Interview with Kristina McMorris - THE WAYS WE HIDE

[00:11] Cindy: You are listening to the Thoughts from a Page podcast, which is a member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. My name is Cindy Burnett, and I love to talk about books with anyone and everyone. While listening to my podcast, you will hear author interview, behind the scenes conversations about various aspects of the publishing world, theme discussions with other book lovers and more. For more book recommendations and a complete list of all of my interviews, check out my website, Thoughts From a Page.com and follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Thoughts from a Page. Are you looking for a community of readers to join? I hope you'll consider my patreon group. I offer at least two bonus episodes a month and a monthly advance read and prepublication author chat. October's early read is Marmie by Sarah Miller and November's is Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica. For those on Facebook, I host a special Patreon Facebook group where we all chat books thanks to those that already participate, and I hope you will consider joining us. Today I am chatting with Kristina McMorris about The Ways We Hide. Kristina is a New York Times bestselling author of two novellas and six novels, including the runaway bestseller Sold on a Monday with more than a million copies sold. Initially inspired by her grandparents World War II courtship letters, her works of fiction have garnered more than 20 national Literary awards. A graduate of Pepperdine University, she lives near Portland, Oregon, where she somehow manages to be fully deficient of a green thumb and not own a single umbrella. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Welcome, Kristina. How are you today?

[01:42] Kristina: I'm doing well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

[01:46] Cindy: I'm so glad you're here, and I can't wait to talk about The Ways We Hide.

[01:50] Kristina: Good, thank you. Yes, I'm so excited to talk about this book that I had kind of in my writer's cave for a couple of years, so I'm thrilled to be out in the world with it.

[01:58] Cindy: I bet you are. So before we start talking about all of the behind the scenes stuff with the book, will you give me a quick synopsis for those that won't have read it yet?

[02:06] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. So in short, as you know, it is about an American female illusionist in 1942 who is really the mastermind behind an escape show, and her skillset comes from the fact that she survived the childhood tragedy that took place in Michigan's Copper Country. That was a tragedy I had never heard about before, and I really wanted to share it with readers. Now, because of this skill, she is recruited by British Military Intelligence, a group called Mi Nine, and they are what I call the Gogo Gadget team of British Intelligence in that they invented escape and evade devices for Allied POWs to escape and also for downed airmen and occupied zones to evade **** capture. And because of her work with them, she gets pulled much deeper into the war than she ever expects. So, in a nutshell, that is the story.

[02:57] Cindy: Well, I had never heard of MI-9, and so I had to kind of do a double take and be like, oh, I didn't even know there was an MI-9. And then when I got to your author's note, you said the same thing.

[03:07] Kristina: Yeah. You're not alone. Absolutely. I think that we're all very familiar with Mi Five and Six, thanks to Mission Impossible and MI-9. It makes sense that we did not hear about them, really, because they were so highly classified and very specialized. And in fact, some of the things they did, these inventions that we'll talk about, I'm sure, like using Monopoly boards to smuggle escape and evade devices, all of that was kept classified until about 1985 because it was so successful, what they did, they thought they might have to use it again against the Russians during the Cold War. So a lot of that kept quiet with the Official Secrets Act until people could finally talk about them.

[03:43] Cindy: I thought that was so crazy about Monopoly being used for spying, that passing messages that way and things like that. You never really think about it when you're playing it.

[03:52] Kristina: No, of course not. And that's what I loved about that fun fact. Was because it's something we all grew up with. And probably a lot of people still playing it to the state. Even as adults. If they can handle that and their families without getting angry at each other for landing on their hotels and having something new about it. I thought was so fascinating to look at it in a different way. And what they did, just so you know, is they had an engineer that signed the Official Secrets Act. They would go into a secret room then at Wattington's, which created the I should say produced Monopoly games over in the UK. And they would cut into the board and fit two files, a compass and a silk map inside the board, and then put the sticker over the top so that it was completely undetectable. And the reason I will mention that they use silk maps, which I thought, why would they use that on paper? Made so much sense. First, it was very specialized in order to be able to print on silk, so not many people could do that. They had color on it on both sides. And most importantly, if you wrestled it, I should say crinkled it, it would not rustle while you were in hiding, which, of course, is so important. And it could withstand the weather. So you could drop it in a puddle, it could hit rain, and it would still last through the war.

