Best of Binge Reading 2022 – Part 1

Happy New Year and welcome to The Best Of Joys Of Binge Reading for 2022.

We’re presenting the Top 15 Shows for the year as selected by you, our listeners.

And from previous years, I know that this is one of the most popular shows every year, so it’s wonderful to do it for you.

I’m Jenny Wheeler, the host of the show. And first of all, thank you for being part of our growing audience this year. This year, we reached the 250 episode mark, a great achievement, and we wouldn’t have done it without your appreciative listening.

 We’ve divided the show into two parts because 15 episodes is too long to listen to in one go.

The first part with eight of the shows that are selected, will run this week. And then the second we’ll run in two weeks in mid-January, to give us plenty of summer relaxing time.

How we selected the ‘Best of’ authors

You know that I treasure all the authors we talked to and I’d never attempt to pick and choose winners.

So this selection is based solely on the numbers of people who listened to the shows that ran between December 1st, 2021 and December 1st, 2022. Taking those dates allows us to compile and edit the show in time for posting on the first Tuesday in January, 2023.

To give you the flavor, we’ve included selected highlights of each show so you can discover new authors you might have missed first time round or find books you might want to get into in 2023.

I’m thrilled once again at the generous blend of genres and locations represented in the ‘Best Of’ results, with mysteries, romances, historicals, thrillers, and even an outlier nonfiction title, all featured in the top 15.

And just as our listeners hailed from all over the world so do the authors you listened to, with the US, the UK, and Australian authors all well represented

 So let’s get onto it. The first list runs this week, the second one, mid-January. Here it is. The Best of the Joys of Binge Reading 2022,  Part One.

Best Of 2022 – Barbara Freethy – Chart-Topping Romance Barbara Freethy – Chart topping romance and woman’s fiction author

Contemporary author Barbara Freethy is an Amazon KDP best-selling author of all time with a total of 12 million books sold in multiple languages. And that was just when I spoke to her six months ago.

She’s a master of thrilling mysteries, romantic suspense and heart-warming romance. Barbara was a successful traditionally published author who made an early jump to ND that’s independent publishing. And she’s found that being an indie – that’s independently published – author- totally suits her talent and style.

That’s particularly so because traditionally the big five publishing houses generally only handle one book a year and. Barbara writes much faster than one book a year. I asked her about that process

It goes without saying that you write highly entertaining and addictive books, but even so, How do you account for that brilliant success?

Many different factors contribute to author success

Barbara Freethy: It’s really hard to account for the success. There are a lot of factors that have gone into it. Publishing on a regular basis, being consistent with what I write, and meeting the reader’s expectations has been helpful for me. There are a lot of different factors.

I put a lot of time in, but then a lot of authors put a lot of time in, so I don’t do anything that much differently. I’ve got a good head for business, the business of publishing as well as for the writing, and that’s been helpful in my pursuit of an indie career.

Jenny Wheeler: Yes. you write in the genres of romantic suspense and contemporary romance. Those are your, main focuses, and you are firmly established in that as a reigning queen in that area.

Barbara Freethy: I really appreciate with digital now and with indie that I can write a book and, bring it out in four months for my audience. So, That’s been great.

Jenny Wheeler: It’s valuable too, cuz you get the instant feedback from how the readers are receiving it. You don’t have to wait two years and have almost gone cold on the idea

Going indie gave Barbara control of here career

Barbara Freethy: Right. I mean, in traditional publishing also, there’s so much dependency on the print book and when you write a series, it’s very difficult for any bookstore to carry all the books in the series in their store. They just don’t have shelf space for it.

So in the digital world it’s much easier to write a series because the reader can get all the books in the series, at the time that they want them.

When you’re doing it in traditional and you’re writing a series, which I have done for traditional publishers, I’d have a book out and then the second one wouldn’t come out for a year and a half, and by that time, the first book was gone and readers couldn’t find it.

It’s both not only just traditional, it’s also print versus digital. Having the option to shelve an unlimited number of books in any of the online bookstore has allowed writers to allow readers to binge read, which we couldn’t necessarily do before.

