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FULL TRANSCRIPT: Maggie Sims Samples "Charlotte's Control"
[00:00:00] Katherine Grant: Welcome to the Historical Romance Sampler Podcast. The place for you to find new historical romance books and authors to fan over. I'm award winning historical romance author Katherine Grant, and each week I'm inviting fellow authors to come on and share a little bit of their work and themselves.
They'll read a sample of one of their books, and then I'm going to ask them a bunch of questions. By the end of the episode, you'll have a sense of what they write and who they are. Hopefully, you and I both will have something new to read. So what are we waiting for? Let's get into this week's episode.
I am so excited. I'm here today with Maggie Sims. Maggie began her love affair with romance before her teen years, drawn to the Regency by her mom's British influence. In her 20s, she did her best to live the Carrie Bradshaw life in New York City, albeit with less expensive shoes and more books. Despite reading hundreds of romance novels in her life, she was still blown away when she met the love of her life, an ex marine Cinnamon Roll with creative woodworking and culinary skills.
Having retired from corporate life, They live in Central Texas and are parents to a varying number of dogs and cats. When not writing, Maggie is a wine enthusiast, a travel junkie, and a romance reading fiend. She also sporadically crochets for knotsoflove. org and does just enough exercise for that second glass of wine at night.
Maggie, thank you so much for being here.
[00:01:37] Maggie Sims: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:39] Katherine Grant: I'm so excited. So I know you're reading from your new series today. Can you tell us about the book Charlotte's Control?
[00:01:48] Maggie Sims: Absolutely. That is book one in a new series. It does have characters pouring over from the previous series, the School of Enlightenment, but it's not focused on the school.
So I wanted it to be new series and all of my books can be read as a standalone. So they're all unique couples with a H E. A. This one is an age gap with the older woman liking control in the bedroom. She was taught by her first husband and it was a love match and unfortunately, she was widowed.
She is childless. So when she meets this young, still a university student, he's about to turn 20, and then they start to have a relationship. I'm just jumping ahead in the plot here. They she resists it because she knows that when he inherits his earldom, he will need heirs. And she has not, she didn't have children in an 8 year marriage.
So she's concerned for his behalf. So that's, yeah.
[00:02:47] Katherine Grant: Awesome. Is there anything we need to know about the scene before you jump into it?
[00:02:50] Maggie Sims: There is. Let me get to my notes here. So, Charlotte is the dowager countess of Peterborough and she's a 28 year old widow, like I said, starting in, in this scene, she's just starting, it's in the, towards the beginning of the book, it's the meet cute, and she's just starting to reintegrate into ton society after mourning her husband.
Belle, who you'll hear referenced in this passage, is her best friend, and Charles was her husband. William, the hero, is almost 20 between his second and final year at Oxford, but has had to begin learning the earldom because his father's a drunkard. So they've caught sight of each other in an earlier scene at the first, her first ball back and felt both felt an attraction.
So he approaches her and their host of this ball at for, for an introduction. The host is her friend and he's very lax on titles. He's very lax about a lot of things actually. And introduces her as the Countess of Peterborough rather than the Dowager Countess. His mother who helps him kind of shadow, manage the earldom.
Asked William to see if the Earl of Peterborough was in attendance and dis to to discuss a parliamentary alliance. So William changes course from the introduction to ask about her husband. She flees to the garden unprepared for that question. And he follows to apologize once he finds out the real situation and we're joining the scene just after his apology.
[00:04:21] Katherine Grant: Take it away.
[00:04:23] Maggie Sims: William went to speak, but Charlotte raised a hand. "My response to your innocent inquiry was unnecessarily harsh, and I apologize. Whilst this is one of my first social events since Charles passing, I should not have attended if I was not ready to be polite."
"Lady Peterborough," he held his hand out as though asking to hold hers. Did he not recall formal etiquette? There could be no hand holding between them. Ach, he might not even have learned it yet, given his youth. Well, this she could handle. She glanced down at it, then pointedly back up at his face. Dropping his hand between them, further pinning her skirts, he did not seem to realize that it brushed her thigh.