[05:06] Cindy: That's fascinating. The wrestling part makes sense, and I kind of thought about that, but not in terms of it getting wet or anything else. I know I was just trying to think of another book I read recently where they were talking about silk and they sewed onto it, they sewed the messages on it and then that was how they communicated.

[05:23] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. They can do so much with silk. And the other fascinating thing about it is they took these silk maps and they could sew them into other things. So they sewed them into the tunics of airmen in case they were down in occupied territory.

[05:35] Cindy: It's just so crazy to think about those things, just everyday things that are being co-opted for purposes of spying. I mean, it's just so cool. You must have gone down so many rabbit holes.

[05:45] Kristina: Oh, goodness, yes. And I bought gadgets to online that were either replicas or really from Mi Nine over in the UK. And so on my website, I'm not sure if you had a chance to take a peek yet, but on there I do have videos of my demos that I have of these gadgets that are just so fun. You've got, for example, a map deck, which you know from the story that they would take a regular plain deck that was made by bicycle and they would send those into the POW camps as a pastime, which the Germans allowed. In case people are wondering why they would allow these things in, it's because ironically, they thought that if the POWs were busy with pastimes, they would not be busy planning escape.

[06:28] Cindy: That's great, you can't make it up.

[06:30] Kristina: So they send in things like these map decks and that look like regular playing cards, except when you float them in water and kind of let them just absorb the water, they would split apart in half. And so that's one of the replicas I have. And on the backside you have a map inside. So now you have 52 cards that are double the amount with maps and it would cover an entire region of the area.

[06:53] Cindy: And how did they communicate to the POWs that these were going to be things that they needed to figure out how to open and put in water and do all of that?

[07:02] Kristina: Sure. Well, a lot of these guys too, number one, they're airmen who are down. So they already were familiar with these devices that were on themselves or that were being sent in. So they would know just to go ahead and look through everything that was sent. All of the dominoes and the cribbage boards, for example, the chess pieces, three baseballs, for example, would make together parts and each one of those baseballs would put together to create a wireless radio and then you could communicate back and forth. So that was another way that they communicated. And we actually know there were so many devices that were sent into World War Two during this time that they actually communicated back and said, please don't send any more. We have run out of room to hide them.

[07:44] Cindy: We have too many things yeah.

[07:47] Kristina: It’s a good problem to have.

[07:48] Cindy: That is a good problem to have. I love that. And I love that they felt they could use Monopoly again and so that it did not become declassified until the 80s.

[07:58] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that just tells you how good they were at this. We do know that all of that happened because of secret memos, even though no boards exist to this day that we know of. But there are memos that talk about which maps were going to go inside the board and to know which map was inside since it was sealed. And you would not know, they would put a dot by certain avenues so you know which region it was.

[08:20] Cindy: That is so cool. And wouldn't it be really neat to get your hands on one of those?

[08:25] Kristina: Oh, my gosh, yes, for sure. I do have a UK Monopoly board from World War II that I bought. Ebay became my friend, and so I bought some really neat stuff that way. And all of the pieces, because of rationing, were made from cardboard instead of metal, for example. And same for the spinners, were made of cardboard. But yes. Oh my goodness, to have a real board like that would be phenomenal. Maybe somebody has one out there that are keeping secrets.

[08:50] Cindy: I bet they do. Well, what about research? We talked a little bit about the gadgets, but what other type of research did you have to do?

[08:57] Kristina: Oh, my goodness, there was so much research for this book. It's actually what took me longer to write this book than any of my other books, and I'm really proud of it and thrilled to finally share information in the story. So aside from the research that had to do with MI-9, for example, of course, and Europe during World War II, there was also the Netherlands during World War II, which I knew very little about. It seems like a lot of us know about Anne Frank, but really not much past that. About the Dutch resistance versus the French Resistance, for example, and how the Dutch handled the German occupation and how they handled the invasion and the occupation and then the liberation. There is also other events that are in the book, such as the Italian Hall disaster, which I mentioned was the tragedy that my character Fenna survives. And that was in Michigan's copper country. That was a stampede down a stairwell from a false cry of fire. And there's a good reason we have a law against that to this day, of course, because 73 people died in that ten minute span, almost all of them children. And it was on Christmas Eve. So that Christmas weekend was a procession of all of those caskets and it was just heart wrenching to me. And I thought, why do we not know about this? So those are just some of the things that I researched for the book.

