Midnight at the Barclay Hotel

Sarah Harrison: Welcome to Tea Tonic & Toxin, a book club and podcast for anyone who wants to explore the best mysteries and thrillers ever written. I’m your host, Sarah Harrison.

Carolyn Daughters: And I’m your host Carolyn Daughters. Pour yourself a cup of tea, a gin and tonic …

Sarah Harrison: … but not a toxin …

Carolyn Daughters: And join us on a journey through 19th and 20th century mysteries and thrillers, every one of them a game changer. Sarah, we have a great episode today.

Sarah Harrison  00:57
I know, it’s gonna be really cool.

Carolyn Daughters  01:01
I’d love to introduce today’s sponsor. Our sponsor is Grace Sigma, a boutique process engineering consultancy run by our own Sarah Harrison. Grace Sigma works nationally in such industries as finance, telecom and government. Grace Sigma uses lean methods to assist in data, dashboarding, storytelling, training, process visualization and project management, whether you’re a small business looking to scale, or a large company whose processes have become tangled, Grace Sigma can help. You can learn more at gracesigma.com.

Sarah Harrison  01:40
We have such a cool guest today, I’m really excited to talk with Fleur Bradley, the author of Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. In this book, JJ Jacobson convinces his mom to accept an invitation to an all expense, paid weekend getaway at the illustrious Barclay Hotel. He thinks he’s in for run of the run of the mill ghost hunting at the most haunted spot in town, but when he arrives at the Barclay Hotel, he finds himself in the midst of a murder mystery. Now, with the help of his new friends, Penny and Emma JJ has to track down a killer and maybe even meet a ghost or two along the way.

Carolyn Daughters  02:25
Fleur Bradley is the author of many mysteries for kids, including Midnight at the Barclay Hotel and Daybreak on Raven Island. Midnight at the Barclay Hotel was nominated for the Reading the West and the Agatha and Anthony Awards. It won the Colorado Book Award and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Crystal Kite Award. It’s also on the Rhode Island children’s book award list and recently won Florida’s Sunshine State young readers award. Daybreak on Raven Island was nominated for the Anthony and Agatha Awards and won the Colorado Authors League Book Award for Best Juvenile Book and is on the 2024-2025 Texas Library Association’s Blue Bonnet award list.

Sarah Harrison  03:07
It’s quite a list. Is that like Blue Bonnet butter?

Fleur Bradley  03:11
I think it’s like a Texas flowers things.

Carolyn Daughters  03:18
Fleur Bradley regularly does school and virtual visits, as well as librarian and educator conference talks. She’s also a writing instructor and coach. Her signature topics are reaching reluctant readers, writing the book of your hearts, love of mysteries, and the power of reading. Originally from the Netherlands, she now lives in Colorado with her family. Welcome, Fleur.

Sarah Harrison  03:39
Welcome. Fleur is live in the studio. And quite the studio it is. If you want to see our studio, go to our YouTube channel, where we’ll post clips of this interview with Fleur. You’ll be stunned and amazed.

Carolyn Daughters  03:57
I mean, I’m not trying to brag. It’s a pretty incredible studio.

Sarah Harrison  04:01
You’ll see us glistening beautifully in the studio.

Carolyn Daughters  04:11
It’s 95 degrees outside.

Sarah Harrison  04:15
Denver gets hot. If you thought it was cold all the time, it does get hot.

Carolyn Daughters  04:18
We thought we might kick this off Fleur by having you read from the beginning of Midnight at the Barclay Hotel.

Fleur Bradley  04:27
All right, so the opening before Chapter One. The invitations went out on the Tuesday afternoon, because statistically speaking, that’s the best time to offer someone a weekend getaway. Or that’s what Mr. Barclay’s advisors told him. He had a lot of those. These advisors took very expensive and extensive polling and did research. Actually, it was mostly asking random people at the mall. The letters were printed on fancy, thick parchment, the paper that adults use for very special. Occasions like weddings or birthday parties with lots of guests and bouncy castles and bands.

But this invitation was not for a party. It was for a weekend at the historic Barclay Hotel. Some said it was haunted, but there was no actual proof. Mr. Barclay owned a hotel, and he had a plan. He wanted these invitations to be sent out on a Tuesday, five invitations only, no more, no less. They were delivered by courier, which was even more expensive than those advisors and research. This was so that Mr. Barclay could make the whole thing seem more important and official. He didn’t want anyone to think that this was some sort of scheme, even though it was his advisors told him that it’s still it’s one thing to get a letter in the regular old mail in the box mixed in with the grocery store flyer and the electric bill. It’s quite another to get a letter with a real embossed seal to close the envelope delivered by a courier, where you have to sign for so mysterious, five envelopes with fine five invitations.

Mr. Barclay guessed that there would be some stragglers. There always were, but the five main guests had been chosen carefully, a cowboy, a librarian, a CEO, that stands for Chief Executive Officer, which is a very big deal, an actress and a detective all got their invitations that Tuesday, dear insert esteemed guests name here. Congratulations. You are a winner. What did I win? You might ask, an all-expense paid weekend getaway to the historic Barclay Hotel from Friday, April 3 through Sunday, April 5. From the moment you arrive, you will find yourself enchanted by the newly renovated dining hall, where you will feast on a five course meal included with your prize winnings. Enjoy the also newly renovated indoor pool, hot tub, bowl bowling alley and extensive multilevel library, if you fancy an afternoon read by the fireplace, all meals and entertainment. Did we mention it’s all expenses paid? We will see you promptly at five o’clock Friday evening to start your glorious getaway RSVP by Thursday to Greg Gregory Clark, Butler of the Barclay Hotel.