The audacity of the puppy! Straightening her spine an inch, she raised her brows at him. He smiled, leaning in. "No apology is needed to my mind. However, if you feel it necessary, my response is that allowing me to sit and bask in your beauty erases all memories of faux pas from my thoughts." She snorted, ignoring the spurt of pleasure in her chest to shake her head side to side.
"Oh please, try that on someone your own age." Had she thought him audacious? Impertinent was more like it. "I beg your pardon, my lady, I was being truthful. I could stare at you all night." His hair flopped onto his forehead again as he leaned toward her. Charlotte remained silent, staring at him and trying to ignore the thump of her heart and spurt of heat between her legs.
Nor did she want to catalog the pull of his jacket over his muscled shoulder and biceps as he twisted, or the strain of his breeches around powerful thighs. His eyes were deep pools of liquid darkness, his lips plush and parted. He moved his hand on the bench, an inch, the pinky pressing against her, then retracting.
"May I, may I hold your hand, please, Lady Peterborough?" The impact radiated down to her toes, curling them in her slippers, and up, tightening her nipples and bringing heat to her cheeks. Oh my, he is potent. She did not answer William, instead turning her head away with another snort. Her skirts loosened, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught his hand lifting toward her.
Snap! She smacked his knuckles with her folded fan. Impertinent and audacious, she amended her earlier thoughts. At least she wasn't the only one being inappropriate this evening. "Lord Stanton, you do not have permission to touch me." "Lady Peterborough, tis William, please." He rushed on. "You have my apology.
Will you please forgive me? Please?" She gave a small sniff, still fighting with her conscience over Belle's suggestion. Did she dare? His next question answered that. "How may I make it up to you?" At his words, the devil in her reared its head, overriding her conscience. She'd been lonely this past year and a half.
While Belle insisted that she could meet someone who fit her sexually, she was not so sure. The breeze shifted and his scent floated to her. Tempered sweetness of spiced rum with something else she couldn't name after being alone so long. No matter, it was delicious. She tilted her head and ran her gaze up and down his form, her pulse racing.
Lingering for a moment on his lap, she licked her lips before forcing herself to continue searching. Her gaze settled on his neck before raising to his face. "Remove your cravat." "Charlotte, Lady Peterborough?" "You heard me, and you do not have permission to use my given name. It is Lady Peterborough. Or," she sucked in a breath, trying not to pant as she attempted to rein in her inner devil, but it had slipped its lead and was running wild.
"Mistress P." His eyes bulged and his throat moved on a swallow. He lifted his hands hesitantly to his cravat. Gracious, he was actually following her command. She'd been sure his reaction would be insulted dismissal, or worse, laughter. Another hot wave of arousal washed over her. Undoing the pin and knot, he slid the cravat from around his neck to hold it across his lap.
"What now, Mistress P?" "You may make amends by keeping your hands to yourself, and I shall help you do that." Charlotte reached over and slid one end of the necktie through his loose hold. She pulled it from under his hands to his wrists, crossed the two ends and raised his hands using the linen. He shifted and opened his mouth as though to protest.
She glared at him through her lashes. "Hold still." With his hands between them, she leaned forward an inch and wrapped the ends under his wrists, around to the top, and under again. As he watched, mouth open, she tied the ends into a loose double knot over the wrapping, well out of reach of his thumbs. It would take him a minute or two to figure out that she had left it loose enough for him to bend one hand and get his fingers to the knot to pick at it.
Still amazed at his willingness to sit still for her ministrations, she schooled her features. All of this open mindedness could simply be lack of maturity. However, she could still take her fun. Before she straightened her inner devil, she liked to think it had Belle's voice. Made her lean in further, closing that gap, to brush her breasts against his knuckles, inhaling his scent again.
He jerked. "Lady, Mistress p?" He asked, his voice a croak. Ah, youth. "Just testing that you have learned not to grab people without permission," she smirked. "Absolutely, Mistress P." He was gasping. Her inner devil preened. She'd not been allowed out in so long she was enjoying this tiny show of power. "Er, now that you have me at your mercy, what will you do with me?"
The upward lilt of the question sounded hopeful. "Remind you to play with children your own age."
[00:10:31] Katherine Grant: Ooh, I need a fan over here.
[00:10:36] Maggie Sims: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:38] Katherine Grant: That was awesome. Thank you so much. I'm I have some questions for you, but we're going to take a quick break for our sponsor.
