Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive

look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't

have to.

Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day.

For more information, go to zibbmedia.com and follow me on Instagram

at Zibby Owens. Karen DuCess is back on the podcast for her new book, Welcome to Murder

Week, a novel. Karen is also the author of The Last Book Party, which we talked about on our podcast last time.

Karen has been a newspaper reporter in Florida, a magazine publisher in Russia, and a speechwriter on gender equality for the United Nations.

She has a degree in Russian studies from Brown University and a master's in journalism from Columbia University.

She lives outside of New York City and in Truro on Cape Cod, where she

interviews some of today's most acclaimed writers as host of the Castle Hill Author Talks for

the Truro Center for the Arts. Welcome, Karen. Thanks so much for coming back on, totally booked

with Sibby. Now to talk about Welcome to Murder Week. Congratulations. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

Okay, so when did the last book party come out? When did we last talk? The last book party came out

in 2019. Oh my gosh. It's been a while. It's been a little while, but that's okay. It feels like

yesterday. I know. Sort of. Okay, so what has happened between the last book party and now, and how did you

arrive at this book and this story? Well, between the last book party and now, there was another book.

I spent several years living in Russia and working as a journalist, and I tackled that book,

which wasn't honestly a lot of fun to write. It was hard.

It was hard to write. I had like second book syndrome and this is my Russia book syndrome.

And then I think, as you know, I was submitting the story shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine and

Russia wasn't anyone's favorite topic, including mine at that point. And the story felt anachronistic to me. I was nervous about submitting it, but I'm like, okay, I worked on this for two and a half years. I give it a go. And it did not go so well. And after one round of submissions, I said to my agent, you know what, I don't want to revise. I don't want to keep trying. Let's just set this aside. It's just kind of, you know, upsetting. But I had had sort of like a

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