S4 EP193: Chad Boudreaux, D.C. Insider and Author of the Thriller Homecoming Queen

Hello My Happy Fiends,

Halloween is quickly approaching and the nights are growing darker, a perfect time to read a great thriller. Which is why I'm sharing my chat with award-winning author Chad Boudreaux with you all today. We discussed his latest thriller, Homecoming Queen, and all of his incredible work. His latest book delivers the perfect amount of chills in the form of a dangerous storm, long buried secrets, and struggles for survival. What more could you want from a hauntingly good read?  

Homecoming Queen is set in the small Texas town of Miranda and follows Anika Raven, a former homecoming queen turned fugitive. With the law closing in and tensions rising, Anika has to fight ghosts from her past and enemies who refuse to stay buried.

Before turning to fiction, Chad Boudreaux served in high-level positions within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, bringing a sharp insider’s realism to every page. Now Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of the nation’s largest military shipbuilder, he channels his experience into thrillers giving them captivating authenticity.

Chad and I also take a look back at his award-winning debut novel, Scavenger Hunt, which captured multiple honors, including the Literary Titan Book Award and the American Fiction Award for Thriller: Legal. We discuss the challenges of being a D.C. insider turned author, his writing process, justice, and what it takes to keep readers awake long after midnight and reading well into the witching hours.

This Halloween season, Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt turns up the tension with a tale where the storm isn’t the only thing to fear.

Chad's Website

Chad on BookBub

Chad on Facebook

Chad on Instagram

Chad YouTube

Chad on Substack

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to BookBanter with me, your host, Diane Burkhart. I hope you will join me every Wednesday as we explore all things to do with, well, books. Let's get on with our show today. Hello, my happy people. Today is October 22nd, 2025, and have we got another fantastic author for you? If you are not somebody who particularly likes horror novels this time of year, but you still like something that is spine-tingling and will keep you on the edge of your seat, we have got a fantastic thriller author for you today. So sit back and enjoy this interview as we get into some more hauntingly good reads for October. Now, we do have announcements at the end of the show, as always, but I am gonna keep it short. I'm still trying to get over a cold, and my voice will not last as long as I would like it to, so we're gonna keep things short for today. So without further ado, let's go ahead and bring out today's author. Please welcome to Book Banter with Diane Burkhardt. Chad Boudreaux. The way that I always like to start my shows is to just have my guests tell everyone who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Hi, yes, thanks for having me. I'm Chad Boudreau, and I am the author of Homecoming Queen, a novel, and then also a prior novel called Scavenger Hunt. That's what I do on my free time for work. I am a practicing lawyer and I work for a company that builds warships for the United States government.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Now, normally the one of the things that I like to do is we start out just talking about your career and we work up to your books and then have you do your synopsis near the end. But today I'm going to flip things around. I want to go ahead and start out with you telling us about your book, Homecoming Queen.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, so Homecoming Queen is really a love song to my hometown in South Texas. It's about a young woman who finds herself in a very precarious situation where she has to go back home to where she was raised and really uh rescue her little sister from a situation that is happening in the home, and then also a category five hurricane that is barreling down on the state. And as she moves forward to do all of those things, she finds herself having a very difficult time uh getting out and doing what she needs to do. And so the central plot line of the of the book is really her struggle and all of those people who make it very hard for her to get done what she needs to get done. And uh it kind of goes from there. But uh from the beginning to the end, we are following Annika Raven and her little sister Sam and their plight to uh really, you know, save their lives and um and move on out of that town.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