Disclaimer: the pool and hot tub may or may not be open. The Barclay Hotel is not responsible for any encounter you may have with vermin, air and staff, wonky elevators, leaky ceilings, ghosts or unstable antiques. Cellular phone service is not available at the Barclay Hotel. Do not use the white towels for pool attendance. Bring your own pool towel. Five course meal may actually be a one course meal. There’s no room service available at the Barclay Hotel.

Not everyone read the fine print, not when there was a free vacation at stake. Some guests read it later, but by then it was too late. No, each and every one of the five people invited felt very special when they received a letter, even not, if not all of them were all that excited to go. Congratulations. You are a winner. The letter said everyone likes to be a winner. Mr. Barclay counted on it.

Sarah Harrison  08:24
Part of my offline job that nobody on the podcast gets to see is to tell everyone to stop talking. Save it for the podcast. Just before we got on air, we talked about the relationship of Midnight at the Barclay Hotel to The Westing Game. Maybe you could speak to that a little bit.

Fleur Bradley  08:49
I’m from the Netherlands, so I wasn’t familiar with The Westing Game until some people told me about it. I had written a series called Double Vision before I wrote Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. You talk to librarians a lot when you’re out and about at events. One librarian said, my kids want a book with a murder mystery. It was a no-no at the time because dead bodies scared kids. But I wanted to try to do that. The Westing Game was one of the books that people brought up as their favorite mystery, so I took it as a jumping-off point. How can I create an updated version of a book that worked quite well? So I did that with the invitations and that feeling of something mysterious that’s going to happen.

Carolyn Daughters  09:49
There’s the diverse cast of characters, like from all these different walks of life.

Fleur Bradley  09:59
That was the idea behind it, to have it almost be theatrical. The murder happens off scene, so it’s not like the kids are gonna be involved in that part. The characters are all theatrical, so it’s more about the puzzle and Agatha Christie-style mystery. I wanted to create something like Agatha Christie for kids.

Carolyn Daughters  10:21
Just like The Westing Game, but you do it in completely your own way. Most of the characters have a secret. The first section of Midnight at the Barclay Hotel is called (Liars, Liars, or the Players). So we’re gonna meet everybody, but we’re told off the bat, everybody is a liar, which is a bit tongue in cheek. Some of the lies are secrets that people are keeping for one reason or another. Everybody has a secret, but some of the lies are big lies. And then there are one or two characters who don’t have a secret. That reminded me of The Westing Game, where almost everybody has something that they’re keeping. In addition to reading Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, make it a twofer and get The Westing Game. But one of the characters is a bookie, for example. We don’t know that right off the bat, but we learn that as we’re reading that sort of thing. Some details about these characters are uncovered as we go in the story.

Fleur Bradley  11:26
I think that’s what most mysteries are built around, this idea of, obviously, like, who committed whatever crime you have going on, but it is all about secrets.

Carolyn Daughters  11:39
On Amazon, you have several hundred reviews, and your average score is like a 4.8, so people love Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. And then I think the reading age, I enjoyed it, and I’m an adult, but the reading age is like 8 to 11, grades three through seven. Does that sound like in the ballpark?

Fleur Bradley  12:06
Midnight at the Barclay Hotel came out in the middle of COVID, so a lot of people were reading at home with their kids, or teachers were reading stuff aloud via Zoom, that sort of thing. So I found that it stretches. Some of the kids are seven when they read the book, it’s fine for that. There are illustrations. It’s playful. It moves fairly fast. And then if you have a struggling reader who’s a bit older. They’ll still enjoy it as well.

Sarah Harrison  12:36
And adults.

Carolyn Daughters  12:38
I love reading well-written children’s books and YA, young adult. I love when an author is writing for a specific age group, but it transcends that age group, and when the author doesn’t talk down to that age group, so we learn about red herrings. For example, in Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, we learn what a CEO is. You’re not talking down to people and trying to say, I’ve got to bring it down to this basic level where everybody understands it. You’re trusting in the reader to get the context, to figure it out, to know it like there’s a lot of trust you’re placing in your reader, which I love as well.

Fleur Bradley  13:24
The one thing I love most is doing school visits or talking to kids, whether it’s virtual or in person. Kids are smart. You don’t want to underestimate your audience ever, but you also want to understand that this might be the first mystery they ever read. This is an introduction for them. This journey is fun. And this is how you solve a crime. I mean, at a kid level, you gather clues. You gather motive. You gather means, opportunity, that dance, which was really fun. I basically use that as a structure for Midnight at the Barclay Hotel.

Sarah Harrison  14:05
That’s a cool concept. I hadn’t thought about this being the first mystery a kid might read. That’s a little bit of an honor. It is. They’ll come to you and be like, You’re the first mystery I ever read.

Fleur Bradley  14:18
What I get a lot is that kids are like, I don’t really like to read, but I read your book, which that’s the best, because then I know, okay, maybe they’ll pick up the next book. Maybe they’ll keep reading, because that’s a struggle right now, particularly in this post-COVID environment of teaching, it’s very difficult.

Sarah Harrison  14:37
Things really have shifted since COVID.

Fleur Bradley  14:41
I would agree.

Carolyn Daughters  14:44
So if a kid says, I really don’t like reading, but I loved reading Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, is that because some of the things they’re reading, the story isn’t there, the characters aren’t well developed? Or is it that the mystery form lends itself to really grabbing a reader? What are your thoughts there?