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So I am back with Maggie Sims who just read a sample of Charlotte's Control. And when you were setting up the book, There were two things that stood out to me. One was that Charlotte is a widow and that she had a love match.
And we hear that in the scene as well. I feel like usually in historical romance, when there are past relationships, it's a negative one or like a neutral, we agreed not to touch each other one. So what led you to giving Charlotte a love match?
[00:12:16] Maggie Sims: I was tired of the other ones. I felt like this could be realistic.
Ultimately, I probably thought through it after, like, as I was writing further, more than in the beginning. I knew I wanted it from the beginning, but like, later on, there's a scene where it gives him a little bit of power as well. Like, he starts on, in a later scene, he starts undressing her and he make, he rubs her back from where the stays had pressed.
Her chemise into her and that's something Charles had done and she starts crying and so he holds her and then he leaves and she's like, wait, what? And he's like, when I'm, you know, I'll come back when I'm the only man in your bed. But this is what you needed from me now. This is the service you needed from me now, kind of thing.
And so it, it balanced things out nicely in the end, but I just really, like, I'm a romance fan. So I wanted her to have had a romance and think, well, how do I find this again?
[00:13:16] Katherine Grant: Yeah, I like, yeah. And well, and I think I, I think about this a lot too, and how we as modern readers are very accustomed to having relationships, multiple relationships in our lives.
Like, I think the average American woman does have multiple relationships. And so to help us process that, it's nice to have, see a heroine like Charlotte who has loved before and can love again.
[00:13:42] Maggie Sims: Thank you. Yeah. I didn't actually think of it that way, but thank you. Yeah.
[00:13:46] Katherine Grant: Yeah. So you mentioned control as a dynamic, and I also saw that in describing your series for this, that this book is in, which is called control, that the kind of series intention is to explore dynamics of control that are on might appear unequal, but lead to supportive relationships.
I
really liked seeing that intention for the series. I feel like a lot of times, you know, we're like, it's a series that's following for friends from college or whatever, which is great.
But yeah, so can you talk a little bit more about what that means to you and why you wanted to do a whole series about it?
[00:14:23] Maggie Sims: So the reason I got into writing in this niche of Regency romance, but super spicy was because the control was almost always in the man's hand in the Regency. And each of my heroines find their own power in that. In the first series, they were taught that at the school kind of thing, but or some of them were.
And but they kind of have to do it on the fly around society. Right. And even Charlotte does. I want to make this series about each person finding the balance of control that they're comfortable with despite that time period, maybe, right? And so I liked bucking the norm. I also like, I like age gap romances to read and I like them both ways and not everybody does.
And so I wanted that to be part of that dynamic. The next book in the series is actually about self control. And learning that so I really just kind of want to look at all angles and how that was handled in, in that period.
[00:15:35] Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's really interesting. And, you know, like you said, it's spicy and we were seeing in this scene, you know, a little bit of, I think, BDSM is where it's going with that.
I don't want to mislabel it if I'm wrong, but
[00:15:50] Maggie Sims: Light bondage. I mean, just,
[00:15:51] Katherine Grant: okay.
[00:15:52] Maggie Sims: No.
[00:15:53] Katherine Grant: Yeah. Light bondage. So there's like, you know, that is often associated with sexual control, but I also love that you're using that to kind of broaden the conversation and look at control in terms of personal dynamics and
[00:16:09] Maggie Sims: Yeah, yeah, there's, there's the age part.
There is money part. She's quite wealthy and his father is just let the earl them go. Yeah, so there's a few layers in there.
[00:16:24] Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's really interesting. And what do you think makes an age gap so yummy for you?
[00:16:30] Maggie Sims: Probably the power dynamic which is a form of control, right? But I think it's also, the fact that it demonstrates the universality of love, right?
In other episodes of your podcast, you've asked, do you believe in soulmates? And I don't per se. I, I think, you know, once upon a time, the world was quite small and you found your match, you know, within a geographical area. You've lived around the world.
I've lived around the country and I found my person at one of those stops. But are there other people out for me? I don't know. I know there's other people out for him, but I'm a little harder to get along with. I digress. So I think like looking outside your age range as well as a geographical range is a realistic thing and something that should not be ignored.
And so I like that part of it too.
