Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, we're talking murder mystery. Best selling author and the June pick for Reese's Book Club, Ali Condy is here to discuss her new novel that's creating lots and lots of buzz. It's Thursday, June twentieth. I'm Danielle Robe.
And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, Simone.
Today, We're joined by best selling author Ali Condy, and she's known for her wildly popular young adult book series and recently she released a new murder mystery. The Internet is a Blaze. It's called The Unwedding and it is a June Reese's Book Club pick. Everything about this book and the story behind it is giving Lemonade by Beyonce.
Let me explain. Author Ali had a twentieth wedding anniversary trip planned, and obviously this is supposed to be romantic and relaxing and a celebration of her commitment to her and his commitment to heart. But in a twist of terrible fate, she and her husband get divorced and she finds out that he's still going to go on the trip, but he's going with another woman. So Ali decides she's going to go on a trip too, and she arrives at this hotel and immediately finds out that there's a
wedding going on. Can you imagine how gutting that would be? So brutal? Oh my gosh, this is such a wild backstory. I can't believe it. But here's the bright side. Okay, Allie's sitting at the bar by herself, people watching, and her imagination is taking over, and she thinks, what if there was a murder here and I was the only person that could solve it. You know what's funny is that's not the kind of murder I'd be thinking about
on a trip like that. But I'm glad that she has an imagination because that moment inspired her to write and publish what has become her first murder mystery, and now she's the June pick for Reese's Book Clubs. So talk about turning your mess into your message.
I mean, I'm so excited to hear all of this in her own words, because stories like this where someone took life's bitter lemons and turned it into sweet, sweet lemonade, they're always so epic, right, Danielle Hm. I mean it's such a universal experience, right, Like, if you've been on this earth long enough, it's going to happen to you. Danielle. Can you think of a time when you turn something tragic into magic? Anything come to mind?
Yes? And mine also has to do with a man. My ex boyfriend years ago broke up with me on a beach in Cabo, and then subsequently we spent the next ten days together with both of our families there, which was brutal, and I had to move out and I was so broke and I didn't know how I was going to move into an apartment, And that whole experience set me on like an amplification of my career.
I started sending out cold emails and started doing digital media work and moved into and decorated my own apartment. And previously I had found a pro con list that he made about me, and one of the cons was that he felt like I couldn't just like get stuff done. And that year I got the most done ever. I did a triathlon, I made the most money I had made, and I was.
Really sticking it to him getting dumped on a beach in Cabo with all of your family watching. That sounds like the beginning of a great novel. To me, I've always wanted to write a novel about it. But let's talk to somebody who's actually done it. We are here with the June.
RBC pick Ali Condy. She's talking love, marriage and mystery. Ali, Welcome to the bright Side.
Thank you, Thank you so much for having me.
Ali. I was really struck by the real life inspiration behind this book. I mean, did you have anyone specific in mind when you were writing this murder mystery? That is such a great and perfectly loaded question. Yeah, I mean clearly I did. Like as you mentioned, you know, we'd been divorced.
It was clear I wasn't going to be going on the twentieth anniversary trip with him, and yet still somehow it hurt. Everything I was reading was saying, get yourself out there, be comfortable, being on your own, all of that, and I thought, absolutely so I took myself on a trip and it was just harder than I expected. I did miss him. I particularly missed my children. That's the hardest part of divorces. You're no longer with them all the time, and as a parent and a mother, that feels very foreign.
It feels completely wrong.
I still haven't gotten over that part, but I realized, oh, I shoot, everyone else is here with someone else. And I was used to being alone on book tour. I thought I could handle it just fine. But I also didn't have the purpose of book tour. So it was just me eating food, kind of looking at my phone, looking around, and yeah, that inspiration for the main character. That's pretty much the opening scene of the book is how I was feeling. And then, of course I didn't
solve any murders. None of that happened, but I did start looking around and paying attention and feeling sorry for myself, kind of like, oh.
They're so happy, look at that couple.
