Welcome to What Next Podcast. In today's episode, we're honoring the late Julie Garwood, a true pioneer in the world of romance's, friction, Julie Sweet novels. Whether sweeping historicals or hard raising contemporaries captivated generations of readers and helps shape the new genre as we know it. She passed away last year, but her legacy lives on in every story she told. This conversation is a special look back at her remarkable career. Julie shares how a single college class sparked her love for history, how daydreaming in the most ordinary moments often became the seeds for her bestselling novels, and how she balanced mystery, suspense and happily rafters in her work. She also gives us a behind the scenes slims into her fan favorite series like the Buchanan Family Books. Anyone talks about her own reading life and authors she admire. If you're a longtime garden reader or if you're just discovering her stories, you'll love for hearing her reflect with humor, warm and generosity. It's a conversation that reminds us why her books meant so much and why they're continued to endure. I hope you enjoy this episode. Bye.

Hi Julie, welcome to What's to Read Next Podcast? Hi. So in this interview we also have Addie Yoder. So hi Addie. Welcome to the podcast. Hello. Thank you for having me. So Julie, tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh, geez. I don't know. I started writing. I've always been a writer, even as a child. Once I learned to read and write, I would write little stories. Just daydream a lot. I used to get into trouble for that in school, but, when I wanted to finish college and I went back. And had to take one history course. I was a four year RN major and had taken all the sciences, but I needed three hours of history and it, for a four year degree. And I couldn't think of anything more boring, but I took a course that would fit the schedule and it was Russian history and the teacher. Sister Joan was amazing and I loved it. I loved the course and I thought, oh, I'll just take one more. And that one was ancient and medieval and I that just the whole idea of such a disciplined time with the feudal system and the manner. I loved it. Everyone had their plates and I thought how fun it would be if someone didn't fit. So I liked to write, but I never showed it to anyone, so I decided to. Get a knight ready to go into battle and I thought I was being so smart I was going to describe him without describing him. And so, example, it takes two servants to lift his. Shield and he picks it up with, one finger practically, and they have to stand on a stool to put his helmet on things like that. So, he is tall, he is strong. And anyway, I got him all ready to go into battle and I thought, now what? And I decided to mess with him. So I gave him Elizabeth. And that became, I titled that the Warrior when it sold it was Gentle Warrior, which really, if you think about it, it's an oxymoron, but, that led to another book, and another book, and I was hooked. I, I kept taking more history classes, but my heart belonged to medieval at that point, and that's kind of what I've been doing. I love this. Oh my gosh, I love this so much. It's a, an unexpected class that led you to a career, true. I I also, well, it used to be you became a teacher or a nurse. And the field has way open since then. I have a daughter who's an md and nobody told her she couldn't, which is pretty cool. My mom used to say, you can be anything you want, but learn to type. And I always thought that was hilarious. But what she meant was, you can support yourself while you're going for your dreams. By, getting a job as a typist somewhere and she's gotta be smiling now 'cause I type all day long. So anyway, when I started too, I didn't know about categories or any of that. I my. 4-year-old Jerry was four and he liked to ride his big wheel well. He couldn't be outside unless I was outside with him. So I would sit on the steps and he was, he would go from the neighbor's garage up to the corner and back. And one day he, that there was a grandmother who had moved in with her granddaughter. And she was standing at the corner. My worry was that he'd run over her. She was very frail, but he got off his big wheel, talked to her for a minute, and then took her hand and led her back home, and then he ran over to me. He was very proud of himself instead. Grandma forgot where she lived, but I remembered I could not get that out of my mind and I ended up writing what Became a ya. Although I didn't know that. I thought it was just kids, and I wanted to tell the story of a grandmother or father, and I chose father. Moving back in with his daughter and how it would affect the dynamic in that family. Well, who would be the most emotional about it? Well, it would be a 13-year-old girl, right? So that's the story I wrote, and it was called The Girl Named Summer. Because that was her