Charity Ferrell

[00:00:00]

Laura: Hi, Charity. Welcome to Watch Your Next Podcast.

Charity Ferrell: Hi, thank you for having me.

Laura: So happy to have you here. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Charity Ferrell: I write romance. My, I kind of hop around. So for a while I was in my small town romance genre and I wrote two series in that and then I think I was like, okay, I've written so much small town. I feel like I need because I ended up getting a bad case of writer's block and I was like, I need something different.

Charity Ferrell: I think my mind just needs something different. So I went on a limb and was like, I have this new idea for a book. I'm going to see if I can write it. I'm not going to make anything official, not going to make a release date. Just see where I run with it. And that's what led me to. Writing Mafia now, so I wrote one series and then now I'm on a spinoff of that series So my second series, so I kind of hop [00:01:00] between small town and Mafia

Laura: All right. So let's talk about small town. Where do readers get to get started with you for in that area, in that

Charity Ferrell: So I started with my Blue Beach series, which is one of my more popular ones. So That started with Just a Fling, and then the Blue Beach series, then I did a spinoff from that, which is the Twisted Fox series. So, but all of my books are standalone, so you could start. At book two, just one night and not feel like you're left in the dark or you don't know what's going on.

Charity Ferrell: So every book that I have is a standalone. So you can start anywhere if you're like, okay, not a big surprise pregnancy person, but I love enemies to lovers. Then if you grab just neighbors, which isn't enemies to lovers, you won't feel lost. Because you hadn't read the first two books. So that's one thing I always try to do because I know so many people [00:02:00] are picky in their tropes that if you don't like this, then you can still read some books in this series or possibly try.

Charity Ferrell: I had a lot of readers who were small town and they had never really gotten into mafia. And so here I was like, I know I've given you all of these small town books, but. Like, take this road with me. And so I've had a lot of readers who have said, I never really read Mafia before, but you opened that door for me.

Charity Ferrell: So now I, you know, hop between both, or now I read a little bit more Mafia.

Laura: Yeah, so the Mafia, you had a first series, so the one that broke the writer's block, what was the series, what was the series name?

Charity Ferrell: That was the Marchetti Mafia series. So the first book I met is Gorgeous Monster. And I woke up one morning and I don't know, I PA'd, or PA'd, I voice messaged my PA and I was, I told her. I just [00:03:00] have this idea and I don't know if it's going to carry out, but I had one scene in my head, the prologue. And I was like, this prologue it's in my head.

Charity Ferrell: I don't know if it's going to go anywhere, but let's try it out. And she's been with me for years. So she it's like, okay, let's try it out. And then it ended up just going into more of a series.

Laura: Yeah, and so then we have Sinful Sacrifice, which is your latest book in the series which we start off with, \ the heroine walking in to pay her dad's debt and walking into the lion's den. What is the elevator pitch? Because it just gets, it just goes from there. It's like domino effect.

Charity Ferrell: Yeah. So I, what is a great pitch for this? So really it's She's walking into the lion's den and she doesn't know what exactly she's walking into. She knows my dad owes all this debt. I don't have enough money to pay for it because they didn't have all of it. And [00:04:00] so she knows it could go one or two ways.

Charity Ferrell: They be nice, which really isn't that common in the mafia world. You pay your debts or they could be. Not so nice. And so she goes in there thinking she's going to get either one and she ends up not meeting the person that she's supposed to meet. So she meets Damien who is kind of like a little below the, he's like a capo.

Charity Ferrell: So he has, he takes an interest in her immediately. And one line is he's like, you don't have enough money, you know, to pay. What would you say if I wanted you instead? And she is. Like, you're nuts. And so he has her leave with him and takes her to , her apartment. And he sees she's a dancer and she does ballet.

Charity Ferrell: And so he just takes a seat on the couch and he's like, I'll wipe off the rest of your father's debt if you [00:05:00] dance for me. So that is kind of where It starts where she's like, I can dance for him. And there goes that day. And she says something like, he's going to be disappointed when he sees the nutcracker number that I did during Christmas.

Charity Ferrell: And that dance, the simple dance leads into more and then creates the chaos that is the relationship. But Damien isn't as if you read because sinful sacrifice is a spin off. Of the Marchettis. So the Marchetti is three books and then you have sinful sacrifice. It's a spinoff of that, but if you read gorgeous monster and they are very ruthless, there is very little sweetness to them.

Charity Ferrell: I mean, granted as they start to fall in love, they start, but he's softer than some of my other mafia men. Like he's still crazy. He's still batshit crazy, [00:06:00] but he's a little softer. At least that's what some of the reviews have said too.

Laura: So maybe this is a good intro and then you go into the little darker, you go back to Marchettis for a little bit darker, you know, harder, more alpha, that shit here,

Charity Ferrell: It's still very Touch Her and Die vibes because there is Touch Her and Die in there. And then there's Twist and Turns and all of that good stuff.

Laura: Yeah. Oh, I love this. I love this. I read Sinful Sacrifice and I loved it. And I was like, oh, I can go back to it. And now you told me you have Small Town, which is even better, because that's like my palate cleanser. It's like, I do some dark stuff, get trigger, and then I go back to Small Town just to

Charity Ferrell: Get triggered and have to go

Laura: be like a soft landing.

Laura: Like, it's gonna be okay, no matter what. There's gonna be like a cutesy hallmark with smut. It's all good.

Charity Ferrell: And then you're like, yeah, that's kind of how I was with writing. I was like, I've had sweet, I've had sweet. Okay, [00:07:00] now time to go. A little bit darker.