And then it deteriorated pretty quickly into well, I don't
think they're going to make it. You know, you start you start being pretty honest with your assessments of everyone around you, and you often when you're traveling, you do have kind of that whole microcosm of human life, like there are people who are super happy, there are people who look miserable, different family groupings, different couples, different ages of couples, all of that, and so as the weekend progressed, it got more and more fun, the people watching, and
pretty quickly I had the thought, oh, man, if there were a murder here, I'd be the only one who could solve it because I'm the only one who's been noticing everybody else, because I don't have anyone else to pay attention to.
Well, what did you discover about yourself in the writing process, because to me, it felt like there was a little bit of therapy here, even though it is a novel.
Yeah, I mean absolutely there was.
And you know, I have kids, and I'm really conscious of how how I talk about the book, so you know, their dad is a great dad. I'm not trying to in any way take him down or shame him or make him look like any thing bad at all.
But the pain was real. And you know, this book is.
Coming out now, but I've been remarried for almost a year, and so the book always comes out a little bit past the experience if you are writing anything that you're kind of going through the time. But in that sense, yeah, I mean it feels like I definitely wouldn't have had the idea to write this particular murder mystery without that experience. I wouldn't have had the idea to kind of go for it. I don't think, because I don't know if
you guys have experienced this. I hope you haven't, but I think we all have where you lose something really, really profound and then it almost feels like you have nothing left to lose. Yes, and so in the past, where I might I might have been precious about it, like, oh, it'll be so embarrassing if I write this book and it doesn't do well, or oh, I should stay in my lane and write young adult or children's books, which I love and still plan to write.
Instead, I thought, well, the worst has.
Already happened, you know, I don't It's fine if I fail at writing a book.
Harder things than this exist in the world.
Your main character, Ellery has had more than one rough patch in her life. Why did you want to center your main character in tragedy like that?
I think she's also centered in a lot of joy.
But yeah, this is her tragedy era, right, and so, but it's not her first tragedy era. And unfortunately, and fortunately, I guess for character growth and for personal growth, we don't have a quota, right, Like, we don't have a quota of bad stuff that happens to us. I think when I was growing up, I felt like, Oh, everyone probably has one or two really bad things happen, and
that is just not the case at all. I learned that pretty early on when I was a high school teacher, Like some kids would come to me and I felt like, Oh, my word, you're twelve and you've already met what I feel like should be your quota for life. And then some that's just not the way life works. And so I was kind of showing like, she's been through some hard stuff, but also it might keep coming, and so
how do you deal with that? How do you keep moving forward even when some hard things have already happened to you? And the same thing is true wonderfully of joy. There's also no quota in that. Yeah, And so even when you're.
Down and out and the darkest thing you can think.
Of has happened, you will be there's that great phrase, surprised by joy, and you will be. There will be things that happen that keep happening that are great too. So I wanted to show that a little bit as well.
ALI Something that my friend group has been discussing over the last few years as some people have gotten married, is keeping their maiden names versus taking their married name. And I found this particularly interesting because you posted about the emotional struggle with wanting to put your maiden name on the book after your divorce, but you were told no because your identity as an author had already been established. How did you deal with that?
That was tricky. I love that you noticed that post.
So when I got married, I mean, I've been dating the same guy since I was eighteen, and I entered.
That marriage at the ripe old age of twenty one. Wholeheartedly.
There's no way I thought that I would not have this name for the rest of my life. And then I had a baby at twenty four, so it pretty quickly also became connected to my children.
I made that connection. Honestly.
I made that decision in a sort of pure of heart way. But yeah, the ramifications were tough because I asked if we could change it back to my maiden name, which is Ali Braithwaite, which is a little unwieldy, but I also liked it. I was that person for a long time, and I did completely understand the publisher's decision. We all at the end of the day, we all want to sell books. We all want to make sure that the book is successful, and I'm not trying to sabotage that, but it became a.
Second choosing of that name.
While I can go by Ali Braithwaite in my private life, my public life has to be Ali Condy. And so I kind of made my peace with that thanks to as many things in my life, friends coming through and saying so some wonderful things I hadn't thought of myself. But another author who's been very successful said, you know that name. I don't think of your husband when I think of that name. When I think of your name, I think of you. I don't think of any association
with anyone else. And I realized, oh, there's this whole professional sphere. They don't know him at all. This is all me, and that then I suddenly felt like a really exciting space to step into, like, oh, yeah, I built this sort of you know, and spouses are supportive, they're great, But I built this independent of him, and that wasn't a space he ever really chose to come into with me, and so that felt freeing.