Fleur Bradley  15:04
It’s great honor, and sometimes it’s the book that kids will remember, and school visits to kids will remember. But yeah, definitely just an honor to think that that might be the propeller. But I think sometimes for school particularly, we have to think about your reader and realize that maybe the things that you like as, say, a teacher or a librarian, may not be what the kids are into. So you have to find a way to connect. And I think some of the books that are required reading or that are on the list are not necessarily sparking that like, I think genre particularly, whether it’s mystery or horror or anything, it’s scary books, ghosts, the kids like that. And that’s a great genre. It’s a great bridge to get kids to read.

Sarah Harrison  16:02
I was definitely a kid like that did not like to read. It was so boring until I was in the third grade, and that first book that gets you to like reading, you remember forever. Mine was a biography of Orville and Wilbur Wright. It wasn’t in my grade level. It was like a random selection I just grabbed on, like, the way to whatever the reading room was like, Okay, I gotta get our stupid book. I’ll grab this book and I read it, and I couldn’t put it down every other book before then I thought was so boring.

Fleur Bradley  16:38
Sometimes, nonfiction is that way, as well, as much as I love to write fiction, I think nonfiction has an important part the connect kids that maybe don’t, don’t like to read, because the fiction, fiction requires you to invest in the characters in the story, there’s always that threshold. I have it myself when I sit down to read a book like this, better be good.

Sarah Harrison  16:59
It’s a biography. It’s a fantastic story of building the first airplanes signing, but just that, the way that the first book that gets you to like reading like you remember that for the rest of your life.

Carolyn Daughters  17:11
Sarah, with Orville and Wilbur Wright, was there a part of the third grader in you who was like, I’m actually learning something and this is cool that I know this. Or that understanding stuff and building knowledge are powerful things. (Like the learning in Midnight at the Barclay Hotel.) And I don’t think it’s conscious, per se, but I think it can expand outward in other classes and other things that we do.

Sarah Harrison  17:41
I have no idea what connected with me with that book. I just remember always thinking like, I read stories about some kid looking at buttons in her grandma’s attic. I was like, I hate reading. Go outside.

Fleur Bradley  18:02
You’re right, and then it’s not the right book. I’m a big believer that there’s the right book for every kid and but it takes effort. And during my literacy talks and school visits, I’m so impressed with the teachers and the librarians, who continue to invest every day to try to get kids to read and to try to make that connection. And that gets so excited. I’ve done school visits where in the beginning the kids are like, Who’s this lady? And then by the end of it, a teacher might come up to me and go, You know what? I have this kid that’s struggling and doesn’t want to read, and he was actually paying attention and engaged. That’s what you want, is to take it from that dull activity, maybe on the outset, reading, and take it off the page. Because reading, and this is where I get a little bit on my soapbox. But reading is like key to everything, statistics. And now that we’re at that point where kids don’t warm more kids don’t read for pleasure as they get older, that’s a big problem. That’s gonna really affect the way that they’re learning when they’re in high school and when they’re going to college. And we have to. This is an emergency situation where people that are interacting with kids every day, teachers, librarians, they’re really at the front of making sure that we save some of that ability to learn.

Carolyn Daughters  19:37
It’s my belief. I have eight siblings, all younger than I am. And I’ve been a mentor, and just an aunt to actual biological nieces and nieces and nephews who are not biological, and that children want to love what you love. But they’re not going to do it just because you’re like, hey, read this book. It’s good book. They see and feel energy. If you’re talking to a group, and they see how much you love reading and you love libraries. I know that from reading Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, I know that about you and like and miss the mystery form, and you understand the reluctant reader. JJ is a reluctant reader. He has a lot of trouble reading. And they feel that, like they feel genuine connection. And I think it makes them I think there’s like, this part of them that, like, I say, they want to love what you love, but you have to meet them at 50% or maybe further. You’ve got to meet them some portion of the way.

Fleur Bradley  20:46
You have to earn it. And it’s also modeling behavior. If kids see you read and be excited about reading, they want to read. It’s a lot of that. It’s definitely a topic that’s near and dear to my heart, because I want kids to read.

Sarah Harrison  21:03
It’s important. It was part of your own journey too, right? I read that you liked reading, and then you stopped liking it, and then something reconnected you back to it. Could you talk about that?

Fleur Bradley  21:13
I was pretty average in the sense that I loved reading as a kid, and then I got to high school, and then you get required reading, and you’re trying to be cool. And then some too busy to read, and you don’t have the bandwidth in your head, I think. And then my mid 20s, I was pregnant with my daughter, and I was on bedrest, and somebody gave me a book.

Sarah Harrison  21:38
Is that your daughter that’s here in the studio, my wonderful we have a secret daughter back here.

Fleur Bradley  21:44
She is a wonderful person. I read during that time, and it was just a mystery. And I’ve since expanded a lot of my reading was paperback thing, but it made me realize, Oh, I love mysteries.

Sarah Harrison  22:04
So you were already in your 20s and pregnant before you reconnected.

Fleur Bradley  22:09
I didn’t read like a writer. I talked to most people that I know that are writers, and they’re like, Oh, I knew I wanted to be a writer since whatever. And for me, it really wasn’t that was when I had, then I had my second daughter, and I was doing the stroller thing, and then the mom thing. And I’m like, I just want something that is mine and only me, like, only my thing. So I started to write, because I loved stories, and you know what? I think I can do that, and I couldn’t do that. I was really stunk at the beginning of it all that’s interesting. But you learn, and I got books on craft and worked on short stories for a long.

Sarah Harrison  22:47
You’re self-educated. That’s fantastic.

Fleur Bradley  22:51
And really cut my teeth on short stories, really, for about 10 years. That’s all I wrote. And I got those published in small press publications, and I still write short stories. So because it’s great to work on your craft, sure and try some different things so fast.

Sarah Harrison  23:08
How does that journey feel to you? Do you feel like I would feel so proud of myself if I just didn’t start till adulthood and just like, educated myself into it, and now I’m like talking to schools, to children?