From binge watching to binge reading

Jenny Wheeler:  That Netflix phenomenon of people binge watching was very much being transferred into reading with the digital Age is, hasn’t it?

Barbara Freethy: Yes, it has. It’s probably the number one difference. Readers can get all the books in a series and read them all at one time. And I know readers that’ll wait until there’s two or three books out before they’ll start a series simply because they want to binge. So I think that series have taken off in this era of binge everything, binge watching, binge reading. that’s been, that’s been really good for writers.

Jenny Wheeler: The other great thing about indie publishing for Barbara is that her books tend to cross the usual genre boundaries between romance and mystery and traditional publishing finds that complexity and little harder to handle as she explains.

Barbara Freethy: I had a lot of publishers say your books are hard to cover because they’re a little bit of everything. They’re emotional and then they’re funny and then they’re sad, and then they’re mysterious, but they’re not dark.

Treasured freedom of ‘writing between the lines’

I like to write between the lines. I feel like my writing is more interesting when it’s, got more dimensions to it.

I don’t like to just write to a particular trope. I’m sure I use the t tropes in my writing, but I don’t come at it from that point of view where I think a lot of writers specifically say, this is my trope and I’m writing to it. Whereas I’ll be much more interested in who the characters are and then what else can I throw at them?

What else can I do to make this twisty or surprising or different? So yes, I definitely marched to my own drummer in terms of how I write, but it worked so far and I think that the readers really appreciate it when there is depth to the story. So, that’s what I like to do.

Barbara FreethyBinge Reading Episode: Chart Topping Romance: https://thejoysofbingereading.com/barbara-freethy-chart-topping-romance/

Website: https://www.barbarafreethy.com/

Best of 2022 – Heather Webber – Magical Mysteries Heather Webber – mysteries with a touch of magic and Southern charm

Magical mystery author, Heather Weber lives in Ohio. But a visit to the South many years ago captivated her. And many of her mysteries reflect Southern charm, food, family, and a light dusting of the supernatural. And as she explains, it was an unusual event that led her to get into writing right from the start. She tells us the story.

Heather Webber: It was a dream that led me to writing. It was a little literal dream. I had woken up one night with this entire plot line in my head and I told my husband. ‘I had this amazing dream I can see all the characters. I know what happens throughout the whole story.’

And I said, ‘It would be a great movie. And then I said, no, no, it has to be a book, because there was just too much there.’

And he looked at me and said, ‘Why don’t you write it?’

I didn’t have any writing experience. I love to read, but I didn’t have a background in writing, but I think I was young enough and naive enough, and I had this burning story in my head that I had to get it out.

Heather’s first book still in the closet collecting dust

So I was like, okay. All right, I’ll do that. And I wrote it. It was 460 pages of family and love and loss and a little bit of magic. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I sent that off to editors and agents and I got rejected across the board. So I gave myself five years. I said, okay, so that book’s not gonna work.

It’s up in my closet collecting dust. where it still remains to this day because I can’t seem to get rid of it, because I love it.

But I gave myself five years to get published. I figured that was enough time to really learn the craft of writing. Which, you know, it really is not long enough to learn the craft of writing.

That’s lifelong process, but it gave me a foundation to do that, to learn the ins and outs of publishing, how to format a novel, that kind of thing. I wrote probably five or six books in that time, and it wasn’t until six months before my deadline that I got the call that I was going to be published. So I really cut it short.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s fantastic and all that time you were also a full-time mum. That really takes some dedication to keep going when you’ve got so much else on. You could make excuses that you just didn’t have time and that kind of thing. I guess that it might have been a bit tempting sometimes to do that.

Giving herself a timeline a key to success

Heather Webber: Sometimes it’s still tempting, lemme tell you. But I think because I gave myself the timeline, that was the key for me. I gave myself five years and I was going to see that through, even during those times where I wanted to quit. That’s what really pushed me through.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s great because the next question I was going to ask you, and it’s one that I ask everybody really, is what do you credit with the quote secret of your success?

Heather Webber:  It’s truly just persistence. when those first rejections came in – it’s a little bit of stubbornness too, actually – when those first rejections came in, I was just so upset by them.