name. But anyway so I was told when an agent took me on that, that was called the ya. Anyway, she sent back to Scholastic, they turned it back down. The editor said. No one wants to read about old people. And then about a week later, she called the agent and said, I can't get that story out of my head. I'm buying it, which was lovely, it actually ended up doing extremely well, so I'm glad I wrote it. I'm talking way too much, aren't I? No, this is so good. I know. Add you, you wanna ask her another question? Oh, yeah. I'm like absorbing all of it. Yeah. This is like, I listening, I can do this all day. I think that it's so interesting how authors that like you, that I've read for a long time it, it feels like, and correct me if I'm wrong, it feels like when you started writing you could. I had the freedom to do whatever you wanted because you wrote such great historical books, but you also wrote Western Romance, right? I wrote, the first Western I ever wrote was a Story for the Roses. Yes. And that was because it had to be, the story I saw in my head had to be in that time period and, I don't know. I I did not wanna switch to contemporary. Okay. But I didn't get this one story to work. It had to be modern day. You wanna hear how that happened? Yes, please. My sister, we called her cookie. Her name is Mary Collette. I took her with me to London and. She only had one rule. We had to go to mass every day. Which I said, yeah, okay. So we go to, we get in, we're zombies because we are, neither one of us had ever been there. And we are so excited that we don't sleep at all on the plane. We get there, get unpacked, and then we find out that there is a mess at this. Church, I don't know, a couple miles away. So we get into the taxi and go there. I'm like in zombie at this point, and we get into the church. It's a real old, beautiful church. Have you either of you ever seen the movie Sisterhood with Gold Behind? Not Gohan Whoopi Goldberg. Yes, she played the nun. Well anyway, the priest looked exactly like that actor, which I thought was kind of funny. And when he gave the sermon, he talked about the prodigal son. But then when he got to the, here's the reason for the story, kind of, or the punch. He just stopped and said, but I know, and the congregation, most of 'em were nodding. Then he told another parallel or parable, whatever I can't remember which one it was. And yet again, he gets to the punchline, what I call the punchline, and he pauses and says. But I know, I know that, I'm not making this up, by the way. Well, I kind of got tickled the third time it happened. The, I know, went on and on and I leaned down to Cookie and said, I don't know. Which made her laugh. And so then she moved she wouldn't sit with me for the rest of the service. So I'm sitting there kind of daydreaming and there's a confessional with this heavy velvet curtain. And I started thinking about the sins that these priests have heard over the years. Right. And then I thought, what if the sin is something he's going to do? And that was the beginning of the book Heartbreaker. So I daydreamed in church and I'm going to pay for it probably. But that, and I couldn't put it in a historical setting. So the rest of the bucha came to light then. That's how that all got started. Complicated, huh? Yeah. But then you just never stopped, like you just kept going with this family. Did you just fall in love with them? Well, oh yeah, but the first Buchanan was historical. The secret Roddick Buchanan is one of the commanders under Ian Maitland. And then. He gets his own story in ransom. So that's way back in 1200 or 1100. Then come forward and the first modern Buchanan is Nick Buchanan, and the story is heartbreaker. I'm so glad that you brought up. The historical Buchanans, because that, to me, I loved that connection when I read, I cannot get enough of stories with overlapping characters and that when you get bits and pieces of the characters from previous books. So I think that's part of why the Buchanan Menards are so like, like I pre-order every single one and I can't stop, and then I give them to my mom and my best friend, and we all just can't stop reading them. It's always, it's so funny to me because they say, well, where do you come up with these ideas? It's always one thing that I see. And from that, I know the whole book. But I'm trying to think give you an example example. The ideal man, the opening line is. The first time she slid a man's throat, she felt sick to her stomach the second time, not so much. Well, and then you find out she's a surgeon and, but from seeing that scene in the operating room, I knew the whole story. I don't know how that works. I used to get a lot of daydreaming in during my kids' sporting events, which is terrible to say, but come on, T-ball is, and my friends would say, oh, Jerry's up and I'd yell, be appropriate, good eye, or whatever. And