[10:14] Cindy: I'm trying to think of the name of the Lois Lowry book. It's a YA book that is set in the Netherlands about the Dutch Resistance and people getting smuggled out through the boats. And I'm having a complete something about stars, Number the Stars.

[10:28] Kristina: That's it.

[10:29] Cindy: Have you ever read that book?

[10:30] Kristina: Yes, of course, years ago. And it's amazing that and Anne Frank.

[10:35] Cindy: Are the only two things I know about the Netherlands during World War II and now you're booked. But until then I did not know anything about any of that other than those two stories.

[10:43] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure now that we say that there are many books out there that we just don't know about, but I am thrilled to be able to contribute in a small way. Absolutely.

[10:53] Cindy: And I think that's the fascinating thing about World War II is that because it went for so long and it involves so many countries, that there are just endless stories and people will say, I think all the stories of World War II have been told. And I'm like, there's no possible way, because every year I read at least ten more and I'm learning all sorts of things I didn't know. It's just amazing. I think it will continue to be that way.

[11:15] Kristina: Yes, I hope so. I know that I, as a reader, love reading new things about World War II and you remember it is a war that was the whole world. So there are so many stories and all of these unsung hero stories that are coming out, especially from women that were, I want to say, being lost to history because they did not write those stories and we're often told not to talk about them after the war. So a lot of those things do not come out until many decades later.

[11:42] Cindy: Or were hidden under the Secrets Act until the eighties.

[11:45] Kristina: Yes, for sure. Absolutely. And even in the cases of nurses that served during World War II that were Americans and were told not to talk about their experiences by the government when they came back home, then a lot of them didn't tell the stories until really late in their life.

[12:00] Cindy: Well, and I think it was a different time and a different generation and I think that people dealt with their emotions differently. So a lot of those people shoved it all down, really didn't want to talk about it again, where today we understand it's much better to speak about these things and get them out.

[12:14] Kristina: Oh, for sure. I've heard so many stories, as I told around the country, especially with my World War II novels, how many parents, grandparents, uncles never talked about their experiences during World War II until very late in their life or not at all. And then they were finding Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts in their belongings and wish that they had heard those stories before. So I love being able to pass some of that along.

[12:37] Cindy: Absolutely. Was it hard to narrow down after you did all of that research, what you were going to include in the book.

[12:44] Kristina: That's always a challenge because you come across stranger than fiction, fun facts that you think this has to go in the story somewhere. But very often I'll come across something that helps lead my story. So in some ways, that really is my guide as to what is possible, which is why I don't know any historical author friends who just write by the seat of their pants is what we call pantsers. We really are plotters for the most part, because we need to know what was possible and what happened. And again, I think that's because it guides our story. So there are times that you think, oh, I really want to include this, and if it doesn't serve the story, you never want it to become a textbook info dump. But you hope that there is a way that you can weave it in that really makes sense to the story and also shares information that is so fun to share.

[13:32] Cindy: And I guess if there are things that you just can't figure out how they're going to work, you can save them for later and try to incorporate them into another story for sure.

[13:40] Kristina: And that's what the author's notice for, right? It's like a director's commentary. So you sometimes get to put some fun things in the back that you couldn't weave into the story.

[13:48] Cindy: Yet I love when authors have lengthy authors notes, when it's a historical fiction story. So I was very happy when I got to the end of your book and you had a good one, because then I can kind of figure out, okay, what you were focusing on, what might have changed a little bit, and some of the things that you're talking about that you mentioned that you maybe couldn't incorporate into the story for sure.

[14:08] Kristina: As a reader, I love reading authors notes, especially historical fiction, and I did. I had a lot of fun being able to write all of that authors note at the end to be able to include what was true, what wasn't. Sometimes very often the most farfetched things are the ones that are true. Because as historical authors, we very often wouldn't dare to put something in there that seemed stranger than fiction unless it was based on truth. And what's really fun at the back of my book, too, as you know, is I got to include a lot of photographs as well. So I want to say there were 20 or 30 photographs in the back of the book that then people can visualize what they really did look like at the time, as well as recipes, because goodness knows, book clubs and readers, we all love recipes. And so there are even recipes that are for making invisible ink because you need that as a spy. And we are all going to be spies after reading this book. Right?

