You are listening to Passions & Prologues, a literary podcast where each week, I interview an author about a thing they love and how it inspires their work. I'm your host, Adam Sockel, and today's guest is Holly James, who is a rom-com writer, who has a new book out this summer called The Deja Glitch.

And lately, I've been interviewing a lot of authors who have just perfect pitches for their books, and this one is no different. It's basically like a new age version of Groundhogs Day. It is so delightful. It's so wonderful.

We get into the book, obviously, but it's basically a 24-hour time loop, where one person is trying to get the other to fall in love with them, and we join them in the middle of this process, not at the very start. But it's just the whole thing is delightful. You're really, really going to love it.

And this conversation is all about Holly's passion for science, specifically the science of sleep. This is something that she does as part of her day job. And I had many, many questions about it because I don't know that I've talked about it much on here, but I am a horrible sleeper. I get it from my mom. If you're listening, thanks so much for that.

I suffer from a lot of different … struggle to sleep maladies or abnormalities or whatever you want to call them. But it was really, really fun to get to pick Holly's brain about her day job and how it connects to her writing career.

And again, I really, really think you're going to love this book, The Deja Glitch, which we talk about for a while.

I have another book recommendation for you as well, a little bit unrelated this time. But I just finished Silver Nitrate, the new book by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is very well-known for her book, Mexican Gothic, and this story is a little bit different. If you are a fan of classic movies, I think you'll really, really like it.

She dives into this magical, mysterious world where there are people who have the power to perform magic, and they choose to do so through the lens, quite literally, of old movies. It's really, really interesting. It's really fascinating.

It is a story that I don't know that I was exactly expecting it when I went in. I saw that there was a new book available by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and I figured, you know what, I'm going to give it a try. It was really interesting. It was a really, really unique plot.

And again, if you're a fan of old Hollywood stories about mysterious magic and witches and warlocks and things like that, this is a really good book to kind of be as I've been talking about a little bit here, a warmup to spooky season. So, that's Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Okay, that is just about it. I want to give you a little bit more housekeeping. Of course, you can always find me on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram at Passions & Prologues, where I share clips of the episode, if you want to check out some of the videos. I also do book recommendations and all sorts of fun stuff.

All across, you can find me at Passions & Prologues on all those places. You know how to use social media, I'm not going to make you figure out how to find me. I believe in you all. I have confidence in you all.

Okay, that is all of the housekeeping. I am so excited for you guys to hear this conversation with Holly James, author of The Deja Glitch on Passions & Prologues.

[Music Playing]

Okay, Holly, what is something you are super passionate about that we're going to be discussing today?

Holly James:

I am super passionate about all things science. I actually am a scientist in my career outside of writing. And I think the more I think about it, I think it kind of subconsciously influences my writing. It's never really intentional how I incorporate it into my writing process or anything. But yeah, kind of reflecting on it, I think it does play a big part in who I am as an author.

Adam Sockel:

So, was science the subject that you found yourself drawn to as a kid in middle school and everything? Or was it kind of late blossoming in your passions?

Holly James:

You know, that's a good question. I think it was a later blossom. So, actually, I have a PhD in Psychology, so I went full bore scientist. And I think I really fell in love with that type of science. So, like human behavior research and I'm not a clinical psychologist, I'm not a therapist or a counselor.

I do research studies, I conduct intervention studies, actually specifically on sleep currently in my current day job. But I think I kind of came into that, I remember a distinct moment, as an undergraduate doing a homework assignment for a statistical class or something.

And I was just pouring over this Excel spreadsheet, and I had this moment of like, “I love this. I love this enough to pursue it in a passionate way.” And I know that's a pretty rare realization. So, I think I realized how important that was, that kind of this profound moment of like, “Yeah, this is what I want to pursue. This is what I want to do.”

But up until that, I think in middle school and high school, I was much more into arts, like the creative side of life, language and reading and books and music. I've played music my whole life too.