[00:17:25] Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's really interesting. I think it's also interesting in this book specifically like not only are they 10 years apart, but he's in this specific life phase of being a 20 year old man who's like still in college, or the equivalent thereof. And she's this independent widow who has a lot more life experience like that's, that's a big 10 years.
[00:17:48] Maggie Sims: Yeah.
[00:17:49] Katherine Grant: So that's really interesting.
[00:17:50] Maggie Sims: Yeah. And he's, he hasn't yet reached his majority. Like, even if his father died the next day, he would have to have his cousin help him, you know kind of be the, I forget what it's called, steward or whatever of the,
[00:18:03] Katherine Grant: yeah.
[00:18:03] Maggie Sims: Of the estate. So, yeah.
[00:18:06] Katherine Grant: Yeah. So I'm curious, you said in your bio, you know, that you've been reading romances and Regency romances since before you were a teenager.
And you know, obviously you're writing them now. So I'm curious, what was your journey to go from reader to writer?
[00:18:22] Maggie Sims: So, I mean, just, I, a voracious reader, I always have been, and 99 percent of what I read is romance, all the way through, other than when I was in school, and I had to read books for that. And when I was between jobs, I was out in Silicon Valley, and so I was between jobs, as most of us were out there at one point or another.
And I started kind of playing around with writing Harlequin because I was like, well, they're smaller contained, like there is kind of a known, um, cadence to them, right. And format for them. And so let me try this. And I realized there was a lot more to it. And then I got a new job and I was like, you know, working a bazillion hours and what have you.
So I never kind of got back to that. It's, I still haven't. And so then the next time I was out of job was like, you know, more than a decade later and between jobs. And so I started playing again and what I was like, I wanted to take my, my finance and corporate background and apply it. So I said, well, and this was kind of back in 2015.
So if you think about it, like Annabelle Joseph was out I think Fifty Shades was just out, but Annabelle Joseph with her historical series Golden Angel was just starting. I didn't even know about her. There was one other author who I don't know if she's writing anymore, to be honest, but, or she's not writing historical.
And then, and so I said, Oh, my gosh, there is this, this underserved niche, like, of all the, all this stuff around 50 shades was blowing up and like, well, what if it, what did they do 200 years ago? Right? Yeah. And so I was like, well, let me try to write that, you know, and so it evolved, right?
And, and it was only like a thing that I did during my free time. So it wasn't really an I didn't finish my first book until after I had stopped working in the corporate world.
[00:20:14] Katherine Grant: Okay. Yeah. That's really interesting. I like that you were thinking about it from both a creative and a marketing perspective.
It's always good to do. I'm bad at that, but it's, I admire it in you.
[00:20:24] Maggie Sims: Well, it didn't, it didn't end up helping me that much because of course, by the time I get my book out, the world had exploded with the, with the self published books. And there's what, 4,000 books a day published on Amazon or something now.
So it's that much harder not to get lost in the noise, but I ended up loving it, and so that's why I'm continuing with that.
[00:20:45] Katherine Grant: Yeah, and who are some of the authors who've influenced your writing the most, do you think?
[00:20:49] Maggie Sims: Definitely those two that I named. Annabelle Joseph's first series and then the other series, the other author, I don't remember her name, but it was Bound, the Bound and Determined series, and then Golden Angel's Historicals
were the leaders in this space. And in fact, when I was starting out, I reached out to Annabelle Joseph and I kind of fangirled all over her in the email and she agreed to meet with me and just talk through her, her experience and kind of what she valued from her learning curve and what she would do differently and that kind of stuff.
So she was very encouraging. And in fact When people sign up for my newsletter, I mentioned her in the Properly Spanked series in my first, my welcome newsletter to them. I was like, by the way, if you haven't done, this was who inspired me.
[00:21:34] Katherine Grant: Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. What about when you were like a teenager?
Do you still return to those books as a reader?
[00:21:43] Maggie Sims: Actually, I just tried an older one recently. Now I haven't tried some of the bigger names, but there was one story that had stuck out to me. And. I, I think it's called Passion, but I don't remember the author. And I tried
[00:21:58] Katherine Grant: Is this the one at the Crystal Palace?