And then I also realized the.
Connection with my kids, I want that connection and I think naming is about connection. Sometimes people choose new names because they don't feel connected to.
The name their parents gave them, and that's great.
And at this point I realized, oh, the connection's not about an ex spouse anymore. It's about my readership and my children. So that felt good.
There is a legacy that you're building for your kids. And I have never met your ex husband, so all I know is Ali Kandy.
Well there I go. Yeah, so that feels great.
You know, there's this sentiment from the book that I love. The main character Ellery says, everybody has a shadow. So there's a light and there's a shadow. What does the shadow mean?
The shadow is just to me, it's the part that everyone would just prefer to keep hidden. And that doesn't even necessarily mean that the shadow is a bad thing, but it's the part of you that you feel like it's best to keep this to myself or I don't totally want other people to see this until I trust them. And sometimes it is a dark thing too. You know, I've met people who have some dark secrets, and right I've met people who don't, but they're very private about certain parts of their life.
And so that's kind of what I was thinking of.
Everybody does have a shadow, and for the purposes of a murder mystery. Is that shadow a dark thing? Or is that shadow just the part they want to keep hidden? And what does that mean as she's trying to figure out who might be a.
Ca I love it. I think we should have more shadows in the world. I want to see more people's shadows. I agree, Yeah, like I can think of so many famous people. I'm like, I want to see what your shadow looks like.
We need to take a quick break, but we'll be right back.
Stay with us. We're back, So Ali. One of our special treats that we like to give our Brightside bessies is a reading from the author herself. So we've selected a passage that we would love for you to read to us. Can you go ahead and give us some context?
Yeah, I'd love to do that. And I love this passage that you suggested that I read. It's not one I've been able to read a lot because I can't get through it without crying. So we'll see how this goes. But it is one of the few passages in the book that is taken directly from real life. So in
this passage. She has a son named Ethan, and they have been on a family vacation prior to the divorce to Universal Studios and had a really wonderful time and he ended up getting one of the Harry Potter wands and that's been kind of his favorite thing since they've returned from this trip. And then it's now post divorced,
and they go on a little drive. She and her son, Ethan, they live in Colorado, and there's a lot of beautiful places, and he has her taken to one of those beautiful places and something else happens, and so that's the setup for this scene. So again Ethan is the child and the main character is the mom. After they'd returned from the trip, Ethan asked her repeatedly to take him to a lake up in the mountains that they sometimes visited.
It was a beautiful spot, blue water, perfect green pines, a sandier beach than you usually found in Colorado, a long wooden dock stretching out into the water from which you could launch kayaks or paddleboards. The day she'd finally gotten around to taking Ethan had been mum. After their trip to California later in the year, when the air and water were cool bordering on cold. There hadn't been many people at the lake. Ethan had climbed out of
the car with a sense of purpose. Wait for me, buddy, she said, trying to make sure she had her keys and phone, But he was off, stalking intently out onto the dock, since he had a pension for jumping into bodies of water. Fully clothed, she hurried after him, worried he'd gotten it into his mind to go for a swim. But Ethan stopped at the end of the dock and turned to look at her. It was then that she saw he was holding his wand she hadn't noticed that
he'd brought it in the car. His blue eyes and the blue tshirt he was wearing in the blue water behind him all brightened and deepened one another, and she thought, this is impossibly beautiful. He is impossibly beautiful, mom, Ethan said, urgency in his tone. Mom.
To her surprise, he handed her the precious wand mom, turn me into a fish, Oh, Ethan, she said, her heart breaking. I can't.
I'm so sorry. No, Mom, he said, you can. It built and built the urgency in his voice. Then the distress the break in her heart until she thought they would both shatter inWORD or outwards. She didn't know, but neither of them could bear this much pain, this much want, this much failure. Mom Eth had kept saying, tears in his eyes, Mom, please please.
Turn me into a fish. When he finally realized that she couldn't. Oh, how she hoped he didn't think it was that she wouldn't. They got back into the car and drove home. They wound down the forest roads in silence, both of their faces tears stained. She hadn't seen the wand since he had never asked to go to the lake again, she had thought that day that it was the worst she could possibly fail. Somewhe she'd been so absolutely wrong.