Fleur Bradley  23:23
What’s interesting is that so I come from a family where growing up, and I feel very, very fortunate that I grew up this way. Whenever you had to learn something, you’d go to the library and get a book about it. And I still feel that way. Whenever I don’t I’m still learning or I’m doing research, the first thing I do on my poor library. Sometimes we walk out with grocery bags worth of it. But my preferred way is to pick up books and learn whatever it is that I need to see. I’m tactile, I like to hold the book. I can still do research, but it’s harder for me. I’d rather sit in a corner with a book.

Carolyn Daughters  24:05
Sarah and I are both that way. We were excited to have hardcopies of Midnight at the Barclay Hotel.

Sarah Harrison  24:07
If somebody wants to send us a PDF of their book, I’m just like, hard. No, no, send the book.

Fleur Bradley  24:20
I like to be able to hold it in my hands. Sometimes I’m researching something or and I’m like, God, I don’t really need this beginning part. I need the middle part, so then I could just flip to it.

Sarah Harrison  24:34
Publicist, if you’re listening, send two physical copies.

Fleur Bradley  24:41
I like it better as well. And that self-taught portion is stayed with me and staying curious, always wondering, why? Why is it this way? Why does it work like that? And I think kids intuitively want that as well. So whenever I. Talk to kids that are gone, oh, I don’t read. I can read something. There’s something you’re interested in. So talk to me and tell me about what you do like? Do you like, maybe comics or graphic novels? Do you like nonfiction? That’s another thing. We sometimes dismiss that and say, Oh, it has to be fiction. Some kids just gravitate towards nonfiction.

Carolyn Daughters  25:24
Exactly. And when you, I think when, when you were a child? Because when I was a child, I’ll say I didn’t have a selection of YA books to read. So I think I did something similar to you, which is, I just, I went from Nancy Drew all the way to Agatha Christie. There was no real bridge between the two. I just bam, bam went, went there. And I think you did too. And The A.B.C. Murders, I think was a relevant book for you, which happens to have been the book we did last just a few weeks ago.

Sarah Harrison  25:56
Check out our most recent episodes with Kemper Donovan.

Carolyn Daughters  26:01
We’re history of mystery, and we’re moving chronologically through time reading the best mysteries and thrillers ever written. We’re in the 1930s and so we just did last month, The A.B.C. Murders. Talk a little bit about Agatha Christie, because she has mentioned several times in Midnight at the Barclay Hotel.

Fleur Bradley  26:23
I was such a big reader as a kid, my dad would take me to the library on Mondays, we’d go on our bicycle, and I pretty much read my way.

Sarah Harrison  26:36
You were in the Netherlands.

Fleur Bradley  26:37
Everybody rides their bicycle everywhere. So I would basically run my way through the children’s department, because it wasn’t very big, and there’s no YA so you know what was next? Because I was just really into reading when I was a kid. And that librarian said, Well, why don’t you try Agatha Christie, and I love the puzzle. The she’s still, I mean, she’s no longer alive, but I still consider her the best at doing the plot twists and doing the whole intricacy of that, and I’m still fascinated by that part.

Sarah Harrison  27:15
Why do you think the librarian made that recommendation as the next connection?

Fleur Bradley  27:21
I think it’s a cozy mystery. So you have, and I did the same thing at Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. Nobody’s upset that there’s a murder in the book. And because it’s off screen, it’s not gory, right? Not scary, exactly. It’s about the puzzle. So and cozy mysteries work the same way where it’s a lot of times small town or small environment, the way the Barclay Hotel is. So it works the same as an Agatha Christie book, and I think that’s why the librarian said, why don’t you read Agatha Christie? Because there’s a whole lot of other stuff that I probably not so great to read.

Sarah Harrison  27:57
She was almost identifying, like we were talking beforehand, how YA didn’t used to be a genre. It wasn’t for me growing up, and now it’s huge. And so people would just identify what’s an appropriate book. Do you feel like having the category of YA is helpful? Or is it in some way limiting to people finding the next book that’s going to work for them.

Fleur Bradley  28:22
I think sometimes there’s a disconnect between middle grade and YA. Part of the promise is how we publish things. So the people who publish middle grade, or the editors that work on middle grade a lot of time don’t work on YA. And there’s a real like, cut off line plus YA, like with middle grade.

Sarah Harrison  28:40
Is middle grade a separate genre?

Carolyn Daughters  28:46
Midnight at the Barclay Hotel is probably middle grade, 8-12.

Fleur Bradley  28:49
It’s marketed to teachers, parents, librarians, educators, anybody who is going to give that book to somebody else, because the kids most of the time don’t buy the book, right? It’s other people that make sure that it’s okay and that it’s safe and it’s the right thing that they to give to the kid with YA, kids are buying their own books, and I think some crazy statistic, 80% or something like that, of YA is read by adults, so it’s good, it’s more it’s a marketing difference, and that marketing divides the lines so hard is that the people that publish YA have a completely different objective in where those books are going to go and who’s going to read them.

Sarah Harrison  29:31
Is there objective for adults? Then they’re really marketing.

Fleur Bradley  29:37
And sometimes it is. I mean, basically there’s no limit. You can do whatever you want.

Sarah Harrison  29:47
Like PG level or something.

Fleur Bradley  29:51
No, no, no, middle grade.