And I don't know, yeah, I think something just kind of flipped in my brain when I got to — I think I was more exposed to this high advanced level of scientific research and methodology and statistics that I was like, “Alright, this is what I really enjoy.”

Adam Sockel:

So, I'm going to bounce around just a little bit because-

Holly James:

Go for it.

Adam Sockel:

As a person who is both in therapy and it's the best thing I've ever done for myself, but also have horrible sleep patterns, and I'm a terrible, terrible sleeper. So, I'm curious what is the aspects of sleep that you're currently studying this?

I'm just going to preface, this may be interesting to me and me alone, but I don't care. It's my podcast. So, I'm going to ask what are you currently studying?

Holly James:

So, no, sleep struggles are very, very common. And I currently work for a sleep tracking company, that's our general platform. But it's funny to talk about this in detail because I usually keep my career separate.

Adam Sockel:

Oh, yeah. No, we don't have to go in detail. I'm sorry, it just sounded super fascinating.

Holly James:

No, it's just interesting. It's just interesting to have you be interested in it because I'm usually talking about books. But yeah, so I work for a company where we test non-pharmacological sleep interventions.

So, like behavioral environmental, bedroom environment, anything from bedding to lighting to even aromatherapy kind of fragrance stuff, to behavioral interventions like CBTI, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia specifically.

Things like that to test if these different kind of consumer products can improve people's sleep. And we specifically look at populations of people who are not diagnosed with a clinical sleep disorder.

So, there's this huge, huge portion of the population that is sub-threshold clinical disorder, where they do struggle to sleep, but they're not kind of over the edge of needing a medical intervention or some kind of more rigorous intervention where these more behavioral or environmental changes can actually improve their sleep.

So, I spend all day leading a team that conducts remote research studies on those kinds of interventions. So, we test people in their homes, basically. I don't work in a sleep lab — remote sleep lab.

Adam Sockel:

No, honestly, to me, it is super fascinating again, as a person who … I don't know how much of I've ever talked about it in here, but I do suffer from night terrors and very, very infrequent, but like sleep paralysis and just not fun stuff to go through.

But it's something where I have tried the nasal breathing and I've admittedly tried CBD, and trying to do just different types of meditation. And nothing so far has worked for me, but it is something I have become much more interested in for obvious reasons in my own life.

Holly James:

Yeah, it's usually a combination of things that works best for people. I mean, sleep is so dynamic and multifaceted that there's unfortunately not one like silver bullet that fixes everything. It might take you a long time to fall asleep or you might wake up multiple times during the night, or you, I don't know, sleep too long, that actually is a thing, or you don't sleep long enough.

So, it's hard to pin down what the one thing is that could resolve our issues. But we have found pretty commonly, it's a combination of bedroom environment and even temperature and winding down properly before bed and limiting your screen time, and all those things we know that we're supposed to do that we don't necessarily do.

Adam Sockel:

That we all struggle to do.

Holly James:

Yes.

Adam Sockel:

Okay. Well, at the risk of this becoming dangerously close to me, like just flat out ask advice for myself, I'll slightly of just my line of questioning. So, was this something — because I totally understand like for me, my day job is, I do marketing and I love storytelling, I love writing all these different things.

And I'm currently marketing a sales company and I like it, but it's not like I didn't go to school and graduate school and be like, “I one day want to write about business and sales development.” It just was a great opportunity and it's a wonderful job, but I never envisioned it.

So, when you kind of had that aha moment, you're like, “Oh my God, I really left this research aspect of science,” were there specific areas you were drawn to? Is sleep something you've always been interested in or is that just kind of currently like what was a good opportunity for you, and I guess what aspects of science and that research, and the human experience and human behavior drew you towards it?

Holly James:

So, I kind of stumbled into sleep. I didn't study sleep in my graduate training, so I know actual neuroscientists who studied sleep and circadian rhythms and are extreme experts in that area. And I just have scratched the surface of that just by necessity for my profession. So, I wouldn't call myself an expert in that by any means, but my expertise is more in research methodology and design and statistics.