Even though it is a business and you have to learn that it is a business and it’s not personal when your writing is rejected.

But I got a little chip on my shoulder. I will do this, I can do this. I know I can do this. I want to do this. And that’s a big thing is the wanting to do it. How badly you want something drives how much work you’re willing to put into it.

Jenny Wheeler: Yes. Yes.

Heather Webber: Per persistence is really key.

Links to Heather Webber:

Heather Webber Binge Reading Episode; Magic Mystery: https://thejoysofbingereading.com/heather-webber-magic-mystery/

Website: www.heatherwebber.com

Best of 2022 – Lynette Eason – Romantic Suspense Lynette Eason – inspirational romantic suspense and a sense of social justice

Lynette Eason is an author of inspirational romantic adventures with more than 50 books to her credit. I asked her how it all came together.

Jenny Wheeler: Lynette, your series are generally adventure with suspense and built into them a lot of former military heroes or people in the helping and rescuing professions. Is this how you started out, or did all that develop gradually as you went along along?

Lynette Eason: I started with the suspense genre and I’ve stuck with it ever since. That was what I was interested in writing and I didn’t see any reason to write anything else .

Jenny Wheeler: Was there a epiphany moment where you thought, I’ve just got to get that book written, something you’d always wanted to do, or was it something you just fell into somehow?

Lynette Eason: I don’t know that there was an epiphany moment. I know that when, I was growing up, I always loved to read suspense, like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Alfred Hitchcock and Agatha Christie. I loved all of that stuff. but as far as trying to write, I tried to write a book when I was in the eighth grade and gave up because it was just too hard,

‘Talking to the voices in my head’

 But I’ve always done really well with writing in school and always had really good compliments on creative writing exercise and stories.

So I think when my daughter was born and my husband traveled a lot with his job and I was lonely and I thought, you know, this might be a good time to try to write a book cause I always wanted to, but I just never really got around to it…

You know, like I said, eighth grade, gave up. So when he would be gone, I would sit down. I call it talking to the voices in my head and I pounded out a story. I knew that I wanted to write suspense. I didn’t know really, it was romantic suspense that I wanted to write until after I read, Dee Henderson’s book, Danger in the Shadows.

I guess that was the epiphany. I was like, this is what I wanna write. Yeah. And so, that’s just kind of tried to come up with that type of story.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s fantastic. Now, the most recent one that, that you’ve got out at the moment is Life Flight, and it’s the first book in a new series called Extreme Measures, and the hero of that is Penny, a medical rescue helicopter pilot who gets stuck on a mountain in a bad storm where there’s a serial killer loose. How do you keep the action moving?

Can this get any worse? Well yes, it can!

Lynette Eason: Oh gosh, you know, it’s funny, I don’t plot out my stories completely. I just start writing and see where the characters and the action and all that kind of takes me when things get bad, I try to figure out how I can make it worse and work that into the story somehow.

And the readers are going, can this get any worse? And then, oh yes, it actually can. So, it keeps readers awake and on the edge of their seat and keeps them coming back for more. I guess they really enjoy it. .

Jenny Wheeler: That’s great. I started to dip into the series before this one, danger Never Sleeps, and I must admit, I got really hooked into Danger Never Sleeps. You’ve got a four book series there, and they’re all ex-military who’ve worked together in Afghanistan in one way or another on a military deployment.

But now they’re back in the US and trying to settle down into normal lives. Various things that happened in Afghanistan impacting on their lives as they try to get back to some normality.

Now, I think it’s in Book Two of the series, I was quite struck because Heather goes sand boarding in the Bamiyan Mountains. Now, we had New Zealand troops deployed and their headquarters for part of the time was the Bamiyan Mountains, and I’d never heard of anybody going sand boarding there.

The detail that makes a story come alive

And I thought, wow, you’ve got the sort of detail that makes things come alive. And I wondered how you managed to get so close to the action. Do, you have family who are involved in the military or how do you do your research?