[00:22:00] Maggie Sims: No, no, that's okay. No, that's another one called passion though. You're right. Not that this was much earlier. And I tried reading it again. And like, now that we know the whole, um, Georgette Heyer kind of situation with changing facts to test if authors were copying her and stuff like that. And, and the whole More and more research has been done, like I can see where facts are misstated, you know, like it's not historically accurate and there's a ton of head hopping.
And so I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to get through it again. And I loved the book. I love the storyline. It was about a female twin who stepped in for her brother. When their parents passed or their dad passed. And so they they were 18. And so the earldom of course was under the stewardship of their, um, of this, this guy that they had never met.
Right. And so, and she steps in as quote, the Earl in training, and he tries to teach her to be a man. And it's just
fun. Yeah.
But I don't know that I'll be able to read that story again. But like, you know, obviously the greats, the Johanna Lindsay's, the Jude Devereaux, Kathleen Woodewiss was probably my first historical.
I mean, just, you know, some, I'm a lot older than you. So, you know, I really go back to the very beginning greats where, you know, beyond the Harlequins and silhouettes, really the, the, the first full length romances were the regencies for the most part and then those authors started branching out to and the Judith McNaught and that kind of stuff.
So I love those in my memory. I haven't tried rereading a lot of them.
[00:23:47] Katherine Grant: Yeah, I well, I think stylistically a lot has changed as well. In addition to a deeper understanding of history makes it hard. We were talking offline about just how it's harder once you start writing romance to escape into romance as a reader.
[00:24:02] Maggie Sims: Right, right. I, I am actually pretty good. I have a friend who can't turn her internal editor off, but if a book catches my interest and they get me invested in the characters early on, then I can turn my editor off and just read for fun. So thank God so far. You get burned out on Regency specifically because my head's so in it for my writing.
So I find now that I'm reading more contemporary and yet I still want to read my peers books to be able to hype them up and tell my newsletter readers about them or just in general help, you know, promo them. So I, I, I do try to balance it.
[00:24:40] Katherine Grant: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a difficult balance. In some of our prep emails, we mentioned this and I've also seen it going around on Facebook.
So I wanted to ask you, there's a difference between romance, erotic romance, and erotica. Why do you think it's important for us to keep a distinction between those?
[00:25:00] Maggie Sims: Why is it important? I mean, from a personal standpoint, I don't want people to look at me and say, you're just writing smut for the sake of smut.
And I mean, of course, some people may still think that. But for me, the core of the story should always be romance, but in books that I choose to read and books that I choose to write. And the reason it's erotic is because the sex is so inextricably linked to the growth of their relationship. And I choose to put more of it on the page than some others, maybe so, or even like the type of sex they like that kind of thing.
But really, it's just The definition of erotic romance is that it's a romance where the sexual component of the relationship is essential to the storyline. Erotica definitely has a place in the world. Not saying I haven't ever read it, but it is spice for the sake of spice. And there isn't necessarily a happy ending.
The two characters can walk away at the end separately. And so that's just a very different thing. And I, my stories are designed as a relationship building and going through some tough times and then coming out successful at the end. And it's the relationship that I try to focus on as a writer. And that's, I want to be seen.
That's what I want to be seen by the reader.
[00:26:22] Katherine Grant: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good explanation of it. It's something that I think as we engage more and more on the internet with more of us, I mean, first of all, because of self publishing, we're able to get more books published on a spectrum, exploring sexuality on a spectrum.
And there are readers engaging with them. People use labels improperly sometimes. And It's always good to just kind of like be like, well, what is the right label and why is it right? Why do we care?
[00:27:00] Maggie Sims: Right. I mean I could say the same about you know Regency romance being classed in In a Victorian romance in Amazon categories, right?
[00:27:11] Katherine Grant: Yes, exactly. Yeah,
[00:27:12] Maggie Sims: there is a distinction. And then is it important? Depends on who you ask.
[00:27:17] Katherine Grant: Right. I've seen it like show up in like Renaissance. Yes. Like, like Regency- Victorian, you kind of get the same tropes. But renaissance is going to be very, very different. If you're looking for a renaissance romance don't pick up a regency.
Right. All right, well now it's time to find out how much of a rule follower or breaker are you with love it or leave it.
[00:27:44] Katherine Grant: So do you love it or leave it? Protagonists meet in the first 10 percent.