Thank you for that. Ali. Before you read, you said that you usually cry when you read that passage. What special meaning does it hold for you?
Well?
I tried not to read it too much because it was a real experience that happened, and I'm not it's hard to revisit. Frankly, my son is neuro divergent and we had that experience post divorce, and like I mentioned earlier, it's one of the few real experiences I put in the book, and that was just such a feeling that day of he desperately wanted this thing, and he truly
thought I could grant it to him. He thought he had all the elements there, he'd brought the wand we'd gotten to the place, and then he was asking me to transform him into something else, take him away from this, and there was I could not do it, you know,
there was no way for me to do that. And as a parent, I mean, that's one of the hardest things, is when you disappoint your child or when they desperately deeply want something and you cannot give it to them, even though you would love to be able to do that.
And so that's tricky for me to revisit because that was a hard and that he really wanted that for me, and I didn't give it to him, and it became a little bit of a you know, a stand in for all of the things he wanted, like an intact family and different things that I also really wanted that I also was unable to give him. And so that that feeling is still kind of with me. Frankly, there's still some things that I wish I could provide that I can, and as a parent.
That's really tough.
It's so hard. What do you say to your kids in those moments, because it is really hard whenever your kids want something that you can't deliver.
Yeah, I kind of have to I have to acknowledge that it's a valid want. You're not wrong to want this. This makes sense that you want this to kind of teach them to be able to do that for themselves. Like, it's okay to want things. And often the things that you want are really good, and you still can't have them because someone else is making a different choice or the circumstances don't allow it. And then sometimes you can acknowledge I want that too, but you don't want to
put yourself in there too much. You know, it's about their want, not about yours. And then I say, I can't fix it, but I can sit here with you in the wanting. We can be here together, and then what's something else that we can control that we can maybe do. Sometimes that's the next step, and sometimes the next step is not that. Sometimes the next step is just Okay, we're still sad. Nothing's going to fix this, and we'll just.
Be here in the sadness for a few minutes and not try to move past it till already.
Ali, have you ever thought about being a parenting coach? No? I was like, that was amazing. I learned so much just in that fifteen second SoundBite.
Oh gosh, that's so kind of you, Simone.
I'm muddling my way through like everyone else, but I do really care about.
It, so I hope that counts for something.
Yeah, totally. I think the sitting with is the hardest thing for adults and children to do, but it's the best thing that you can do.
Oftentimes we need to take a quick break. But when we come back, Alie answers your burning questions about the unwetding and her writing process, and we're back.
All right, Allie, are we ready to get to some listener questions?
Yes, yeah, that would be great.
Okay, First up, we have a question about the setting of the book from Karen.
Hi, Allie, this is Karen from New Jersey.
I'm a big thriller fan, so I picked the book copy right away and I'm loving it. It is so so good I can hardly put it down. I love that the book was set in Big sur It feels like you have a big personal connection to this location. How do you choose the settings for your stories and how much research goes into that detail.
Oh, thank you, Karen. I'm so glad you're liking the book. And you're right, Big Sir is a special place for me. It's a place that I first discovered with friends, and so it's been a place I could return to without sort of any residual memories or sadness other than having been there with friends, which feels really great. And I chose that setting because this is a locked room mystery or a locked resort mystery.
There's been a mud.
Slide and the characters can't get out, and so the main character is kind of called upon to solve this murder mystery, and the absence of any real authority figures and biggsur has that happened all the time where there's mud slides, people do get helicoptered out of their luxury resorts, and so it didn't feel like stretching things too much
to have that happen choosing that setting. I also love settings where the natural world sort of bumps up against man's desire for a high thread count, right like where we've got this edge of the world's setting, but also people trying to have luxury.
At the end of the world.
I think it's just a very interesting place that we're in, us human beings, where where we're trying to.
Push that limit a little bit.
And one of the other reasons is it's so beautiful and it's so dangerous, and that felt like a great place to have a murder.
Okay, I really like this. Next question, we're getting into a little more detail on Ali's pivots.