Carolyn Daughters  29:52
Yes, there’s YA. And it’s probably young character. Writers in the book, but they’re often in much more mature situations. So like, for example, I have friends who have children of a wide variety of ages, and some of them are great readers, but if they’re, say, nine and they’re a great reader, they might not be ready for YA, not because they can’t read it, they can, but the themes and the discussion and what this, what the characters do in those books, or what they’re feeling, and they may not be ready for that. So it’s not a just going sentence to sentence and understanding the language. It’s when you get this information on the page, what do you do with it, and how do you process it? And maybe they’re not quite there yet. Does that sound right?

Sarah Harrison  30:47
That was one of the really interesting things, I think, that had me excited for having you on, Fleur, is we haven’t done a book for younger kids, and now I’m already learning this is middle grade. So I thought it was YA.

Fleur Bradley  31:01
Well, and then within middle grade, in YA, there’s upper and lower. Because of the way that it is used and the kid is going to read it. If you look at a third grader and a sixth grader, big difference, third grade.

Sarah Harrison  31:18
I thought it was just like six through eight.

Carolyn Daughters  31:26
Midnight at the Barclay Hotel is for 8 to 11 year olds, middle school. The children protagonists in the book are 12 and 11. I think so. I My understanding is that children read protagonists who are a little bit older than what they are. So if you’re an eight year old, you want to read about the 11 or 12 year old. And so the same might hold true. If you’re 13, you might want to read about the 17 year old.

Fleur Bradley  31:56
Midnight at the Barclay Hotel basically is, if you’re done with chapter books, because there are some illustrations in it. It’s not too long. There’s white space. It’s the way it’s designed. It’s for younger middle grade. There are older middle grade books, which is your Harry Potter, and here your fantasies, maybe that run longer and have dense text and are harder to read.

Fleur Bradley  32:25
I came from writing for adults, so I fell into middle grade and had to learn, okay, this is how it works. This is who you market to. This is what you can do and cannot do, and this is where you can push the line and as far as content goes. You want to make sure you don’t include something that isn’t appropriate for the age level of the kid reading it. There’s a sense of responsibility, or at least, I feel that way, where the thing you’re saying on the page, whether you’re saying it aloud or whether you’re implying it, that it is something that is not a value, that like something bad, basically, so and particularly mysteries. Of course, you have the element of discovering who done it. But there also needs to be a punishment for the person who did whatever it is they did. And I keep it light harder in Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, but that’s an important part in my mind to add. But there’s a lot of discussion gray area and conversation, especially now with book bands and all those things, sure, like, what could be in it.

Carolyn Daughters  33:42
What crosses a line? And is there such a thing as a universal line, or the line is in different places for different children, different parents, …

Sarah Harrison  33:52
It’s not like a rating system, like you have for a movie or something, right?

Fleur Bradley  33:55
What’s difficult is that you want kids to feel seen that’s important that kids of all different backgrounds and all different situations have a book that speaks to you, because that’s where the reading disconnect is sometimes, is if kids don’t feel represented in a book, if they don’t see themselves in that book, you’re not going to want to read it. I mean, it goes the same for us adults, right? You want to read a book where you feel like, that’s the connection that you make.

Sarah Harrison  34:26
It’s hard to read a book where nothing’s relatable.

Fleur Bradley  34:30
I’ve had some mysteries that got people, Oh, it’s good mystery, and it’s all about, I don’t know people that are doing things, or that have some sort of situation that I wouldn’t be interested in reading about. I just don’t care.

Carolyn Daughters  34:50
So these three kids, Penny JJ and Emma, are all three, very different. Was a team player, and JJ and Penny are loners. JJ has trouble with school, but he’s way into ghost haunting. He just has all the technology in the camera. And Penny is a voracious reader. And so the character I identified most with was penny that was like, and then the three of them come together, and they’re working to solve this mystery which the adults were supposed to be solving, right? Like, that’s they’re all there ostensibly to solve this mystery. And then these kids are the adults, I don’t know what they’re doing all day. They’re swimming, they’re looking for the hot tub.

Sarah Harrison  35:37
In Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, they can’t find the hot tub while they’re waiting for the second course of the five courses. Where’s the veal?

Carolyn Daughters  35:44
I know they’re like, all I have is a sandwich. One’s the veal course. So they’re apparently at the dinner table. The kids are everywhere. And I thought I was able to channel my 12-year-old self, thinking this would have been my dream, being in a place like the Barclay Hotel, running rampant through the room, trying to figure stuff out.

Fleur Bradley  36:06
I thought that was the line. That’s the important part, is that the kids solved the mystery of adults. So that’s number one rule of the story. You have to find a way to make that believable, right? There’s always a stretch. I mean, you’re stretching the believability of the story. But for kids, that’s really important to feel like they have agency. And if the characters in the book have agency, then they feel like, as readers, that they have agency.

Sarah Harrison  36:31
I want to ask you about that too, because that was the tricky part for me. And then maybe that’s because I’m currently the mother of very young children, and I was like, so there’s a murderer in the hotel, and the parents are like, see you at dinner time. Is this a rule of YA?

Carolyn Daughters  36:50
It’s a willing suspension of disbelief.

Sarah Harrison  36:55
And let the kids solve the crime like, movies where kids are the crime fighters and those sorts of things.

Fleur Bradley  37:00
There is that. And I think in Midnight at the Barclay Hotel at points, because JJ’s mom is more involved, or she does try to catch up with him at various points. So there, there is some of that. You have to let the kids run the show. Otherwise, the book doesn’t work, basically, that goes for any book. So you have to find a way. My first book series is this a spy thriller for kids, kind of James Bond. And that one was really hard, because you have to make it believable that some 12-year-old kid could run around Paris or and they don’t have transportation. They you have to find all the time sitting on the bus, they’re running across the city, and all those things so, and that’s so I came from that experience of writing about cities and having this massive amount of real estate, basically, to get the kids across. So when I wrote Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. I’m like, I want to go from an international mystery to a mystery that is in a closed environment, that’s very claustrophobic almost towards them, because they’re all stuck at the Barclay Hotel. So that was a fun shift to go from this international spy thriller to a very closed setting.

