Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Untold Story Podcast. I'm Martha McCallum. It's great to have you with us. As you know, we cover a lot of different untold stories in foreign policy and education and all sorts of

generally serious topics. So I couldn't be more delighted today to welcome my dear friend Dana Perino

and to talk about her first ever novel. Dana is a voracious reader. She loves literature, and she has written a number of books. This is her fifth book. But this one, I remember how excited I was when you told me, Dana. Welcome. It's great to have you here. Thanks for having me. Dana Preena. But obviously, she's Dana Prino, America's Newsroom, The Five, and just a really important member of the Fox family.

So, hello, my dear.

Thanks for reading it.

Oh, my goodness.

I told her I spent all day yesterday finishing it.

I had just dipped in the week before, and it was just such a luxurious thing to be able to just sit and read your entire book and take it all in. So congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Congratulations. It's really... I feel like I can breathe now. Yeah, no, I bet. It's out, yeah. Were you nervous about it? Very. Tell me about the decision to write your first book. Well, it was such a departure from what I usually do. And as you said, I'm a voracious reader ever since I was a little kid.

I love fiction.

And I admire the craft so much.

And there are so many books that I'll finish and say,

wow. How did she do that? Go as a River, for example, is one of the books that I recommended on your

podcast. And honestly, that's high literary fiction. This is a political romantic comedy that is like

trending into literary fiction. It's not high literature. Okay. So I didn't try that. Maybe one day

I would try. I understand why people do this full time. I did not, obviously. But I think for a few

reasons I did this. One, the story was bopping around in my head for. Yes. But I think for a few reasons I did this.

One, the story was bopping around in my head for a while, but in my mind it was a much

grander story.

And I could never figure out how to put it in a book.

My idea was that the Democratic National Committee, after another loss of a presidential

election, elections that we've covered, that the

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