There are so many things about this book that I really like. And first of all, just the company that you published this book with is amazing. In the front of your book, you have a thing by Morgan James Publishing where you can get a free e-book when you buy the paperback so that they can actually share it with a friend or have it themselves. And I think that's fantastic for several reasons. One, because I know I love to read paperbacks at home, but I don't always want to carry them with me. So if I'm out on the train or something and I want to keep reading, I can also read the ebook there without having to buy a second thing. So that is fantastic marketing.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah, one of the things that authors and aspiring authors always do is they try to figure out who's going to publish their books and why. And I think for Morgan James, they are very creative in that regard and they're very good to their to their authors, and uh they put out a good product. And from a marketing standpoint, I agree with you. I had not seen that before. And I think it's uh very dynamic and it allows for optionality for the reader in a way that that just makes it easy to read the book.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Well, and I think it also encourages people to buy paperbacks because if you're thinking, I want to have something that's convenient to take with me everywhere, they're gonna go for an ebook because it's so much more convenient to carry everywhere you go. But most people still love holding that book in their hand and turning the pages. So this gives you that wonderful option and encourages you to buy the paperback.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

You know, I'm the same way. I I like to hold the book in my hand, but at the same time, I travel a lot. And usually I'm traveling with a bunch of stuff uh that's not as interesting as a book, and so I can't have that big, fat, hard book with me. But uh, you know, a nice slim paperback that you can finish within a few hours, I think is is what I like to do. I I know that there are other people that are very wedded to ebooks, and I wish I was because that would be a lot easier, but I'm just not and I'm never gonna be. I still like to hold a newspaper sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, I understand that. And not only do they have great marketing ideas, but they are also big on community work because Morgan James Publishing builds works with Habitat for Humanity, and they've donated to this project since 2006. So they have a lot of really great things going for them.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, I think authors, particularly after you've written your first book, you really need to focus on your brand. And like for me, I this is writing books. Hopefully, one day it'll be my day job, but it's it's not my day job now. And so I do have a brand separate and apart from just being a novelist. And I and I don't I don't have a pseudonym. I I publish under my own name. So it's very important to me to be aligned with a publisher who gives me control over my content, has a presence in the community where they're doing good things, things that I can support, and who really just understands the holistic picture of of what uh publishing is about.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Well, and I could understand why you would publish under your own name because Chad Boudreau, come on, that's a great name.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Now, even though you have spent years being a DC insider, you're well educated, I have to say that whenever I started reading your book, I felt there's definitely the heart of a good southern boy in there. And I think that comes out in some of your descriptions, like the storm pounding Padre Island like a meat mallet on a chicken fried steak.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Well, I think you're right. I first and foremost, I have to cling to my Texas roots. We have a certain identity, I guess, in Texas that is very important to us. And I was raised by a good Southern mother. She had me when she was 19, and a lot of what you read in that book is kind of her best characteristics and my worst. But definitely I'm a Texan through and through. And I think the one of the things about this book that I think is appealing to many is really getting a sense of that Texas culture. And the Texas culture is not monolithic by any means. It's very regional. And the region where I grew up in South Texas has a lot of different aspects to it that most people don't see in other cultures. There is a melting pot there, like you aspire to have elsewhere, but just can't find. And just a mix of cultures that blend together in a way that create amazing personalities to write for in a book, characteristics that you may not see in others. And it just makes, I think, for a very exciting plot line.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Reading your book, it also told me that we were probably about the same generation because the minute that I read your reference to hee-haw, it took me right back to my childhood.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah, I was, you know, in part because I was raised by a single mom at a young age. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and really grew up in their home. And my grandfather, we watched hee-haw religiously. And so I and I'm not sure that I really enjoyed watching it as much then as I kind of hearken back and look to it now in terms of my memories and some of the bonds that were built just through that show. But yeah, that was a staple for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Hee-Haw and Lawrence Welk. Now, Homecoming Queen is a very fast-paced thriller with a natural disaster backdrop. What made you decide to combine a hurricane with a vigilante justice storyline?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Well, I think the two in combination, they align themselves with creating a thriller that is non-stop action. When you have uh a category five hurricane, once in a lifetime storm barreling down on your characters, and at the same time, they're having to overcome adversity in other ways related to people acting crazy because of the nature of the story and the vigilante justice piece to it. I think it really puts them in a situation where the reader wants to know exactly how they're going to get out of the situation. And it's a story that is really driven by those two severe impediments to escape.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