Sarah Harrison  38:22
Is this part of a series, or is this a one?

Fleur Bradley  38:25
No, it’s a standalone. So Daybreak and Raven Island just play on it a little bit with a few easter eggs. But no, they’re both standalones.

Carolyn Daughters  38:37
And so what the librarian at one point, reading, I think Murder on the Orient Express.

Sarah Harrison  38:43
They mentioned The Mousetrap.

Fleur Bradley  38:44
Yeah, lots of little things. It was fun to put that in there. I just took a year, and I’m like, I’m gonna write Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. I really want to write based on talking to kids, based on talking to educators and parents. I wrote a book that conveys all my love for mystery and where I can really go. You know, this is what I love about the genre, and give that to kids and have it really be a different book than anything I had written before. So was really fun. That was a fun experience.

Sarah Harrison  39:21
Well, it’s very Colorado, too. I could not not think about the Stanley Hotel.

Fleur Bradley  39:30
And you’re still selling it at the Stanley Hotel, because it is, is based on the Stanley I just I wanted to make it my own hotel, because if you go to the Stanley Hotel, in case you haven’t been, I mean, Estes Park is right at the base of it, so you can literally walk down and go, you know, escape. So I needed it to be more like the Stanley was when it was originally built, which is isolated and, yes, where you can’t get out. So I’m like, Okay, I need to build my own hotel. And that way I could also add fun stuff, like a bowling alley and a cupcake shop and all this other stuff.

Carolyn Daughters  40:07
Really my dream hotel.

Fleur Bradley  40:10
For kids too. I think of the things that I would love in a hotel.

Carolyn Daughters  40:15
It’s the biggest private library in Colorado. I was like, this is incredible.

Fleur Bradley  40:21
The illustrator did an amazing because illustrations in there, and illustrator did an amazing job with the whole stairs, like dream library.

Sarah Harrison  40:29
I wanted to ask about that too. So Midnight at the Barclay Hotel has a lot of firsts for us, for our podcast, and it’s the first illustrated one. Tell me about the process of finding an illustrator, choosing what gets illustrated. How involved are you in that?

Fleur Bradley  40:43
Not very. Okay, so most of the time the cover, the publisher decides who’s going to be the illustrator for the cover and for the interior illustrations. Now, I did get to go over with my editor what scenes were very visual and important and to sprinkle the illustrations throughout Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. So we got to go, Okay, here’s how many illustrations we can do. And this is what would be cool to be illustrated.

Carolyn Daughters  41:08
Maybe hold up your book for a second so we can see the camera.

Fleur Bradley  41:13
I was very happy with it. It’s a lovely cover. And we you spread it out like when they send it to you. You know, we’re gonna go. Here’s the cover. You get the full experience of Barclay Hotel, which is really, because it’s something that is in your imagination. And then somebody is taking that and turning it into a visual. So it makes it very real once you, once you get to that stage. So that’s really fun.

Carolyn Daughters  41:39
Xavier Bonnet.

Fleur Bradley  41:41
He is in Barcelona. We follow each other on social media. But other than that, you don’t really get to they do that on purpose. So there’s also not a lot of difficulty. It’s really the publisher’s decision.

Sarah Harrison  41:59
You can’t be like, that’s not my vision.

Fleur Bradley  42:02
You can. they just don’t listen a little bit, but not a lot, because it’s a bigger decision than what you think. This conveys a younger middle grade. So that’s important. If you look at my book Daybreak on Raven Island, it’s a little bit older, so the cover is different. It feels different that one is scarier than this. This one has a couple of ghosts in it. Not too bad. So it’s important they understand the publisher understands, because it’s their job to figure out who’s a good Illustrator to work with.

Carolyn Daughters  42:33
I think you’ve written something as well. There are certain fonts that are easier for children to read.

Fleur Bradley  42:44
One of the things that I run into a lot is kids who are actually having a reading disability. So certain fonts are easier. If there’s similar size, like, for instance, an area will be easier to read. And then there’s specific fonts for people, or like, Verdana or something. That one is easier. I try to put everything in Verdana if I can. And then there’s other fonts that I don’t think are, like, common or free, that are specific for people who are dyslexic.

Carolyn Daughters  43:22
I love typography, and I work as a writer and an editor and all of that. And for forever I’ve done this, and when I I’ll write online, but then I always print, and I always have the hard copy. I’m very tactile, and I read differently hard copy than I do online, and there are specific fonts that I gravitate towards and some fonts that make it hard for me to engage with my own writing, let alone anyone else’s. And if I’m reading my own thing multiple times because I’m on iteration two or 10, I will sometimes change the entire font, and then I see things differently.

Fleur Bradley  44:00
Sometimes it’ll it also helps to bring in the margins and to look at, okay, what is this actually going to look like as a book, and then you read it in a different way than you do a manuscript.

Carolyn Daughters  44:15
In addition to mysteries, you love? Do you love, like the idea of ghosts and ghost hunting, and because that’s a big theme in Midnight at the Barclay Hotel.

Fleur Bradley  44:24
Yes, and only because I went to the Stanley Hotel and did the tour.

Sarah Harrison  44:28
It’s a great tour, folks.