So, I learned quickly when you're transitioning from an academic world into an industry career, that is a skillset that industry wants to basically buy from you. They want someone who knows how to do research and do their statistics and do all of that.

So, that also wasn't specifically what I studied in graduate school, I actually studied stress physiology. So, my degree is in health psychology, and I looked at acute stress responses like the flight or fight response and solidary cortisol. I did very gross, squishy laboratory research with literal spit samples for years and years.

So, yeah, I was always interested in kind of the intersection of health behaviors and technology and how technology could be leveraged to improve health and conduct health interventions. And when I was in grad school, I was studying acute stress physiology in the context of social media use.

So, this was back in 2014 to 17 was the prime of when I was doing that. Nowadays, I look at all these studies that have since come out and even documentaries, like what was the one on Netflix? The Social Dilemma.

And I'm just like, “Told you so, I told you this years ago,” because that's what my research was on. It was how this kind of acute impact of social media exposure and use on stress physiology, but also, just on your emotions and your cognitions. So, I feel like I'm wildly off topic of your question, but-

Adam Sockel:

No, honestly, this is great. So, my job before the one that I worked for now, I worked for a tech company where I had to write and market to developers. And one of my favorite coworkers was actually … she was a behavioral scientist.

She basically explored the psychology and the sociology of how developers work together and all of these … like it kind of to a smaller scope of what you were just talking about, but specific to developers, like how to improve the overall developer experience and from both as an individual and as a team, and all of these different things.

So, I promise you, I am a nerd for this stuff too. Tangentially, I knew enough where I would ask her questions about the experience and I'd be like, “Can you tell me the science behind X, Y, and Z?” And she'd be like, “Oh my God, totally.”

So, I'll steer us back towards writing, because you said before we started recording, you said that you think that your passion for science, it's sort of like the underlying aspect of your writing as well. So, how do the two tie together for you?

Holly James:

So, what I mentioned earlier, through my education, up until I became more engaged in science as an undergraduate and then a graduate student, I was really into language, arts, and writing and reading and music and things.

And I think then when I got into that really heavily analytical and logic centered other side of things in my scientific career, I think part of my brain was still really craving that creative outlet. So, I've always dabbled in creative writing, even as a teenager and younger, I would write little, short stories and poetry and stuff.

And then in graduate school, I think to help myself deal with the stress and pressure of that, I went back to creative writing, and I just started filling stuff onto the page and seeing where it went, see what would happen. And I think I didn't write anything like novel lengths until 2016 maybe. And maybe it was a little sooner than that.

But again, I was just seeing what would happen. I didn't really know what I was doing. And then I got brave enough to seek feedback on it. And was told, “Hey, you're kind of good at this.” So, then I started looking into pursuing traditional publishing, and what breaking into the industry would entail. And wow, the learning curve on that, it's breaking into publishing. It's a doozy for sure, getting into that.

So, actually, I queried for three years before I found my current literary agent. And she actually signed me as a thriller writer. So, before I ventured into women's fiction rom-com, I was writing thrillers because that's my favorite genre to read. And it just kind of made sense that that would be what I would write.

And my first book didn't sell, and then the pandemic hit, and I went stir crazy, and I wanted to write something much lighter and fluffier and happier, and a dark murder mystery. So, I did and that became my debut novel, Nothing But the Truth that came out in 2022 last year.

So, from there, I've kind of transitioned into this rom-com career path, which I love and is just joyous and so fun to be so engaged in that world.

But yeah, I think looking back on it all, I think I really was craving a creative outlet when I was going through this really intense, rigorous scientific training program. Like the whole part of my brain was like, “I'm dying, come back.” So, I did.