[14:57] Cindy: Well, I have the galley, so I don't have the photos or the recipes.

[15:01] Kristina: Oh, goodness. We'll have to fix that because I.

[15:03] Cindy: Know, I'm like, Wait a minute. I was like, I want to see the recipes, and I really want to see the photos.

[15:09] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, on my website there is a book club guide and that has all of that in there as well. So we'll have to get that for you, but I will definitely get you a finished copy.

[15:19] Cindy: What was the highlight of writing The Ways We Hide?

[15:21] Kristina: I want to say that it was being able to learn all of those things that we just talked about. I didn't know about World War II, about magic and illusions. Being able to talk to about 20 experts. They were incredibly generous with their time and reading parts of my book and making sure that it was accurate, even creating my own escapes, which I did not plan on. So I want to say that's probably one of the highlights is I actually did create one or two escapes in the book that had to do with stage escapes. And I got to run those past illusionists and said, does this ring true? And they said yes, absolutely. And I thought, well, you know what? If this whole riding gig doesn't work out, I'm taking my one trick on the road.

[16:05] Cindy: That had to be very fun. Was it complicated? I mean, how did you begin to create your own ones?

[16:12] Kristina: Well, by reading a lot about other escapes, thank goodness. Houdini was generous enough to put a lot of his tricks into books. The ones that were not his most popular, the ones that were hardest to figure out, he did publish them. So being able to read those and figure out how they used illusion and sleight of hand and turning your attention in a different direction, for example, and allowing the viewer really to create their own story in their mind of what they expected and then putting a twist on it was really interesting. So that was one of the ways that's so clever.

[16:48] Cindy: After Sold on the Monday was such a huge hit, was it hard to follow it up? It sold over a million copies. I mean, that's just phenomenal.

[16:56] Kristina: Thank you. It's such a crazy number that it doesn't feel real. It feels very surreal and that I joke that I don't have a million friends and family that I know of that feel obligated to buy a copy. So it really is wild and incredible. I think that the only way to follow up something like that is to not really think about it and to write the best book I possibly can, which is what I try to do with every story, and just focus on that. And the fact that I get to go around the country right now with a tour and talk to people and share with people like you and your listeners things about history that I'm so excited to share that becomes more important than anything that makes sense.

[17:39] Cindy: But I think that's just phenomenal, and congratulations on that.

[17:43] Kristina: Thank you so much. It's pretty exciting. In our house, we've had a good number of cupcakes and Dairy Queen Blizzards to celebrate, for sure.

[17:52] Cindy: I bet. Especially as you hit each milestone, you're probably like, oh, wow, 100,000. Oh, wow, 200,000. And then by the time you get to a million, you're like, okay, lots and lots of cupcakes this time.

[18:02] Kristina: My kids are not they are not sad about this. They are not.

[18:05] Cindy: And you have another book coming out this fall as well, correct?

[18:09] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I even mentioned earlier with the nurses. I'm so excited to talk about them as well. So When We Had Wings is a novel that I wrote with two of my good friends, Ariel Lawhon and Susan Meissner, which you probably know are wonderful, bestselling authors. And it's a great day when a publisher comes to you and says, hey, with the three of you, like to write a book together, and guess what? We'll even pay. You know, that's hard to say no to. That sounds really fun. And I think it's a testament to our friendship that we can live in three different parts of the country, have different writing styles, figure out a way to make a cohesive novel together on deadline, and then still like each other when we're done. So we always say that you may have a really good friend, but once you travel with them, maybe you shouldn't have traveled with them, right? We all have that. And in this case, it was really great that we finished and we're really proud of it, and our friendship is closer than before, and we can't wait to share with the world about these nurses who served in the Philippines in World War II. So in 1942, they become friends serving in Manila, and you have a US. Army, US. Navy and a Filipina nurse. And so because of the Japanese invasion and occupation, their lives completely are turned upside down. They go in and out of each other's lives throughout the war. And the true story of these nurses that were dubbed the Angels of Baton by servicemen because of how incredible they were, they not only kept themselves alive, incredibly, there were about 80 of them, and they survived the entire war, even being some of the first female POWs of World War II through starvation, malaria. All of the tropical diseases you can think of, and kept other people alive, too, while risking their lives getting resources from the black market, for example. And when they were done with the war, they were then told by the government, as I mentioned earlier, not to speak of their experiences, because I think in a lot of ways they were seen as abandoned, along with the Baton Death March that we are all familiar with. And so they a lot of them did not talk about it until the end of their lives. And so because of being called the Angels of Baton, that is exactly where we got our title, is When We Had Wings.