Fleur Bradley  44:35
I saw no ghosts, cool architecture. So mostly took that, and that mostly took because when I was working on Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, I had the murder mystery, but it didn’t really have the setting. And it wasn’t until I visited to Stanley that I really was like, this is where it needs to be, and this is what the story is going to be. But as far as ghosts, I’m not a skeptic, and I’m not into scary things. Growing up, I didn’t really like horror movies. It’s still not my favorite genre. And for Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, there was only a little bit of paranormal stuff in there, and then kids loved it so much that for the next book, I’m like, Okay, I need to up my game. More of a mystery. That side of things. Okay, I’m gonna have to branch out a bit, and so I this is Agatha Christie for kids, like I’m gonna do Alfred Hitchcock for kids.

Sarah Harrison  45:35
How is that different? Tell me about that.

Fleur Bradley  45:38
Okay, more ghosts. In Daybreak on Raven Island, there’s definitely more ghosts, so that’s definitely different, but me, myself, it’s not a genre I gravitate towards. I definitely had to stretch and for Daybreak on Raven Island, I sat down and I’m like, what are things that scare me. I don’t like to be scared. So I took all the things, all the stories, yes, because Daybreak on Raven Island is set on an island just like Alcatraz. If you start doing research on Alcatraz, horrible things happened. And it’s really not bad.

Sarah Harrison  46:16
It’s a beautiful island. It made me want to commit some terrible crime so I could go garden on Alcatraz for the rest of my life.

Fleur Bradley  46:24
There’s actually a book called The Gardener of Alcatraz. It’s really good. It’s a biography, or a picture book, of one of the prisoners who was the gardener of Alcatraz, and he was famous.

Sarah Harrison  46:35
You can paint them. Give me painting supplies. I was like, How do I get back into here?

Fleur Bradley  46:40
It’s a pretty horrible prison. So, yeah, do not 100% recommend.

Carolyn Daughters  46:45
I’d be the guy on the shore, filming you swimming off the island. I’d capture all of it, don’t you worry.

Sarah Harrison  46:54
I wanted to retire. Why is everyone Shiv in each other when they can have painting supplies and do gardening. My goodness.

Carolyn Daughters  47:03
This place is a dream. Don’t they get that?

Sarah Harrison  47:05
It’s really beautiful. You got to go. If you haven’t been to Alcatraz.

Fleur Bradley  47:10
It’s a good thing. It’s no longer but good stories there. So that was great for having lots of inspiration and stories to work with. As far as making it scary, horror is never my top choice. I have to branch out and embrace the scariness. My sister was very much into it growing up, so I dedicated for you, because it was yes, that was stretching all my imagination when it came to the scary stuff.

Sarah Harrison  47:46
So it sounds like you right for, like, all kinds of multiple age groups. How do you figure out? Like, how do you decide, oh, Midnight at the Barclay Hotel is for middle grades, or this is for, this is a little scarier.

Fleur Bradley  47:59
It’s a good question, because I’ve been working on the historical that I started off writing as a middle grade, but then realized I need the adult stories in there. So it wasn’t going to work for middle grade. I still have children in there. Most of my stories have children in there, because I think that children are a great way to convey and tell a story and frame something in a in a way that because they look at everything for the first time that we are dulled to or they accept certain things as truths that we know are wrong. I love writing mysteries, short mysteries as well, because it’s nice, because it’s confined and you’re done a little bit faster, and you can submit it and get it published. I have one story coming out in the best mystery stories of the year anthology. That’s great. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. So that’s fun, because it allows me to branch out and not always be writing for kids, because not every story that you want to tell fits that way. But there’s definitely, I think it’s a sense that you get if you have to read lots of books, if you want to write for kids, you have to read lots of books for kids, so you can understand what it is that that makes something a good middle grade or connects with you. And like you were saying before, that is a universal truth of sorts, like the best children’s books, trends and the genre, and then YA is a whole different beast in itself. I have a few YA manuscripts I’ve written. It’s fun. I think it’s good to not stay in one place when it comes to writing, to look at everything right for different audiences.

Carolyn Daughters  49:45
You visit libraries. I think you visit schools, you do some teaching and coaching. Tell us about that experience. You gravitate toward that where you really want to talk to these groups, and in particular, reluctant readers, or like, What draws you to all of these experiences where you’re with these groups, and either, maybe just giving a conversation, or in some cases, let’s talk about the mystery form, or let’s talk about how you can plot a story, because plotting a story is not an easy task.

Fleur Bradley  50:26
No, but it is actually the talk I like the most that I do for kids is when I don’t talk, but we interact, so we plot a story together. So I have them toss out, okay, what genre rewriting, what’s the main character? What are they going to and then I, we on a on a dry erase board, or we basically put a story together in like, half an hour. Okay, that’s the one they love the most, because they get to engage. They get to be part of it. And they can throw out ideas, like let’s put a dragon in there, and let’s have it set at a school, and there’s a dragon egg under the school, and they discover it, and what happens then? And just that, anything is possible. And story structure, because story structure is similar, whether it’s a book or a movie. So that’s I’ll show, a way to connect with kids that maybe aren’t big readers, but they like movies like TV shows. So then they can start looking for those same plot points and those same sheets that novelists use.

