So sorry to say that Tara is still sick and her doctor says he wants her to completely rest her voice, not using it at all, for another two weeks. So, we pivot!

This episode, we play a short discussion we had on our Briefing Room in 2024. In this clip, AJ explains the Karen Read trial to Tara and Jen. Since we recorded this, the first Karen Read trial ended up with a hung jury. Now as we post this episode, the second Karen Read trial is underway, so we thought this discussion is relevant to what's happening currently.

Hopefully, Tara will be back in a couple of weeks and we can continue on as we had been. Everyone keep their fingers crossed!

In this episode of Podcast in Death, AJ is joined by listener Dana to discuss Nora's tendency to repeat character names. We of course have a few spreadsheets to refer to, and we also talk about character names that repeat from Nora Roberts titles to JD Robb titles. It's an interesting look into the statistics of character names.

Podcast in Death is still on a short break, so we bring you another of our “Briefing Room” Episodes that are usually exclusively for our Patrons. This episode, Tara tells us every detail of her recent trip to the UK.

Due to the recent announcement that AJ's mother has passed away, we will be taking a break from the regularly scheduled episodes for a few weeks. We will be back soon to start our 3-month long journey into “The Chronicles of the One.”

But, we still wanted to give you all something to listen to, so here is an episode of our Patrons Only podcast: The Briefing Room. In this episode, we talk about famous slogans and how democracy dies in the comments section.

In this episode of Podcast in Death, We dive into another “We Review the Reviews” session. This time taking on Apprentice in Death and wow, do the one-star reviewers have thoughts. Is Roarke just a billionaire Mary Sue with too much access to NYPSD investigations? Is a laser rifle supposed to have recoil? And most importantly… is outrage over Nora calling a fictional school “Hillary Clinton High” the hill to die on?

We also make a big announcement: for the next three months, we’re taking a detour into Nora Roberts’ Chronicles of the One series! We’ve teased it before, but now we’re finally doing it—and yes, Tara will actually finish the series this time. (Fingers crossed.)

Highlights of this episode include:

• Rants about how Nora's fictional science doesn't match up with some people's view of Real Science.

• So many people really pissed about Roarke’s 10-minute miracle app that would be impossible for anyone to do, except now it can be done with ChatGPT.

• A laser-focused (pun intended) takedown of angry reviewers who just… really need to stop reading if they hate the books this much.

• A moment of appreciation for Susan Ericksen, aka Saint Susan of Ericksen, and her flawless narration.

In this episode we review “Apprentice in Death,” where Willow Mackie is one of the absolute worst characters on the planet.

AJ had a theory about the theme that might sound a little random at first, but hear her out: the theme of this book is cold. And she has the receipts. There are literal mentions of “cold blood” everywhere and Feeney even says, “You can’t teach cold blood, Dallas.” But also, randomly, there’s a subplot about Eve owning the most elite ice cream shop in NYC (Because Roarke), and yes, the killers went there for caramel sundaes after murdering people. Feeney’s reaction? “Fucking cold. And I ain't talking ice cream.”

We love the scene where Eve consults with Lowenbaum at “The Dallas Palace,” but we are sad when Lowenbaum later faces some really hard truths.

This is the book where Willow Mackie decides to execute a mass “Pew, Pew”-ing, and it just so happens to be at Madison Square Garden where Mavis is playing and Summerset took Roarke's tickets to go see her. Eve and Roarke are both panicked as they speed down to the scene. Many people are dead or injured but all of Eve and Roarke's people are fine and they are relieved. Eve is so relieved that she asks Summerset to make sure Dickie Berenski is okay. Is EVE okay??

This is also the book where we first meet Jake!! Nadine warns him Eve won’t recognize him. She doesn’t. He’s already calling her “Lois.” We love him.

After a very emotional and exhausting night, Eve and Roarke fight over whether or not Eve should question Summerset at that very moment. Roarke says no, Eve says yes. We have to say, we are siding with Eve on this one. We understand that Roarke loves his people and worries about them, but Eve and Summerset need to work things out on their own.

Also, this was a really interesting book to read right after reading “Bonded,” as Summerset talks about having an “Urban Wars” flashback.

In this episode, because we just read “Bonded in Death,” and got some more good information about some details of Summerset's involvement in the “Urban Wars,” we thought that we would re-visit this topic, since the first time we talked about it way back on Episode #19, we were OFF topic more than we were ON topic.

We also talk about how like it or not, this series…and books in general ARE political, so politics are going to come up from time to time. We recognize that talking too much politics might lose us some listeners, but when it's relevant to a book, we are going to bring it up. We are hoping that the majority of our listeners understand this and will stick with us.

Anyway…we were both a bit distracted in this episode, but hopefully, it's still entertaining!

Hi Everyone! On this episode of Podcast in Death, it's our yearly talk with “In Death” Audiobook Narrator, Susan Ericksen!

This was such a fun show to do! We talk with Susan about (among other things) her recent trip to Italy, the Wikipedia page we created for her, the “In Death Bullpen Rap” that was written by listener Dana! Our listeners asked her a lot of really good questions, and made some really great comments. One of our favorite comments came from listener Pansy who told the story of how she realized that when Susan voices “Crack,” she has been unintentionally channelling Pansy's Uncle Peety.

We had a really great time with Susan, and we hope you all have a great time listening. Looking forward to talking with Susan again in another year.