watch, but I did a lot of plotting there. So anyway, I think we would've set together at ball games because I do similar things. I put audio books in my ears and kind of sit further away from the other moms because I know I'll distract them. Oh I have to tell you, I think this is funny. My youngest loved football and he was I guess you'd call him a running back or whatever. And as a freshman in an all boys high school, he very few were elevated to varsity and he came home one day and said, mom, I'm the new plant returner. Well, I didn't know much about football back then, and I thought, well, that's nice. Never occurred to me to ask what happened to the old punt returner. So I go to the first game or the next game and they said, oh, Jerry's in. And I looked, and here's my little boy. And here are, it looks like 20 gorillas, five times his five. Running towards him. And I remember jumping to my feet. I was horrified and yelling, run out of bounds, for the love of God, because I didn't wanna see him get nailed. But he did all right. He was a fast little freshman or whatever. And I love football now I live, in Kansas City. So we have Mahomes and that makes me happy. We have a good football team. It makes us happy too. My 8-year-old is all over Patrick Mahomes. Oh, he's a good man. He does a lot of charitable things, so. Anyway, we're off topic, I guess. Yeah. Let's chat about Grace under Fire. Tell us what the story is all about and then like maybe what kind of daydream were you dreaming when this happened? Grace Under Fire, where was that? I can't remember. But the opening line is well, grace Isabel McKenna. Had a hundred things to do today, killing someone, wasn't one of them. Knew the story from there in other books, that Grace's uncle, great uncle left her huge estate in Scotland. So she goes to Boston to celebrate an anniversary with her sister and her sister's husband, who's a Buchanan at Nathan Bay, Nathan's Bay, where they are, the whole family has gathered. Then she's going on to Scotland and she kills a man who tries to. Kill her and another man and when she sat on this walk, so she goes to the police station, of course it's all on video, so nobody is thinking she's a suspect and Michael Buchanan shows up. Michael is ex Seal Navy thi and an attorney, and she has a real love-hate relationship with him. And, but that doesn't matter. He is gonna watch out for her as an attorney. So they kind of have this, I don't know how, it's kind of a sizzling relationship and he follows her to Scotland when he realizes the danger went with her. And that's kind of the story. There's a lot of fun in this book. Because I don't wanna write real heavy, psychopath kind of book. I just want, especially in this day and age, I want things to, to make you smile. And hopefully I've accomplished that. One never knows. Yes you did. Eddie, do you have a question? Did it feel a little bit full circle to come back to Scotland? Well, yeah, and if this book doesn't, it's not set there. They go there and drawn to Scotland. What are the questions? That I'm asked is, when did I switch to suspense? Well, I never switched. There's always been a mystery in each one of my books that hasn't changed. Some, there's more than others, but definitely and romance. I wanna ride happy endings. I don't want what if, so I can let everybody end up happy and I only kill bad people or people I think are horrible in my books. I appreciate that deeply. Yeah, I think that's right. It's true. It's kinda alright. Awesome. So let's chat some book recommendations. Do you have any books that you recommend that you have read? It doesn't have to be Romans, it can be any kind of genre that you would recommend our listeners to pick off. I have been reading a lot of non-fiction laws in Scotland, legal for wills and all that. And, they're officers of the law, et cetera. But I have a big stack I wanna read, and I'm starting with one that's becoming a movie. It's very it's been around a while. Where the product thing. Have either one of you read that? I did, I read it. It's really good. It's definitely engaging. It's definitely in this, the girl in the swamp, but there was definitely a lot of nat nature in it. So I hope you enjoy it. Good. I think I will. I like anything by Jody. Trying to thank of course, John Grisham. I love Nora Roberts. Who else? Trying to think. I'm just picturing the books on my side table. I'm not gonna, in between books, I don't read nonfiction. I go back to. More fun stuff, so, Julie, thank you. Thank you so much, Patty. Thank you. I appreciate it. Bye now. Bye. If you enjoyed this podcast, feel free to share with friends, subscribe, right, or review the show. This is the easiest way to support the podcast. For a list of books mentioned and other romance recommendations, please visit whattoreadnextblog.com Thank you so much for listening, and have a great day.