So for me, that’s a really fun one to do. And then I have a talk for librarians and educators that talks about, how do you reach reluctant readers? How do you get over your own misconceptions of a kid who comes to you and says to analytical read, how do you bridge that gap? How do you get to and how do you look at books yourself that are made for you? Know, Like as a reluctant reader, let’s pretend for a second that you have trouble reading. And if you pick up a book and the text is dense and there’s no pictures and there’s a lot of there’s not a lot of dialog, a reluctant reader is not going to start with that. You’re not going to get them to read that. They won’t want you. They’ll pick the easiest one. And then you can level up, and you can look at a book like Midnight at the Barclay Hotel that has bigger margins and different fonts, and looks playful when you look at the text. And so then making that connection. So I do talk for librarians in that way, where I allow everybody to share ideas, because a lot of time, people have great ideas and already know certain things, and then I take that to the next talk. So I’ve done that one a few dozen times now, where with each talk, I actually pick up tips from people who are doing this job. Because I’m not, I’m not a librarian, I’m not a teacher, so I can’t they come in with knowledge that that’s amazing and can be shared like a daisy chain with other people, right? So I do that one, and that one’s really fun, so it’s branched out. When you as a writer, you start off with that book, and then you realize, okay, nobody’s gonna know about this book unless I go out there talk about it. So how do I talk about it in a way that brings more to the table than just your sales pitch. And that’s been the most rewarding part, honestly. I mean, the book sales, you don’t control a whole lot of that anyway, right? She just controlled the relationships you build with people and people you talk to in the lives you hopefully touch just a little bit like that kid who wants to read, the librarian who feel, I’ve had people come up to me crying, which is really awkward, but it it’s because there’s such a sense of, I really want to engage, and I really want kids to read, to get it, to make that connection, and to get them to a point where they can be successful, right? And reading is a huge key in that. So I love doing those things. It’s really rewarding. And it’s grown out of my need to go, Okay, I have to tell people about Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. But it became so much bigger.

Carolyn Daughters  54:06
Because you’re actually connecting with people.

Fleur Bradley  54:10
Yes, and that goes beyond the book and that particular conversation. I mean, the book sales follow.

Carolyn Daughters  54:19
People can email you at FleurBradley25@gmail.com.

Fleur Bradley  54:38
And I write back. A lot of teachers will go well, my kids, so and so, had a question, okay? Which is great. And I have, above my desk, I have this little clip where, if I get fan mail or arts or anything like that, and I put it up there as inspiration, and also to remind me that and all that, that noise. And other people, everybody having an opinion. What’s the most important opinion? Is the kids. So I try. It’s good to remind myself, like, who I work for?

Sarah Harrison  55:08
What’s some of your favorite fan mail you’ve gotten?

Fleur Bradley  55:16
It’s about pets. Usually, like, because I’m a cat person, and there’s a cat on the cover, and I talk about my cat, and have a big cat named Floof. I get fan mail, like, I also have a cat. Oh, they’ll be like, I have not read any of your books yet, but, you know, maybe I will. It’s this honesty that I love.

Fleur Bradley  55:37
Or the teacher will make after a school visit or something. They’ll make all make art, and then the teacher emails it to me, okay, so some of that, the drawings, the art that I get, or I get book ideas. They’ll be like, your next book should be about X, Y, Z, and it’s gonna be great. And you can tell me when you write it, they’re really honest, which is fun.

Carolyn Daughters  56:01
It’s refreshing. It is.

Sarah Harrison  56:02
A friend of mine is the voice of a transformer right now. He’s wheel Jack. And sometimes he posts fan art. He gets from the kids to Facebook about wheel jack, and I absolutely love, like, all this stuff. I’m like, oh, a child sent you this little work of art about yourself as a transformer.

Fleur Bradley  56:25
And there’s a real honesty to it, and just it’s and it genuinely is inspiring, because you remember, like, Okay, this is what, what you’re doing it for. This is who you’re working for.

Sarah Harrison  56:35
I had one final question, if I may. You have your daughter here in the studio with us and the relationships always between parents and children are of interest to me. You know, JJ talks about, his relationship with his mother in Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, and how, if at all, because you said you started doing this to have your own thing Do your children, and I know they’re way out of the age range of Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. Are they readers? Do they? Are they just separate? How does that parent child relationship? Do they read your work? Or do you keep that separate? Oh, she gave the thumbs up back there.

Fleur Bradley  57:19
There’s little bits in there. I remember that which sometimes they would be like this weird mom. I think the first book that I ever wrote, double vision link is at home, and he finds a cheese ball in the back of the fridge. And that was my daughter’s favorite food, little bits and pieces that are recognizable. So I imagine it’s probably strange for them to read my books in a 12-year-old voice. They inspire and they give me ideas, and both my daughters look at things in a different way, and then open my mind and make me think, they’re right about that, or they’re very inspiring. So that’s great.

Carolyn Daughters  58:04
We have some contact information here for you, which we will put on the show notes and on our site. Your website is fleurbradley.com, your email, FleurBradley25@gmail.com. You’re on Twitter FtBradley author, Instagram, Fleur Bradley, and Facebook Ft, Bradley author.

Sarah Harrison  58:35
Yes, and she will write back.

Fleur Bradley  58:37
I do because I’m not super-duper famous yet.

Sarah Harrison  58:43

It’s been awesome having you, Fleur. It’s so interesting. It’s a really new twist on this whole mystery genre that we’ve been focusing on.

Carolyn Daughters  58:54
And I will say, because we haven’t spoiled a thing about Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, I will say there was one place in this book where I said, Oh, really? And I will leave it there. And so a couple plot twists that took me by surprise. So it’s fun. I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.

Sarah Harrison  59:16
Or if you have kids, check it out for your kids. Thanks so much for coming today.

Fleur Bradley  59:21
Thanks for having me.

Sarah Harrison  1:00:27
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Carolyn Daughters
You can learn more about The A.B.C. Murders and all our 2024 book selections at teatonicandtoxin.com. You can also comment, weigh in, and follow along with what we’re reading and discussing @teatonicandtoxin on Instagram and Facebook. And you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, please visit our website, teatonicandtoxin.com to check out current and past reading lists and support our labor of love, starting at only $3 a month.

Sarah Harrison
We want to thank you for joining us on our journey through the history of mystery. We absolutely adore you. Until next time, stay mysterious.