The thing that was really interesting about this is both Miranda Texas and the hurricane feel like separate characters in the book itself, especially as the storm starts like looming in. What roles do these two things play to just heighten the tension in your thriller?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Yeah, I think you're right. The personification of sorts of the town itself is a theme that I think most readers will appreciate when they read the book. And it's really that culture of the town that is driving some of the bad behavior with the uh antagonists in the book. And I think when you have that, you have a character that hopefully you can believe in and that you like, and then all of a sudden you see her, and I'm talking about Annika in particular, having to make decisions that may have otherwise been out of character, but are definitely in response to the adversity that she's seeing. So I think having those things and combining all that together is exactly what was needed to drive the story as fast as it is.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Your main character, Annika Raven, is a very complex character. She's a fallen homecoming queen, turned fugitive, and she's trying to fight for her sister. Why was it important for you to make her such a strong female lead?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, I mentioned earlier that you know Annika kind of has all the best characteristics of the strongest women in my life, and she has all of my worst characteristics. And I I really was that was appealing to me. I I really wanted to have a character that was you said complex. She's certainly a multifaceted. And I think when you when you see this character in the beginning, you're rooting for her, but you expect her to follow certain archetypes, and it's it's not who she is. And so having her in that role and drawing upon, again, several strong women that I had the pleasure of growing up with and work with now, I think it really lends itself to the story in a way that would not have been done had I chosen a different kind of character. And I will tell you, like one of the interesting aspects of this book was uh Annika Raven at first was Maya Melina. And because the Latina culture down there is so strong where I'm from, and I had beta readers, one who is in Hollywood now and works as an executive at one of the big production companies there. And she told me that I should not make it a Latina because there are gonna be people who are not gonna be fond of a white male writing about that. And I said, Well, what about a woman? And she said, Absolutely, but you need to make sure that you know you write it the way you want to write it and don't try to write it in a way that you think you're gonna be viewed through seeing it through the eyes of a woman. And so there was a struggle there to make sure that I got that right. And I really relied on my beta readers, particularly women that I looked up to, to make sure that we got it right. I will tell you that as concerned as I was about getting that right, that's one of the big positive feedbacks that I've gotten on the book is really about Annika and who she is.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

That's one of the things that seems to be more prevalent nowadays, is a lot of people are using more sensitivity readers, where if they're writing a character that is not of their own culture or gender, they will have people who are in that culture and gender to read their work and give them notes on how to make it more authentic.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, I think there's there's merit to that. I think from my standpoint, I don't want to be paralyzed by that. But at the same time, the woman that I mentioned, that's actually what she does for a living and gets paid to do it for movies that we've all seen. And you know, it was one of the things that that I tripped up on that that caught her attention was growing up in South Texas, the number one staple for food in the morning is a breakfast taco. And I had Maya Molina at the time, now Annika Ravens, eating breakfast tacos, and that and that's what I do. I eat breakfast tacos all the time. I never thought that that was you know something that I would be accused of being insensitive towards the Latino culture. And she said, Look, I know your heart, but I'm just saying people are going to read that who don't know you and they're gonna draw conclusions that may be false. So just you know, make sure that you're sensitive to it. And all of those things kind of combined to say, hey, there's no reason why this has to be my, it can be Annika. And so very, very good advice.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

I'm kind of surprised that that's the one thing that would be tripping somebody up is like a breakfast taco or breakfast burrito, because I know in the Midwest that is so popular.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah, I and I was surprised by it too, but I understood the comment. And uh when you see that the trip lines are that low, it just it convinces you that you probably need to go in another direction, at least for this book.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Well, and it looks like the direction that you took was the right one for your work.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yeah, I think Annika was able to capture everything that I needed in the character, and uh, she was probably able to do some things that maybe a Maya Melina couldn't do uh because it just gave me more license to be free with her.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Now, this is not your first book. When did you first publish?