[00:27:49] Maggie Sims: I love it but I don't need it. I'm open.
[00:27:53] Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it, dual point of view narration.
[00:27:56] Maggie Sims: Love it.
[00:27:57] Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, third person past tense.
[00:28:00] Maggie Sims: For historicals, absolutely. For others, I'm neutral.
[00:28:04] Katherine Grant: Interesting.
[00:28:06] Maggie Sims: Yeah.
[00:28:07] Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, third act breakup or dark moment.
I've seen more third act breakups than dark moments. So I guess I'm used to those, but again, I'm open if it's done well.
[00:28:20] Katherine Grant: Okay, great. Love it or leave it, always end with an epilogue.
[00:28:25] Maggie Sims: No I have authors that tell me to do that to keep readers engaged and to try to use it to promo the next book, or to get them to sign up for a newsletter by offering like a, a newsletter.
It's a baby shower imitation or scene or whatever through the newsletter. So sometimes I feel like authors use it for their own purposes. If it's there and it's done well, absolutely enjoy it. If it makes sense to me as an author I do it. I generally do it because I feel like readers expect it. But to me it could just be another chapter.
[00:29:00] Katherine Grant: Right. Yeah. You wanted to serve the story though is what I'm hearing you say.
[00:29:05] Maggie Sims: Thank you. Yes. Thank you.
[00:29:08] Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it. Share your research in the author's note.
[00:29:12] Maggie Sims: Not, I don't, I don't care as a reader. And I don't as an author except for Charlotte's book because it quoted Latin dirty dirty Greek poetry that was trans that I had to get it.
Yeah, so I had to get translation of this, this Greek poetry from the Latin to English. And so William teaches Charlotte, Latin along the way, because so much of what she'd like to learn. She'd like to mirror a university degree, right? And so, but a lot of those books were in Latin. And so he's teaching her Latin and they use this naughty poetry.
And so I referenced that and I referenced two people who read for me because they were classics majors in school and that really gave them a better perspective on what to reference and how, and they had a lot of input in fact. But normally. I think I do less research than you and some others.
I tend to world build by giving people a taste of what's going on and a taste of the rules, but then focus on the relationship. Even when I describe a room, I give a couple colors or or a specific shape of a settee or a chair and. And where they're at if they're by their fireplace or over by the desk, you know, and then I leave the room for them.
The reader to picture.
[00:30:34] Katherine Grant: Yeah. All right. Well, and are there any other romance rules that you like to play with?
[00:30:39] Maggie Sims: I think I'm still learning what I can play with. So I'm not quite there yet.
[00:30:46] Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's fair.
[00:30:47] Maggie Sims: Yeah. Right now I try to play more by the rules than not because I'm still early in my career.
[00:30:55] Katherine Grant: Yeah. It sounds like you're a very open minded reader and your books are also very open minded, so.
[00:31:02] Maggie Sims: An open door.
[00:31:04] Katherine Grant: An open door. So where can our readers find you and your books?
[00:31:11] Maggie Sims: On all major retailers. I am a wide author, so Amazon, Apple, Barnes Noble Google Play, all of those things. So yeah, mostly more online. You can buy the paperbacks through the online platforms, but I'm not in stores right now because I'm indie or self published.
[00:31:29] Katherine Grant: Yes. A lot of times you can ask your bookstore or library to purchase indie books like ours, but they won't just be on the shelves.
[00:31:38] Maggie Sims: Right. Right. True. Okay.
[00:31:41] Katherine Grant: And I'll put your website in the show notes. And I believe if people sign up, there's a free story involved for them?
[00:31:49] Maggie Sims: Yes, actually. Sorry. They can find all my books on my website as well.
Thank you for that. And if you sign up for my newsletter, you get a free About 50 page prequel novella to the School of Enlightenment series.
[00:32:04] Katherine Grant: Awesome.
[00:32:04] Maggie Sims: Thank you.
[00:32:05] Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, thank you, Maggie. This has been really fun. I've really enjoyed talking to you.
[00:32:10] Maggie Sims: This has been so fun. Thank you.
[00:32:12] Katherine Grant: That's it for this week. Check out the show notes where I put links for my guests, myself, and the podcast. Until next week, happy reading.