Hi Sam. Welcome to What Next podcast.

Hi, Laura. Thank you so much for having me.

So happy to have you here. Tell us what you've been up to. 'cause you came last year and we talked about Gabby Green and we gotta talk more about Gabby Green and I'll share why.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I I wrote the, I came on for Gabby Green, the first one, and now I've written the second one. So she came out and another book the Vampire Book on Dead and Unwed. So I've been busy.

you've been busy,

I've been busy last week. Last year was in pure insanity. I was writing vampires, spies. I didn't know which end was up.

Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot of writing. And I read the Undead, the Vampire one. It was delightful. It was a gray for the fall, and then you got Gabby going on a tropical vacation.

I know

It was like, you're in dead of winter, and you're like, you know what? We might as well just go to an island off Portugal,

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Gabby's, Gabby Green's coming out with she came out the same time as they put the department stores, put the swimsuits out like you're gonna go as if we're all gonna go to a tropical resort.

Yes. So I have to tell you, I, I think I shared this before. I am a baby, Gabby Green in some ways because I have a similar path, unconventional path to work in, take down investigations. So I don't work in the government, I work in a. Private sector, but I do similar things to Gabby and I started later in life. I started when I was 36 or 37, and I am, I'm 44 now. And so it's a, it's an unconventional path and I love that Gabby is trying to manage it all and she cannot undo it, which is the reality of it. And I think it's so telling, it's kids ex-husband a potential love partner. Being in a active duty, being in the, being on site to actually do things. I work remotely. I don't even get out. So she's like my hero in many ways.

yeah. She's keeping it together. There's a lot of comedy 'cause she looks like a mess a little bit, but if I was keeping it doing as well as her, it would be a miracle. Like what is she's doing great. She's solving crimes, she's having great insights. She is balancing work and it's difficult, but she is doing it. It's like she's doing it.

Yeah, she's doing it. So talk to both Gabby Green who knows who done it which is a little bit muffled. But we

It's.

do a second installment of Gabby now that she is a baby agent and she's training, she's learning how to be on get a gun and actually be on combat and then sent off to with her. Potential romantic interest too, who is also her mentor to go on site for Hollywood Wellness, maybe cold leader, maybe gu. We're not sure what's happening.

there's so much going on.

Vacation. So a vacation, a travel vacation. And so she has to manage her kids who are, staying with grandma and trying to figure out, and her kids, I love her kids by the way. The air the little air tag.

Oh, I had actually, I had the kids come in at spend more time in this book and my editor was like, oh my god, Sam, take it down a notch. There's too much going on. So

Yes,

I love the kids too. I love the

the kids. were great and some our ex-husband drops into trouble. Go vacation.

I know. Isn't that a nightmare? Isn't that the worst thing? You can think

That is the worst nightmare. And so Gabby comes on date, which is I know it's a romance, but I was on the edge of my siege trying to figure out how Gabby was gonna get out of this.

I didn't know how, I was like, I didn't know. I was like, what are we gonna do next chapter? Because this is a disaster.

Yes. So talk to us about the process of figure out this location, this particular case that Gabby's solving. 'Cause it has elements of like maybe Maha, maybe wellness. It has elements of the Hollywood culture. It has elements of maybe some trafficking or some. Stuff that's going on. And we have a psychic, we have the precedent psychic who

Everything. There's so much going on. This book is probably like an A DH ADHD diagnosis for me. Somebody could just be like,

yes. So you were like, okay, we're gonna put everything in the kitchen sink and we're gonna make this like

It's gonna work. It's gonna work. But isn't that real life? This is probably toned down from real life. Real life is so much crazier. If I'd made it real, it would've just been, no one would've believed it at all. They would've been, Sam, you've gone too far. Some people might say that anyways, but no, I started with this one. I actually was, it was originally set in Hawaii.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it was really set in Hawaii. My husband and I got married in Hawaii and I was like, oh, this is so much fun. I loved it, I was like, and my one of my closest friends lives there, so we like visit. She's like my auntie now, so we like visit her. But so I thought it'd be great 'cause I've spent enough time there now. I thought who doesn't wanna go to Hawaii? I'll take people there on a book. And then I was talking to somebody and they were like. know a couple people who are, I didn't even realize somebody I know. 'cause like people who are spies don't tell you they're spies

yeah.