SPEAKER_01 14:21

So I first published back a few years ago, I think it's been two years now, and my debut novel was a novel called Scavenger Hunt, and it was also a political thriller, but more political in the traditional sense. And in that case, we had a protagonist that was working for the Department of Justice. His name was Blake Hudson. And uh, Blake was similar to me in my career, although he's not me, uh, a young lawyer who worked really at the highest levels at the department at an early age, and unlike me, got caught up in some very sticky clandestine matters that put him on the run. And so Scavenger Hunt is the first book of what will hopefully be a series of Scavenger Hunt novels.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Considering your background in government, because you have quite a long history of working in different departments within the government, how do you decide what you're going to pull from your personal life to use in your work? Do you ever really worry about using your real world details in your fiction that you might have to get it approved by the DOJ or something?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So I got Scavenger Hunt approved by both DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security. I'd worked for both of those agencies while I was writing the book. I'm not sure that I needed to do that. I did that out of an abundance of caution. But really, I'm not drawing on any stories that I personally experienced when I write my novels, but I am drawing on my experience in those agencies and working with other agencies that uh allow me to uh certainly streamline my research because I think I know the players. But what I really want to do is in writing my books, take the reader behind the scenes. So for Scavenger Hunt, it was a story that uh was certainly fiction. But what I did there is I I hope I took the reader behind the curtain to kind of show how things actually work or how they should work. And then really the tension there beyond the story is a lot of the political issues that you see, both big P and small P political issues on the news, are not always what they seem. And so Blake Hudson is a character that has to make some really hard decisions, and they're not as binary or easy as I think the commentary it would have everyone believe. And so I think that's the intrigue behind that book.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

And apparently there's quite a few people who are enamored with that first book because you've won awards for that one.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, luckily we've won awards for both books, but Scavenger Hunt is it was funny because when I wrote Scavenger Hunt, I didn't know that there would be future Scavenger Hunts. I have in my head probably 10 stories presently that I'd like to write. And as the awards started rolling in for Scavenger Hunt, there were calls for more Scavenger Hunt. And the characters that survived the story, there's a lot of readers who want to see them back in action. But I had already pretty much finished Homecoming Queen by the time we were getting those awards in. And Homecoming Queen is while it's off-brand, it may end up being my best book, but it was a book I had to write. And so I'm glad that it's finished. I I don't know if there's going to be future Homecoming Queens. We'll see. But for now, Scavenger Hunt is uh all of the stories that have in my head can fit nicely within the Scavenger Hunt series. And so that's where we're headed.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

How did that feel whenever the first book that you wrote out of the gate is bringing in awards for you?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Well, it was actually the first review that caught me off guard because the first review that I ever received from Scavenger Hunt was from Publishers Weekly, which is a big one. And they said that, I mean, it was it was a glowing review. And then at the end they said that uh Tom Clancy fans will definitely want more from Boudreaux. So that that was that was one that I have written down, and it's kind of like Abraham Lincoln. Whenever he would get down in the dumps, he had, I think either in his top hat or in his coat pocket, he had a review from somebody who said he was doing a good job, and he would always pull that out and refer to it. And so that publisher's weekly review is one that I, whenever I feel like things aren't going my way in the book world, I'll pull that out and look at it.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah, honestly, I would not have any shame if that was me. I would have that sucker framed up on my office wall.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, but that was the first one. So it I don't know if it was all downhill after that, but it's you know Scavenger Hunt has done well. And it's a book that resonates within my work community as well. The intelligence community, the law enforcement community, the legal community. You know, I just got back from a conference in Las Vegas where I was with, you know, judges and lawyers, and and that's really all they wanted to talk about when they saw me. They didn't want to talk about the law or what I'm doing at work. They wanted to talk about the book and when's the next one coming out. So that's the really fascinating part about writing for me is is my two worlds kind of coming together.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

That is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

I'm so happy for you on that.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Thank you. Now seems like the perfect time to do our five quick questions that never turn out quick, but I'm just too nosy to stop doing it. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 19:41