Lynette Eason: I have a couple of acquaintances that served there and one of those has turned into a good friend and he gave me a lot of little details that only somebody who’d served in the military would know about. And in the first book in Active Defense, I simply did some research on, okay, you have all these people serving in the military and they can’t be on duty 24 7, They’ve gotta have some fun in their lives, or you just, you gonna go nuts.

Jenny Wheeler: Yes.

Lynette Eason: So I like, what do they do? And so I started asking around and I started doing some research online and I found that they actually do go sandboarding in these mountains. And I was like, well, that’s really cool. My character’s gonna do that.

Jenny Wheeler: But, you haven’t actually, for example, flown helicopters yourself,

Lynette Eason: Ah, no, no. I have not flown a helicopter, but I have an FBI agent buddy who has, and he has given me all the details for all the helicopter stuff,

Lynette Eason’s writing schedule

Jenny Wheeler: Oh, that’s great. Do you have an idea output in terms of word count or the number of books you want to produce a year, what’s your production schedule like?

Lynette Eason: I do have a word count that I strive to reach each day. I don’t always do it, so therefore with the deadline creeps up, I find myself in panic mode, such as right now.

But life does interfere sometimes. I have family and other obligations and I have a niece and nephew that I love to keep up with. They’re seven years old and twins, My kids are older now.

I write every day, whether it’s 50 words or 1000 or 2000, at some point I am on my laptop just about every single day, trying to reach that word count because I know if I don’t, it’s gonna be more the next day and more the next day and more the next day.

I do, I work every day, usually. Holidays, weekends, you name it. There’ll be times I’ll take a couple of days off to do something fun with family, but I’m an empty nester.

My husband works a lot of hours and he’s pastor of a church and he works at the ministry in the Dominican and a ministry in Africa and he is gone quite a bit and it’s just me and the dog.

I enjoy what I do and I try to get done what I need to do, because I have to do it at some point.

Jenny Wheeler:  You’ve got quite a sense of social justice and in the series like Elite Guardians and Women of Justice, there is a sense coming through of wanting to see right prevail. Tell us a bit about that aspect of your work. Has that always been an important thing to you?

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100%;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] [data-style="minimal"]{padding:40px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"]{margin-left:-5px;margin-right:-5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field,.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{margin:0 5px 15px 5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field{-webkit-flex:100 1 auto;-ms-flex:100 1 auto;flex:100 1 auto;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{-webkit-flex:1 1 auto;-ms-flex:1 1 auto;flex:1 1 auto;} A desire for justice Lynette’s driving force

Lynette Eason: Yes, I’m big on justice , I love that the bad guys get taken down. I love that when somebody does wrong, that the characters that I create have this sense of justice in that we’re gonna fix this, we’re gonna make it right, and it might be a control thing too, because you see so much that’s wrong in this world.

You see so many things that you can’t do anything about. as much as you you would love to solve the crisis of hunger and homelessness and all of these things in the world. You can do your part, but you’re not gonna fix it. And I think in my stories, I always have that happily ever after.

I’m not saying it’s cheesy and everything always works out in the end, but for the most part I give my readers a happy ending, because that’s why they read, and most people want the happy ending. I want the happy ending , and so I just love that. I can do that. I get to control it. I like to see the little person become the hero, I love to see characters change and grow. And learn about themselves not just outwardly, but inwardly, really learn something about themselves that makes them a better person.

Faith-based stories must be entertaining

Jenny Wheeler: Yes, that’s great. The other aspect of this, your publishers mainly faith-based publishers, like Life Inspired Romance and Revell, and there are faith aspects of your stories, not in a heavy-handed way. I wonder how you keep the right balance between introducing those things. there’s that joke that everybody calls out on God when they’re faced with tough situations.

But how do you do that in a way that isn’t going to turn people off?

Lynette Eason: Well, I don’t like to preach. I mean, there’s preaching and there’s preaching, I go to church and I know I’m gonna get preached at in church, you know? But when I’m reading, I don’t want to read a sermon.

My first goal is to be entertained. And as a writer, I want my readers to be entertained. I don’t want them to be flipping pages going, all right, I wanna get to the action. I wanna get the story. I can read about this other stuff some other time. That kind of thing.