And now, I have these kinds of split-brain dual careers where I am spending nine to five doing really intense, scientific research, and then spending five to midnight writing love stories. So, yeah, I never thought I'd be here, but I mean, I'm thrilled to be here.

It's so cool and it's sometimes hard to balance just in terms of bandwidth and energy and hours in the day. But in terms of being content with both parts of it, I love it. I couldn't create a more perfect scenario for the type of stimulation that I crave and enjoy. Like both things just fuel it so much and it's happy chaos.

Adam Sockel:

So, first thing as a person who's currently querying as well and has been for a while, you saying the three years thing actually kind of makes me feel better in a way. Because it’s like-

Holly James:

Oh no, it's so hard.

Adam Sockel:

It's such a process. It's so hard, it could be you just need to catch the right literation on the right day in the right mood. And it is so just like you get all those emails where they're like, “Not for me, you have great writing, but not for me, thanks.”

Holly James:

Those are the glowing rejections where like, “This is amazing, I love this.” And then no.

Adam Sockel:

“Thanks so much.” That hurts somehow more. But I'm curious because like you said, you love reading thrillers and I know what you mean about when there's a genre that you kind of hold very close to your heart.

But how did you kind of go from that to writing like you said women's fiction, rom-com? Because the manuscript I wrote is speculative fiction, magical realism. I love reading horror. I could not write a horror novel, personally. I just know I couldn't. But I'm curious, how you decided like, “Okay, I'm going to shift genres and give it a try from a different angle.”

Holly James:

That's a great question. And I think … so I joke — maybe it's not a joke, but my toxic trait as an author is I'll write something and send it to my agent and be like, “I don't know what genre this is. Like good luck.” And she sold five books for me. So, I mean, she's amazing at figuring it out and pinpointing it.

But I think that transition for me really came in 2020 during the peak lockdown of kind of everyone having this collective insanity. And so, my first book, Nothing But the Truth is pitched as like a feminist liar, liar. So, it's about the movie with Jim Carrey from the nineties.

It's about this woman, she's a Hollywood publicist, and she wakes up on her 30th birthday after drinking a magical cocktail the night before. And she can't lie; she can't lie to herself or to anyone, and it trails her whole day of the kind of problems that causes and all these realizations she has. And she kind of revolutionizes her life.

And the idea for that really came to me in the peak of the lockdown where I remember I was laying on my bed one day staring at the ceiling, thinking about just how strange everything had become, but also how much had shifted in terms of these expectations put on women in particular for having to basically put on a costume to go to the office, like hair, makeup, and outfits.

And I started thinking like, “Why did we even do that in the first place? Where does that expectation come from?” And that was the seed for that story. And then it just spiraled into this whole lightly magical, comedic, ridiculous, fun day in Hollywood.

So, I didn't really intend to write something like that. It was what was making me happy in that moment. And I guess, I was craving something lighter and funnier than what I was normally reading or writing. And I mean, it's the one that landed me a book deal. So, I won't take it back. I'm happy.

Adam Sockel:

It seemed to be the right choice. Yeah, absolutely.

Holly James:

I guess, yeah, it worked out, worked out for sure.

Adam Sockel:

And then, oh, go ahead.

Holly James:

Yeah, from there, so that was a one book deal. And then the follow up, I remember going back and forth with my agent with a couple ideas, trying to figure out it since it was a one book deal, I didn't have to write another book in the same genre. I could basically do whatever.

And I wasn't super sure I wanted to write romance because I didn't think that I could, I don't know. I mean, now I am, but before now, I wasn't a huge romance reader, and I know the readers, that fan base is just so dedicated, and they love their tropes and they are so just wonderfully intense about everything. I was like, “Oh, I don't want to let them down.” So, I was a little intimidated to actually take on romance.

So, I would say The Deja Glitch, it is a rom-com, but it's still kind of on the more magical personal journey side. Not super, super focused on the couple and their relationship, although it is. But I think my third book is full on romance. So, I'm progressively getting closer and closer to the full genre.