Yeah, you're, yeah. So somebody I know though was two, I know two people who have like jobs they're not supposed to talk about. So the two people with one of them. Read the book for me. 'cause I had just randomly asked her to help out 'cause it had such a tight deadline and I was like, can you please fix the comments for me? So it's at least a clean copy when I send it in. And she got back to me and she's we're at it Sam. Can we, you have a couple things that aren't working for this. Like I think we, so she did like a little bit of a spy revision for me and I was like, oh my God, I didn't even know I was gonna get this. And the other one was when I said it in Hawaii, the other person I was talking to. He offered to chat with me about the book. 'cause he read the first one and he's if you wanna talk about the next one before you write it, feel free.

Yeah.

And he told me, 'cause the first thing he said was the ccia a wouldn't have jurisdiction in Hawaii. Which I would they would under certain circumstances, but not if just for

this. Is an American, this is a US citizen. I

They're all Americans. They're all

yeah. So it's not, it will have to be somewhere else for that

Exactly, so that's why it's in the Azores. We went to Portugal. I was like, all right, let's do it. So I took him to the Hawaii of Europe based. Yeah, it was, that's it's everything happened. It was a circuitous path too.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it was like a process of putting it all together and then getting feedback and trying to mesh it together because I feel like in, in a way, this is a book that you probably have to put all these elements and they don't make sense. And then trying to connect the dots because at the end it does make sense. It makes the whole makes the story richer. But when you're starting to read it, you're like, what is going on? You know how this is gonna happen

The murder boards I had. For this book where it was, I was that meme of, I can't remember his name with all the red string everywhere. Just losing my mind, tearing my hair out. And I was like, what am I doing? Because.

because you also have the twist, 'cause it's a spy romance in some ways. There is like a romantic suspense. There's a little bit of like stuff, so you do have this idea of who is the bad guy? And there's a twist at the end that tells you like, Hey, as someone who season reading may have figured out, but a lot of people go, Gary didn't know who is the, see who was the person. So you kinda have to get the shock of that and then try to have the boat scene, be at the edge of the seat. Are you all gonna survive?

Yeah. Absolutely. And then, it was a lot for me to balance. It was a lot for Gabby to balance. There was so much balancing going on. We all made it out. So

you did. You made it on unscathed. And you know what Gabby learned that she cannot control things.

She can't, she absolutely. Gabby can't control things and neither could I.

Yeah, I think it's a life lesson that we all are learning,

I did not have enough time to pull everything together. So at the very end, I think I solved one of the, I was, I can't even remember what it was, but I just said Gabby delegated something at the end, and that was I was like, Gabby learned. I was like this was more of a character rx. She learned that she can't do everything, so we're not solving all of this mystery today. She's delegating.

Yeah, she's delegating. This is part of it. This is what you gotta do.

I thought it was hysterical. My editor didn't laugh.

I dunno, I feel like I learned a lesson from me. You.

Yeah. Didn't we all?

I think we, we have to delegate things. We cannot do it all.

No, you can't. Absolutely not.

Can we expect more Gabby books just in

it depends. It's they're making the errands and espionage movie.

wait, there are.

Yeah. So that is currently underway. That's I haven't talked to anyone recently, but they have, the script was finished and they were like. Someone signed on as a director. I'm not sure if I'm allowed. I don't know what I'm allowed to say. I don't know what I'm,

there might be a movie coming in. There's something.

might be a movie coming up. Yep. And it was, it's going well. It's like it's moving along. I met with the producer. It was in Thanksgiving, which feels like yesterday, but now that I think of it was like three months ago. But it was,

10 years too. Like honestly, 20 25, 20 26. This year has feels like 10 years. January

Yeah. Yeah. It's 10 years ago and yesterday. AB absolutely, it was moving along though. So there's a Gabby movie in the works,

There we go. We got

if there's a Gabby movie out, you can expect like 20 more Gabby books. If.

Please do. I appreciate, I'm like now like I'm a cozy, like a millennium mystery reader and I love that they're just keeping me fed and happy with the same amateur sl trying to solve problems. I'm like, yes, just keep bringing them in and like I know in Romans we have different couples. 'cause the whole point is happily after, but sometimes you just need to build an end. Like just have a little bit more, I wanna hang out with my friends.