[20:23] Cindy: Oh, I like that. I like the one. We had wings. I think it's so interesting that those people that were in the Pacific for the longest time thought, oh, we've got the cushy job here. We're in the tropics and all is well. It's so pretty here. Nothing's happening. And then all of a sudden, they really got the short end of the stick.

[20:41] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. And I had no idea about how the Philippines were really affected by World War II outside. If we know the Pacific theater went to war. But not really about Manila in particular. Which was very similar to Pearl Harbor. The way that we picture that. That it was tropical paradise and you thought you had this wonderful station. And they had maids and servants and drivers and cooks for all of you and galas at night that everyone would dress up. And it changed in a heartbeat. So we are all familiar with Pearl Harbor's attack while the same thing happened in Manila the very next day. So it really was paralleled in that way.

[21:21] Cindy: I didn't know a lot about that to the last couple of years, but.

[21:24] Kristina: I just thought, oh, those poor souls.

[21:26] Cindy: Who are all thinking this is great, like, we're kind of out of the way. We have this wonderful station. Then all of a sudden, it was hell on Earth.

[21:33] Kristina: Yeah. Thinking papayas and pineapples and having tropical flowers in your hair. And that is really how it started. But then they're, like, turned into hell very quickly.

[21:43] Cindy: Yeah, it definitely did. Well, back to the ways we hide.

[21:46] Kristina: Let's talk a little bit about the.

[21:48] Cindy: Cover and the title. How did they come about?

[21:50] Kristina: So as far as the title goes, there were other titles, and I will say that the one that I was most excited about early on, outside of what I called Untitled Monopoly Book, is what my draft said for a long time until my agent editor finally came back and said, maybe we should come up with something that's a little bit stronger than that. And I said, of course. So we brainstormed, brainstorm. And it was a really hard book to name is what we found, because there were so many story aspects to it that you want it to fit it really well and not be too difficult to remember, et cetera. So the one that I came up with that I really was excited about for quite some time was the Vanishing Game, because I thought the vanishing had to do with spies and so many things in people's lives and magic. And yet, because it took me a while to write the book. In the midst of that, the book, the novel The Vanishing Half came out and of course so popular that we thought, well, maybe we should look at that again. So I brainstormed again and I came up with one that I was very excited about as well. It was those in the shadows. And I thought that really stood for all of the things I mentioned, plus a lot of the unsung heroes that we never hear about from things like World War. And then we got closer and they said, well, actually, there's a lot of books coming out with shadows in them. Do you have anything else? I thought, oh, goodness gracious, I need to write books faster. So we went back to the drawing board and I'm so glad we did because The Ways We Hide came to me. My boys, they are 16 and 18 going on 40, and thank goodness they sat and brainstormed with me and we came up with The Ways We Hide. I liked it so much that I thought, this has to exist already. And I Googled it and I couldn't believe that I couldn't find it. And I thought, wow, that is so perfect. In so many ways. I'm thrilled about that, and even more excited too about how that went hand in hand with my dedication, because in the 11th Hour reached out to my editor and said, is it too late to add dedication? Because I just thought of one that fits perfectly. And she said, no, I think I can sneak it in. And that's when I dedicated it to Those in the Shadows and it fit in with the story and I was really thrilled with both.

[24:01] Cindy: I think the title is perfect.

[24:04] Kristina: Good. Thank you. Well, yay, all that work turned out to be a good thing. I think.

[24:08] Cindy: It's so funny how titles come about because it can be a complicated process getting there.