Adam Sockel:

So, I want to ask about The Deja Glitch, which is your newest book. And for people who don't know, it's a 24-hour kind of time loop story.

Honestly, like blurb on the front by Jodi Picoult, it's like a perfect description as a give love actually in Groundhog Day. It's perfect.

But it is, it's like a 24-hour kind of time loop story. And first off, I love it, that is in no way encapsulating the whole story. But I want to ask, what was it about time loops that made you say like, “Ooh, this could be an interesting way to tell a story.”

Holly James:

Another great question. So, the kind of, I guess, path into this one, again, I didn't intend for it to be a time loop story. That wasn't my original idea. So, whenever I write something, I get an idea for the big hook, like the broad overarching hook of the story.

And in this case, I really wanted to write a story around a couple where one person couldn't remember the other person in a comedic way. I just thought that would be kind of funny to explore. If the love of your life came up to you, and it was like, “It's me, you know me,” and you had no idea who they were. Like what would happen? How would that play out? And so, I had that idea kind of floating around in my head for a while.

So, I actually drafted this book in the summer of 2021. So, it's two years ago now, wow. I remember I was trying to figure out how to execute that idea, like how could I write a full story around that.

And at that time, Olivia Rodrigo's song, Deja Vu, it was all over the radio. And I remember hearing it and singing along to it one day. And I truly had this aha moment of like, “Oh, deja vu is the perfect avenue into this story.”

So, I started thinking the character who couldn't remember anything was feeling like things were familiar, but she didn't really know why, and she couldn't explain why she recognized this guy or why she had certain memories, like fuzzy memories playing out throughout the day.

And then the time loop entered the equation when I thought maybe she has a sense of deja vu because she's been here before, she's lived through it before, but can't fully remember it.

And time loops, you know, it's a really popular kind of trope convention and I wanted to do something different with it. So, in this story, we actually only see a single day of the loop, and we see it from the perspective of the person who doesn't know that they're in a time loop.

Because I didn't want to have to go through the repetition of the day over and over and over and over. So, by the time we as the reader intersect the story, they've been in the time loop for five months, but to the main character, it feels like it's the first day that all of this has happened to her.

Adam Sockel:

And I love that you chose the person who has not been in the time loop, because I do feel like when you see the time loop stories, obviously, Groundhog Day, and then there was a movie that came out a couple years ago with Andy Samberg that there is a time loop, I cannot remember the name of that.

Holly James:

Palm Springs.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah, Palm Springs, which I really liked. But I feel like so often, we're shown as the viewer or the reader or the person ingesting the content. Like you said, it is that repetitive. Like, “Oh look, Bill Murray's living this day, 10,000 years in a row, whatever it is.”

And it has to be a really unique way to say, “Okay, let's all …" it has to be very funny or interesting that you're going to see the same things over and over again or you're going to lose people's interest. So, I do think it is such a unique way to be like, “No, no, no, we're going to go from it from the person who's like has no idea.”

And so, I think it's like this really fun thing where as the reader, you might know what to expect. And being able to look at it through a person's eyes who has no idea what's coming, and seeing how the day changes from loop to loops.

Like for you, how did you go about saying, “Okay, how do I get her from, this has been happening for months to how do we resolve the issue?” Obviously, without giving away the ending. But how did you decide how to make incremental “improvements” every single time?

Holly James:

It was tricky. It was tricky from a pacing perspective to … because I don't know. I have a thing for stories that take place in one day. My first book is like that too.

I love those kinds of stories. I love watching and reading them, and I love creating them. I don't really know why, I just do, I just feel the immediacy, kind of an urgency created by this all has to happen in a certain amount of time is just really exciting to me.

So, to fit everything into a single day that needed to happen was a challenge, but also making it not too much. I think we cut like one scene because it was just too much running around, too busy. But I did, yeah.