Yeah, absolutely. I know, I love, those are some of the books that I grew up with too. Like I think that the mystery ones too, you always have that sleuth that carries through the entire series. And then I would. I remember What is that tough that I can't even remember the Diane Mot Davidson series where she's cooking. I was such a boring college student. I was always reading those like. I think I found them originally on my grandmother's shelf in her like nursing home.

Yeah.

And I was reading those constantly and then making recipes from the back. I loved it 'cause I was like, Goldie the the sleuth chef made these great brownies.

I finished the Ellie Alexander Bake Shop Mystery, which is like 20 books. They're delightful. So Ellie does in A Away is, Jules is a i Sleuth, she's in Ashland. She basically SALs also those mysteries, but she also has a bake shop and in some ways Ellie enter and intercepts ways how to cook things. I learn how to do myth, like how to this. Story and stuff. 'cause she just cook and she like, essentially I learned how to cook while solving a murder.

Yeah. Yeah.

And learned that. I'm like, I should travel to Ashland. It's lovely. Like now I'm like, I wanna go to the zoo. Like I wanna go to an island. This is why we,

and I haven't been to the Azores and I was like can this book just make a lot of money so I can go there? That would be great. I feel like every time I go to a location though. I'm like, I'm gonna completely absorb myself in this and learn everything there is to know and it's gonna be such a great, like I'm gonna, the character is gonna be the best setting ever 'cause I'm gonna know it so well every time I do that, they're like, the contract falls through for some reason and I'm like, God dammit,

Yeah.

I went on vacation for this,

I

I,

I wanna write like a book or like a mystery series said in my hometown in Puerto Rico, like I live in

oh, you're from Puerto Rico.

I'm from Puerto Rico, I am from Bad Bunny From the whole thing.

Friends?

yes we can. I actually was born and raised and my family still lives there. I grew up in is Lare, which is Carolina. A suburb of San Juan. It's in the strip by the airport in that little area. And I feel like that's the perfect setting for cozy mystery because here, I'll tell you, Puerto Rican loves to gossip. We love to gossip and talk about things. We have corruption. We got murders every day. We got small town feeling.

You don't have a choice. You have to write it.

Yes. Yes. So I feel like it's it's such a cute setting like it, and it's like you go to the beach or you go like you have the music, you have the food.

absolutely. My husband and I went to Puerto Rico last year and we loved it. Oh my God, no. Maybe it was even like a two years ago. I don't know. It was a while ago. It was longer. We need to go back. It was the most delightful experience. I loved it.

Yes.

It was so

Rico did you go to?

Into San Juan and then we stayed an Airbnb like 40 minutes away.

Okay.

It was so beautiful. I don't even know exactly where we were.

You probably were the East Coast, either in the East coast by the rainforest,

We were in like in the middle.

Oh, in the middle.

We just drove. Yeah, we just, I just got like a good, I was like, I think the coast was probably more expensive, so I was just like, so I was just getting a good, and I wanna go there. It was Casa Blanca was the name of the, it was so good. I loved it. It was the most,

Restaurant.

oh which one was the restaurant? Oh, casita Blanca. Casita Blanca. That's the place we stayed, I think.

Oh, I love it.

have you. And then we, I don't know, we got off the, oh my God, it was so much fun. I just like Googled restaurants though. And as soon as we got off the airport, I was or outta the airport was so excited. And then we drove into this, like we drove all over San Juan and we ended up at this like little, I felt like a little outta the way restaurant and it was so much fun. It was delicious. It was, I wanna go back.

Yes. I love telling my friends who are like, go here, go there. This is where the Puerto Ricans go to. This is what we normally do.

if I go again, I am contacting you immediately.

and I'll give you my mom's phone number. My mom is like the official ambassador of life. She's actually, she actually bas for a couple of my friends who are bloggers and so she knows all the Roman's books now she's very knowledge. She doesn't read, but she doesn't read for pleasure, but she knows all the different authors. And I'm like, and we'll send her like Monster Roman set, and she's oh, okay. Totally. Now I know that this is Robert Dixon is sci-fi and she lost like the aliens, like my boom mom is like very

I love it. I love it. I love it. That is so cute.

So

I've been practicing just last week. So this is last week. My daughter is really into Spanish. So she started quizzing me in the car. So she's gonna teach me in Spanish on our commute. I'm excited.