There are no atheists in fox holes

I want my characters, if they’re Christians, if they have a faith element, I want them to live it naturally.

I want it to come through. as a part of their character, and that it’s very natural. It doesn’t come across as I’m like trying to force it or trying to fake it because nobody’s gonna respond to that, not positively anyway.

In my stories, I try to think, okay, if I put myself in that situation where, you know, somebody’s trying to kill me, I’m gonna be praying a lot, even if I don’t have really strong faith element, it’s gonna make me think about things.

Jenny Wheeler: Yeah, yeah. There is that saying there are no atheists in foxholes.

Lynette Eason: That No. Very true. Very true. Yes. Yes.

Links To Lynette:

Lynette Eason Binge Reading Episode; Inspirational Suspense: https://thejoysofbingereading.com/lynette-eason-romantic-suspense/

Website: https://lynetteeason.com/

Dee Henderson Book that inspired Lynette: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/359463.Danger_in_the_Shadows

Best of 2022 – Christian White – Psychological Thrillers Christian White – psychological thrillers that ask hard questions

Christian White is an Australian author, screenwriter and producer who’s award-winning first novel, The Nowhere Child has already attracted a major screen deal. His latest book, the psychological thriller Wild Place raises a question as old as human life itself. – Why do good people do bad things?

He co-wrote a Netflix show Clickbait which went to Number one in 41 countries and yet he says it took him a long time to get into writing thrillers because he didn’t think he was clever enough to do them well. Here’s Christian telling the story.

Christian White:  When I first started out, I wanted to write, comedy, you know, I fancy myself a comedy writer, and I tried it and I just realized, oh, I’m really, really bad at writing comedy. And so I tried all these sort of, um, You know, I really like horror, so I dabbled with horror and I sort of tried different genres and, and weirdly it took me a long time to get around to that thriller mystery crime genre, mostly because I didn’t think I was clever enough.

Strangely, I have always loved reading them, so looking back, it’s a bit of a no-brainer, but I thought, no, I don’t think I can do it. I’m not clever enough.

Finding your space as a writer

And then as soon as. I started dabbling and then, and I realized, oh, actually I’m kind of good at this. I’m, I was terrible at all these other things that I tried, but I’m kind of good at this.

And then I leaned further and further in and then realized, it was just my space.

Jenny Wheeler: So how interesting that it took you quite a while to find that, and when you say you didn’t feel clever enough, are you referring there to having to do lots of plot twists and that kind of thing?

Christian White: Yeah, I always thought, you know, a good mystery needs a really great twist, but the twist can’t come out of nowhere. It’s got to be built in and it needs to keep audiences guessing and there needs to be twists and turns.

And I just thought, oh, I don’t think my brain can do that. And, what I realized was my first drafts are always terrible, but so much of what I do is going back and making it seem like I had all the answers from the beginning.

Discovering a process that works for you

 I think I thought that you had to write it from beginning to end, and as soon as I discarded that notion, it all fell into place. I think it was, sorry if I’m wrong about this, but I think it was PT Anderson, the director who when he was talking about writing, he talks as if you are ironing the sleeve of a shirt.

so you don’t go – this is gonna be hard to just do, you know, without the visual – but you don’t start from the shoulder, go right down to the wrist and be done with it. You start at the shoulder, go a little bit down, then go back to the shoulder and go a little bit further and writing – I mean that’s so spot on.

That describes my process so well, so much of it is just building and building and building and making it seem like you are cleverer than you really are.

Jenny Wheeler: It’s interesting that you say that because I think writers do sometimes get that feeling when they’re two thirds or so into a book. They get that panicky feeling of, this isn’t good enough. I don’t know what’s supposed to be happening. They almost punish themselves about that feeling of uncertainty. But it sounds like you’ve learned to really ride it.

Christian White: Yes. My my process is – and now I’m onto my third book, so it’s really a process – that I will sit down, and before I start writing it all, I’ll come up with what I think is this ironclad plot.

The best laid plans… mostly don’t work out

You know, it’s really great. It’s got these cool twists and turns, and then around halfway through every single time, I realize – and there’s no way to say this that isn’t really pretentious, but your characters do take on a mind of their own and a life of their own, and usually I realize that about halfway through.