Hey, Ali, I'm Alicia from North Carolina and I consider myself a super reader. I average about one hundred and seventy five to two hundred books per year. I'm a professor, so I use the young adult books to help me stay connected and engage with the students that I teach. Of course, I loved your Match series and I was very excited when I saw that you now have written a adult a fiction and mystery book. And I fell in love with the unwedding. You did such a great.
Job with Ellery.
I was able to connect with her as a woman in a middle age and things don't go as you plan. So this leads to my question, was it struggle for you to switch to the adult fiction and which genre is harder for you to write. I'll look forward to your response.
Thank you, Alicia, that's a very fun question, and thank you for the kind words about matched. It wasn't a struggle, and it totally was. So it wasn't a struggle in that, as I alluded to earlier, I come to the book from the character standpoint, so that didn't feel different. It felt like, oh, here I am again with a character that I want to get to know better and that I want to explore a plot with. So that felt very similar and not scary. But then it did feel different.
It felt different because I was talking about different things. You know, kids go through hard stuff and they have the full realm of human experience pretty early, love and jealousy and hard things happening and all the big feelings.
But when we've lived longer.
We've had maybe more of a variety of those, and so I could talk about divorce and disappointment and long marriages and.
Just a different sort of toolbox.
But then that felt a little scary to try to do right by all of that. And then, of course I was totally intimidated to write a murder mystery because I'm such a big fan of the genre. I've been reading them since I was a child, and I thought.
Oh, this is hard to do.
Well, I really want to take this seriously and make sure that we care about the characters and their motivations and so the mystery makes sense. And so that was something I took very much to heart and was new for me.
Yeah, all right, We've got one final question from Josie. She wants an inside scoop on your writing approach. Hi, Allie, I'm Josie.
I started reading your matched books and he got me to learn about the YA genre, and now I'm trying to become a writer. And I noticed that with your writing, I become immersed into the world and I just feel like I'm a part of the world. How do you write those type of scenes? Like what is your technique? How do you get it to become that detailed and that easy need to read?
Joseie, that's a great question, and I'm so excited that you're going to be a writer. I can't wait to read what you've written. I think with writing descriptions sometimes it comes to me pretty immediately. And maybe you've had this experience too, where you sit down and it just it flows. It feels lush, and it feels easy to describe,
and it feels like it's just flowing. And those are magical, magical writing moments, and I definitely have those, and sometimes those are pretty pretty automatic, and then other times it is just like pulling teeth. And so what I've learned to do is I scaffold for later. And what I'll do is I'll think I'm trying to write this scene. I can picture it in my mind, but it's not coming out on paper, and I'll just put the bare structure of it there. She's in a forest. There's a smell,
this is happening. The trees are here. Just all the little details that I can, even if they're not coming to life, like there's juniper berries on the ground, the sky is pink, it is seventy five degrees.
And so I'll just try to put.
In every little bit of framework that I can, and then sometime later, often it happens after I've gone on a hike or a run, or I've been outside for even five minutes, I'll go back and flesh out that framework. I'll feel like, ooh, I have a little peeing of inspiration. I can go back and write that setting now, So that would be my most concrete advice, But it sounds like you're doing pretty great already. You're already thinking about the right things.
I'm always so impressed by the questions that we get from our bright Side.
Oh my gosh, yeah, those were great.
Also, can we talk about the super reader, Alicia? One hundred and seventy five to two hundred books a year. Incredible, so impressive. That is amazing, incredible, Alie, thank you so much.
Oh, thank you both for having me. It's been such a delight.
I've been listening to the podcast, and like so many of your listeners, I already felt like you were my friends. You guys are wonderful and I love the community.
That's an honor for us to hear that. Thank you.
You were a bestie before, but you're an official bestie now, Ali, thank you for that.
Oh, thank you.
Thanks so much to our bright Side besties Karen, Josie and Alicia for sending in their questions. Ali Condy is the author of The Unweedding, which is Reese's Book Club's June selection. So go pick up a copy. It's available now wherever you get your books.
We're talking with the summerya pick from Reese's book Club. Next. Author Alexin Ferrell Falmuth will be with us later this month, so send your questions to Hello at the brightside dot com. Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Simone Boye.
You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro Ba.
Y see you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.