I had to keep careful track of … because it's told from her perspective, and it's the first time she's experienced this, but it has also happened many, many times before. I had to keep really careful track of what might she already and what does he know? He knows everything.

And he's been through this before. And when things change, how would they react to the change? And would they — to her it feels like it's the first time, but he's like, “Oh, this is different. Something has changed here and here's why.”

And I also really wanted to touch on kind of all aspects of their lives. So, if you've read the book, you know that it's not just like their love story. It's about her professional career and her family relationships and her friendships. And she kind of has barriers in all these different places.

And I think that really played into this notion that they're stuck. They're stuck in this loop. They're physically stuck, but they're also metaphorically stuck in so many different ways. And doing that allowed me to have all these different scenes that touched on these different aspects of their lives that kind of carried them through the day.

And the thread through the whole thing is that they're moving past these barriers, but they're all different kinds of barriers. This is very like none spoilery explanation to answer your question.

Adam Sockel:

No, we're like dancing around. So, yeah. Exactly.

Holly James:

Yeah. For sure.

Adam Sockel:

I don't want to give stuff away. So, something I am really interested in is when I speak to authors who have — like you mentioned, when you write your first novel, people who may not be aware, like you said you write it and you don't have an agent at the time. You don't have an editor, you don't have deadlines, and you can kind of make whatever you want.

Like you said, you didn't know if you were writing a romance novel or whatever, you were just like, you wanted to write a story, and then you become known for something. And now you've written a second kind of book in this, and you said your third one is more even romance.

Like do you feel … pressure is the wrong word, but do you feel inclined to understand like, “Okay, well, I'm going to need to write romance and I want to give it a marketable kind of hook or something.” Do you feel that pressure as you're pitching more and more stories and then putting things together?

Holly James:

Yeah, for sure. It's like you said, like your first book is really just for yourself. You know, there's no outside pressure on it at all. But once you have sold one or multiple books and you have your publishing team working with you, that's one of the biggest challenges to kind of detach from the business side of it.

Because always, always in the back of my head now is sales. Is this going to sell? Is this going to sell enough for my publisher to offer on my next book? Is this the end of my career? Do I have to change to a different pen name? It's all these things that are really out of your control, but also dictate your career. That is a really kind of big emotional struggle that I think is not talked about that much in publishing.

Like people just kind of, I don't know, pretend it doesn't exist, but I've talked to other writers that I'm really close to and that is very normal to feel the pressure of like, what's going to happen next? And there's just so much is out of the author's control.

But all that being said, I keep my readers in mind in the sense that like I've come to learn what they really like. The scenes that they like squeal and kick their feet at, those are the ones that I want to keep in my books. Because as a reader myself, I think of the things that just bring me so much joy and make me feel like I could explode with happiness. That’s what I try to create. Because that's what people come to the genre for.

You know they want that feeling of joy and that just emotion of happiness out of these books. So, it's kind of a hard … not kind of, it's a very hard line to walk in, and satisfying your audience, but also writing something marketable and staying true to yourself as an author. You know, you don't want to write something you hate because then you're stuck promoting it for years.

Yeah, it's a wild industry. When I was querying, that's a whole different set of emotions and struggles. But then once you are agented and have book deals, it's a whole other set of challenges, emotional challenges that I wasn't prepared for. I didn't know what to expect.

And it's hard. It's hard to create something you love so much, and then just kind of let it go out into the world and hope good things happen to it.

Adam Sockel:

So, one more question just about all this; you mentioned at the beginning like you started doing the creative writing because you had that itch to be creative and kind of fill that void of a thing that you really did miss. Now it's become like you said, a second career.

Does it still feel, I'm assuming yes, but does it still feel satisfying and does it kind of reenergize you to do your day job? Because like you said, the time restraints is obviously a very real thing as a working author and a person working full-time. Does it still feel like recharging to you?

Holly James:

Absolutely. I think I've learned now that I'm several years into the whole publishing experience, I've learned to find the components of it that really, truly bring me joy and cling onto those. And for me that's drafting. Like I love drafting a news story. I love it.