[24:13] Kristina: Yeah. And I think that when you don't know how hard it is on our side, it seems to some readers it may be pretty easy, and especially if it's a good title that fits the book perfectly. You think, well, of course, that's the title. And not until I had a couple of friends join me at a bookstore. At one point they had a cafe and I bribed them there with coffee, cake and lattes and said, if you can help me, please brains from one of my stories for a title, I'd be thrilled. So they said, oh, that sounds so fun. Of course they came there and about two and a half hours later they said, this is so hard. So, yeah, they learned the hard way. And I still gave them coffee cake and lattes, even though we did not have a title.

[24:53] Cindy: That's too funny. Well, yes, it can be very complicated and they can send a different message. It can sound like nonfiction, it can sound like a thriller. You just have to kind of really think through every aspect of it, for sure.

[25:04] Kristina: And you also don't want it to be misleading and thinking that you're getting a different book than you are. So that's, I think, what was really nice about the title Sold on a Monday, when that paired with the cover art, sometimes that tells you an entire story, not just when you have a title on its own.

[25:21] Cindy: I think that's right, too. And I think that often covers have little things in them that once you've read the book, you look back and you're like, oh, this cover means so much more to me now.

[25:31] Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. And that is one thing that I'm really excited about the cover art on this one is that the cover I don't want to say too much, but I will say that once you finish the story, you should see the cover differently than you did when you started.

[25:44] Cindy: I think that's exactly right, and I love that.

[25:48] Kristina: Thank you. I do, too. And that page curl in the corner that has just a peek of a map is so important in the story that I love that people don't know what it stands for until later.

[25:58] Cindy: Well, what about what you've read recently that you really liked?

[26:01] Kristina: Oh, goodness. There are so many fun books I've read, and I had research for so long, and those are all fascinating for different ways, but it's so nice when you get back to pleasure reading. One of the historicals that I read not long ago that I loved was The Wedding Veil by Kristy Woodson Harvey, and she was very nervous. I know she's a friend of mine, and she was nervous about dipping her toe in the historical area. And, oh, my goodness. You would never know from reading that book that it was her first delving into historical fiction. So that one was wonderful. Couple of others that I read that were historical fiction, that were wonderful was Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan. And also Stephanie Dray wrote The Women of Chateau Lafayette. And I adored that one, too.

[26:48] Cindy: I liked all three of those, and I've spoken to all three of them as well, actually.

[26:53] Kristina: Oh, good.

[26:54] Cindy: There you go.

[26:54] Kristina: You know how good they are.

[26:56] Cindy: Yes, exactly. So now that I'm thinking about it, though, Kristy and I have not spoken about The Wedding Veil. We've spoken about her earlier books, and I love Surviving Savannah.

[27:05] Kristina: Oh, it was so good. And just when you find out those things about history that you'd like, again, how did I not hear about this before, being that it was the south's version of the Titanic, and I had never heard about the Palaski going down.

[27:18] Cindy: Well, and it really makes you wonder about the titanic because that happened so long before, and it was a lifeboat issue as well. How do you get to the 19 teens without enough lifeboats and life vests when something like the palazzi had happened decades before.

[27:32] Kristina: I think that as a passenger getting on that ship, that the first thing you want to do from then on is make sure they have those. So I have no idea why you would think that they would learn from history, but obviously they did not.

[27:46] Cindy: Yes, and I guess we see that every day. People have still not learned from history all the time.

[27:50] Kristina: That is true. Which is why as historical authors, we definitely try our best to try to help spread word. Exactly.

[27:57] Cindy: Well, Kristina, thank you so much for joining me in the Thoughts from a Page Podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you.

[28:03] Kristina: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[28:07] Cindy: Thank you so much for tuning in today. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to my podcast. I want to quickly share about this wonderful company I am now partnering with. I am always looking for entities that promote and highlight books and recently came across Bookclubs, a company who provides all sorts of resources for established and new book clubs as well as individual readers. My own personal book club recently signed up on Bookclubs, and the group has been impressed with all of the great tools the site and app provide. Bookclub's website is linked in my show notes, and I hope you will check them out soon. Also, if you like my show, I would be so grateful if you would tell everyone you know about it and rate it on whichever platform you listen on. It truly makes a huge difference and really helps the show grow. The book discussed in this episode can be purchased at my bookshop storefront and that link is also in the show notes. I hope you will check out some other Thoughts From a Page episode and have a great day.