But Puerto Rico is a really hard language. Like it's a really, I would not, if you, I do not understand Bed Bunny and I grew up with this bed bunny Spanish, so people are like, honey, I'm like it's a really, it's a slang. It cut words. We have the Boston accent. We take the S, we took an L.

Oh.

don't, yeah, we say Puerto Rico instead of like art. It is supposed to be the A. We'll say it with L like, and then we have this weird way of saying things.

Oh, okay.

in words like you'll say Ana, which means weekend, or we also say weekend, but we say. And you're like, oh, where's the ana? You're like a feedback hockey, so we were like, this is like a rare place to be, but we're really warm, we're real welcoming and a lot of people don't understand English 'cause we're colonized. And so we have we grew up, I grew up bilingual, so I grew up learning both languages when I was a baby. So we understand and we consume American media as well as Puerto Rican media. I do like Puerto Rican media much better than American media.

I love that. That's great.

So Telemundo, which is in which is Latin America. The OG Telemundo original Telemundo is from Puerto Rico.

Oh,

is far superior. Yes. Telemundo is originally from Puerto Rico. That is the far superior channel than the actual, Yes.

Amazing.

Yeah, so Puerto Rico, we're having a lovely week of basically a couple weeks of celebration and we're just telling everyone just to be part of it.

Yeah.

Sounds, let's talk about some books. Do you have any books to recommend?

So this year I've gotten to know Tasha Corelle as an author. Love letters to a serial killer and matchmaking for psychopaths. I thought she did. Matchmaking for psychopaths was great because she did a really good job writing an unlikeable heroine and like. Frog and boiling water me into it. I think she did a great job. I'm always writing unlikable heroines and she did a good job.

Yes.

Loved that. Oh my God. All my books are right here. I guess I'm next to the bookshelf.

Okay.

I've got the redo list. I just read this last week. so good. I loved it. Loved it. And she's just Denise writes just like such warm, cozy cinnamon roll guys. But then they have enough substance like I. I am like a, I like a dirty, mean alpha hero most of the time. Just gimme somebody problematic and then let the heroin fix him. And he loves only her and that makes it extra special. I don't like cinnamon rolls, whatever. But she does a great job with a cinnamon roll. Like they have enough substance and they're complicated and interesting. He dirty talks,

Yes.

made him feel like he had a real spine. I'm like, give me like, I will take a Denise CIN roll.

Yes. But I will,

boyfriend because she, the way she writes men, I was like, okay, that's how men should be.

But I do want more alpha men. I would like some more

oh, I love Alpha

like problematic guys. It's like sometimes you just the red flags. There's a reason

I know there are, and then I feel like we have to, that's what we deal with in real life. So we have to work through it in the, if, what are we working? Like I just gimme the problems. And then I love my favorite. I love Nikki. Her latest is

so good. So good.

Pi. Oh my God.

And that's another one. She's an amateur sleuth. She is Reddit and he is so it's a good Gabby Green Companion,

I absolutely love Nikki, her voice. She could write anything. I don't even care. She's one of those authors where I don't care if it has a plot. I don't care what's happening in the book. She could just write a her morning journal and I would buy it and read it because she has such an interesting take of and a great voice. So funny and smart.

These are great recommendations. I approve all three of them. All three have been guests of the podcast

Oh, really? Okay.

they all have. And I love talking to all of them. So they're great people to keep promoting. So obviously you have three books out. Gabby Green, you got Unwed. I'm Dead, which is perfect. If you wanna get the Cozy Vibes, you can read it now in the winter. Tell us, we can find you online.

Oh let's see. I have a website that I haven't looked at, so God knows what's on it. Sam cheetah.com. Let me know what's there.

Yes.

Report back. Let's see. Oh, I'm on Substack. I think you can just sign up for, I think it just says Sam Cheetah probably. And then I'm on Twitter, or not Twitter. Twitter doesn't even exist anymore. That's 20 years ago.

Yeah.

I dumped that platform a long time ago i'm on Instagram and TikTok at the real Sam Cheetah.

Awesome. Thank you Sam for being on the show.

Thank you. I always love talking to you and I can't wait to read your book. I'm recommending your book. Seriously, you need to get on it.

I need to get on it. I need to just do it, so I need to get over of the imposter syndrome.

I want my Puerto Rican cozy mystery, like right now. I want it yesterday.

Awesome.

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