I mean, I tolerate revisions because I have to, but drafting, like I'm in this complete flow state and everything is just wonderful and amazing. So, that's what I really take joy in that. And I try to be really, really present for that, and not think about, is my editor not going to like this? Is my publisher going to reject this? Is it going to flop?

And I do think that the balance of having that time to be creative is really kind of stabilized by my day job by doing all this other really heavily analytical stuff. And I really think that one would suffer without the other.

I get asked all the time, like, “Would you quit your day job?” And I don't know. I mean, if I could financially, I mean, it'd be hard to say no to if I could financially, but currently, I can't.

But I do think if I was only doing my day job, I would feel like something was missing. And if I was only doing writing, I would feel like something was missing. So, I'm currently able to still do both and it can be a rollercoaster on any given day, because publishing is so unpredictable.

Like you can get a life-changing email at … I'm in California, so I get emails starting at 6:00 AM because everyone's in New York. But I've been in bed before and gotten an email that's amazing news and I shout and my poor husband's like, “Oh, what's happening?”

But those are good days, but then you can also have a really bummer of a day, and then you have to walk straight into a work meeting and it's a lot to kind of keep in the air at the same time. But I think I've learned, I've gotten a little better at compartmentalizing one career versus the other when I have to do them at the same time.

And that's one thing I don't have a lot of great advice on how to do all of this, but I think something I've learned is just to be aware — to be aware that this is challenging, and you will have a lot of up and down emotions. And of course, this is coming from my psychology training.

I'm not trying to be everyone's therapist here, but that's what I've learned has worked for me. Just an awareness of like it's normal to feel pretty sad about this or very happy about this, and they will balance out and the feelings will pass.

Adam Sockel:

That is so fascinating me. Okay, because you're working two different jobs, I don't want to keep you for much longer. I have one last question. I always end by having the author who's come on give a recommendation of any kind.

It can be a book, it could be a TV show, it could be a movie, it could be a recipe. Just something you want to recommend that you think more people should know about.

Holly James:

Oh gosh, more people should know about. Well, I mean, the first thing that jumped to my mind is the movie Adaptation of Red, White & Royal Blue came out today/last night. I've already watched it. It's incredible.

But I think a lot of people already know about that because it's so popular. But no, that was 10 out of 10 for me. Perfect adaptation. Otherwise, I don't know.

Adam Sockel:

What's a book that you've loved this year? It can be relatively popular. What's something you've loved this year?

Holly James:

That’s hard question, there's so many. I recently read … I still read a lot darker than I write. I love thrillers, I love dark genre. But I recently read Megan Collins' new thriller/suspense. It's called Thicker Than Water. That one was really, really good.

It's about these sisters-in-law who are also best friends and the man they have in common. So, one of their husbands and the other one's brother is accused of murder and it's of a very violent, creepy murder.

And it's just this whole story of how their relationship, these two women have to navigate that scenario and who do they trust, and everything falls apart and it's really good. Megan's an amazing writer. So, yeah, I definitely recommend that one.

Adam Sockel:

That sounds perfect. I'm impressed you have time to read with everything else that you're doing.

Holly James:

I wish I had more time. My power of books is-

Adam Sockel:

Ever growing.

Holly James:

Approaching dangerous heights.

Adam Sockel:

Oh, that's fantastic. Well, Holly, The Deja Glitch is so much fun. It's so delightful. And like I told you before I started recording, I was so excited to get to talk with you. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Holly James:

Thank you.

[Music Playing]

Adam Sockel:

Passions & Prologues is proud to be an Evergreen Podcasts and was created by Adam Sockel. It was produced by Adam Sockel and Sean Rule-Hoffman. And if you are interested in this podcast and any other Evergreen podcast, you can go to evergreenpodcasts.com to discover all the different stories we have to tell.