Laura: Yeah, so what can we expect for you in the next couple of months

Charity Ferrell: so I have book two, Sinful Ruin, up on pre order right now. So that's going to be my next release. And I plan to have about three to four more books in that series. And then I'm going back and forth with whether I want to, you know, go back into small town. It's, I am, like I said, a sub genre hopper, so it's really hard for me because if I'm not into something, I can't write it.

Charity Ferrell: And so in my mind, if you see all my drafts, I'm like, Oh, I think I'm going to do a sports romance, but then I think I'm going to do another small town, but then I think I'm going to do another mafia. So I have all of these drafts on my computer and it's just what you said is I read a dark, so now maybe I need to go back to the small town.

Charity Ferrell: So my mind is like, okay. What are you into right now that you want to write? And I kind of just Go from there.

Laura: yeah, I love [00:08:00] it. I know it's like, sometimes it's hard for marketing purposes. They're like, but I expect you 1 way. The reality is, as someone who has like, multi, multi passion, multi interest. I like hopping around. Like, I don't like to be so calling to 1. Figure one box because it's like, but I have all the interest.

Laura: Like sometimes I want to explore the dark side. Sometimes I want to explore the small town. Sometimes I just want to explore some like sports, romance, or go crazy and go see a monster or an alien.

Charity Ferrell: Yeah. I'm the same reader wise too. I and I'm like, okay, I think I want to cry today or I think I'm like madness today.

Laura: Yeah. So let's talk some book recommendations. Do you have any books to recommend to our listeners to pick out?

Charity Ferrell: So I put it into that because. That will always be one of my favorite. I think with It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover, I know that's a popular one, but there's any book that I ever [00:09:00] remember. There's a few that I'm like, I remember the second that I ended that book. So when I finished it ends with us, I was reading in the bathtub and I was like, sobbing in the bathtub because I went in blind and I didn't know.

Charity Ferrell: I have you routed into those. Yeah, and so you went going in blind, and it was years ago before, you know, it was talked about more online. So I just went in blind thinking I was like, gonna get this great HEA, and then I was like, what the hell just happened?

Laura: Yeah.

Charity Ferrell: And so that was a book that I read. I will always remember how I felt at the end of that book and how just emotional it had me.

Charity Ferrell: So I think that is a really good one Robin Lee's The Idea of You. I have not watched the movie because I'm still mad

Laura: Yeah.

Charity Ferrell: at how mad I was when the book ended. The book in, I don't want to give it away, but the way the book ends, I was up until [00:10:00] four in the morning reading this book and it ended and I wanted to throw my Kindle across the room because what the hell?

Charity Ferrell: And so that is another one that I always brag. The bronze horseman. I don't know. You've read that one.

Laura: I have read it. I've heard about it. It's been all over the place in early years. Not now. It's not as popular. I wish it was like a book talk darling, you know, because it will get the, but I'm going to start reading. I remember hearing about it. I was like, okay, I'm just going to read this. And it's just so good, .

Charity Ferrell: It's a commitment. I started. Buddy reading with someone on it when I first read it and they were like in this For me it is it's a long book, but once you get Slow, but once you get into it, you're like you can't put it down And that one isn't it was talked about years ago and I think that's when I read it a lot of my book recs [00:11:00] are maybe older books because I had time to read a lot more than what I have time to read now.

Charity Ferrell: So that is another one that I'm, it's a commitment, but it is a great story. It's slow burn. It's emotional. It's angsty. So that's another one that I read. Amy Harmon, A Different Blue, hands down one of my favorite book. She is just, her writing, there's just something about. Amy's writing that is just so good, and it just pulls you into the story.

Charity Ferrell: I mean, A Different Blue doesn't even really have spice, and normally I like spice, but just the way the story carries and the backstory is so different that's one of my favorites too.

Laura: these are great recommendations. So I have a recommendation for you. It's a novella. If you like the idea of you and you're like, mad about the ending, as we all [00:12:00] are it's called Big Fan. It comes out in a couple weeks. It's a, it's by Alexandra Romanoff. It's a novella about a boy band singer He's older, he's in the, there's no age gap here, but she's a political strategist, like think Olivia Pope kind of deal, and she had a scandal, she was like married to like a Kennedy family, and she had a political scandal, she has this very big life, and she's working on it, and she, he, they both are featured in Vogue

Laura: and he finally reaches out and he's like, Hey, I would like you to work for me. Cause I'm going to go on my solo career. And she's like, what do you need me for? And somehow it goes in this whirlwind romance. It's so good. It's like a grownup Harry Styles, like best

Charity Ferrell: Really? So what is it called

Laura: It's big fan.

Charity Ferrell: Big fan. Okay. I'll have to make a note of that.

Laura: yeah it's a novella. So it's like, you can read it in a couple sittings. Like I read it and like, it's like, I don't know, like less than 200 pages.

Charity Ferrell: Yeah. It's a quick read.

Laura: it's a quick [00:13:00] read. So you're like, you get in and you get out and it does have an HEA. It does have smudge. It just has all the good stuff that you like, you know, that we all like and love.

Laura: And so I just finished reading and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so good.

Charity Ferrell: I'll have to try it.

Laura: Yes.

Charity Ferrell: Especially novella. Quick reads are

Laura: My grades are like, you know, sometimes you just don't have the time to read, like, a long book. Like, it's hard to commit to a long book when you're like, I have all these other stuff to do. So, it is understandable. So, Charity, tell us where you can find you online.

Charity Ferrell: So I am on Instagram. All my handles are pretty much Charity Ferrell instagram is Charity Ferrell. TikTok, Facebook, all of that. So those are pretty much all my hashtags. But I'm on your usual, your Insta, your TikTok. Facebook, those are my three main ones, but yeah, you can find me on any of those.

Laura: Perfect. Thank you, Charity, for being on the show.

Charity Ferrell: You're welcome. It was [00:14:00] nice chatting