 I’ve got to know them in a way that now I know they won’t do the things I want them to do in the second half. And at that time, I generally, I do two things. Firstly, I always follow the character. That always speaks plot for me. I might have this really amazing scene I’m building to, – I think characters are allowed to do stupid things because we all do stupid things.

But when I’m reading a book or watching a show or something and a character does something so plot serving that you can see the writer’s movements behind that, And whenever that happens, I completely emotionally disengage.

Christian White – its all about following character

The other secret weapon I have is my wife, Summer. I’ll do a first draft and then I’ll give it to her first, even before my publishers, and I’ll say, hey, the ending is terrible. Can you come up with all the twists and give me credit for it? That’s what happened in my second book in particular. I obviously won’t do spoilers, but it was a very ambitious twist. I spent a long time trying to make that twist work. I reached a point where I was about to give up and that would mean missing deadlines. It would mean everything falling apart.

Finally, after weeks I talked to Summer about it and said, here’s what I want to do, and here’s the problem. She was quiet for probably 12 seconds, and then she came up with all the answers. She is definitely my secret weapon. If we ever get divorced, my career will go down the tube.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s gorgeous. You seem to have also a fascination with the question of how well we know one another. Even in intimate relationships people hold deep secrets from those closest to them. And I wondered if that too was something that you’d grown up with, somehow being aware that there was a lot of stuff going on underneath that maybe they weren’t coming clean about.

Self discovery part of the writing journey

Christian White: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think on a subconscious level, I must have always feared this idea that. You know, those closest to us will be carrying some secret or do something so huge that it will unpick your relationship. But I didn’t realize that about myself until really I wrote three books about that very thing.

And even the TV show Clickbait is about that. You know, I co-wrote a film called Relic and even that goes into that territory and it’s really funny. I think that when I’m writing I am aware of the themes and I do start with certain questions, but I’m only at a really surface level.

Generally, all the themes just emerge naturally, all the true themes, and I really didn’t think about it until, the first book came out and people started to talk about those questions and say ‘Oh, you must be interested in that. ‘And I thought, yeah, I guess I am.

And now looking back, there are all these themes, these reoccurring themes that I think each of my three books by design very different but they all very much feel there’s, there’s similar themes tying them all together.

The ‘necessary truths’ we construct for ourselves

And I think that was completely subconscious, but clearly it’s a deep, it’s a deep fear I have, really, I can’t think of anything worse. If a serial killer came in and killed me, yes, that would be horrible, of course.

But what if you found out, your wife had killed someone? It’s this deep, deep fear because I think we set up these necessary truths in life. You know, where you have an idea of your parents and they have to be your idea of it, it’s a necessary truth.

When you find out that’s not the case, life can unravel very quickly and I guess that’s very scary. Although, having said that, it’s not like that happened to me.

I dunno what I’m working through, but clearly. Clearly there’s something going on.

Christian White Episode# https://thejoysofbingereading.com/christian-white-psychological-thrillers/

Website: https://www.christian-white.com/

Clickbait Netflix show:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwVLObz0MGs

Best of 2022 – Meg Waite Clayton – WWII adventure Meg Waite Clayton – historical fiction that’s as close to historical fact as she can make it

Historical fiction, author Meg Waite Clayton’s latest book, The Postmistress of Paris has had a tremendous reception. It’s a thrilling world war two story about rescuing artists from Vichy, France, with a host of international reviewers eagerly anticipating in it and hyping it up before it even went on sale.

But as Meg explains, she’s already served a long apprenticeship to get to that place

Meg Waite Clayton: I did. This is, novel number eight. Here in the United States the first one that’s been reviewed by The New York Times, so that’s my long apprenticeship, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s been a lovely run and a lovely career, and I feel like it’s just keeps growing in a lovely way.

Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful. The central character of the postmistress in the book, she’s called Naneé , she’s a wealthy American who stays on in France after war is declared in 1939, partly because she feels it’s her home.

Mary Jayne Gold – remarkable inspiration

She’s been living there for quite some time and also because she has this lovely idea, or some might say