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Number one, if you could analyve any fictional character who is not one of your own, who would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Well, I think that I would definitely take out the clown in it. Yeah. Written by Steve King. That clown scared me for at least a decade. And the interesting thing about horror, and I'm not a huge horror fan, but I did read that book at a formative age in my reading. And I couldn't look down sinkholes, sewers I had to stay away from. But the interesting thing that kind of neutralizes me for horror is at some point you have to see the bad guy. And the bad guy is normally not that scary. So even with it, the clown kind of turns into this big spider. And so the spider doesn't scare me at all. But Stephen King nailed it with the clown. The clown scares the daylights out of me.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Oh, yeah. I tell you what, I have a real thing about clowns. I do not like clowns, they freak me out. I'm a huge horror fan. And like the clown doll in Poltergeist and the clown from it freak me out. And yet, this is the weird thing. I love killer clowns from outer space. It's like the horrible B movie. I love it. And for some reason, those clowns don't bother me. But every other clown that looks like just a normal clown freaks me out.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Well, Poltergeist was the scariest movie that I ever saw. I should not have seen that as early in my childhood as I did. And it's it's interesting because even in Homecoming Queen in the early chapters, there's this tree outside of the window that's kind of scraped up the window. And that is hearkening back to poltergeist because that was one of the scariest things. Because I had a tree outside my window as a child. I saw that on HBO and I shouldn't have. And I think I I think I was awake for two weeks without sleeping.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Oh man, I did not connect that to poltergeist, but now that you're explaining that, it just sent a shiver down my spine. So now, question two get away from this one. What's one job you had before writing that taught you a very unexpected lesson?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

My first job at DOJ taught me that things aren't always what they seem in terms of politics and uh national security. Debates. And I mentioned this earlier. I referenced it earlier that there is a game played in DC that most people don't see. And it was eye-opening for me. I remember being in some green rooms before television shows when I was staffing a cabinet level secretary. And I saw people that I normally saw on television arguing with one another, just very, very partisan rhetoric. And in the green rooms, I saw that it was kind of like one community of partisans that really sometimes didn't even believe what they were saying. And so that made me very aware that I needed to be careful not to drink the Kool-Aid on either side and to really look at issues objectively and in a way that, particularly when you're dealing with national security, I don't think politics should be a part of it at all. And so that was very edifying for me. And I've kept that with me in really everything that I do.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Yeah, that's a very good lesson to have. So question three What is a typical writing day for you? Because you're still a very busy person. How do you work that in?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

I usually get up around 4 or 4:30 to write because I have to do it at the beginning of the day or it won't get done. There are some times when I'm on vacation where I'll have some time away from my kids and can focus for blocks of a time, but my routine has to be very diligent or it just won't happen. And so it's that rhythm and pattern that I have in the mornings that really drive my writing. I try to get, you know, at least three words down. Hopefully it's 3,000, but it's, you know, usually somewhere in between. And uh a good day for me writing is if I just get anything down. I say on the page, but I'm typing on a computer. But that is a rhythm that I have to adhere to or I will fall off.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

That's one of the things that I was wondering about with as much as you do, it has to be difficult to try and get really good solid blocks of writing time in.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

It is. And, you know, with writing, and I mentioned Stephen King earlier, but he on his book on writing, which I think is very helpful to aspiring and current writers, he makes the case that you really need to be in that one spot and you need to stay there for sometimes hours before the muse will show up and start, which is really your creative juices that are flowing. So for me, writing books is somewhat like living in a parallel universe. I'm able to throughout the day kind of keep it not top of mind, but it's somewhere in my mind. And a lot of times when I exercise, I try to stay in shape. So I'm on the treadmill for some time and I'll be thinking about storylines, and then I have to immediately go back. And this could be throughout any part of the day. I immediately have to go back and capture that or I'll forget it. But yeah, blocks of time are hard to find. But luckily for me, I I'm able to, for whatever reason, I'm able to make good use of my time even when I don't have those large blocks. And it's largely because I'm thinking about my book all the time.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Well, and one thing that a lot of authors talk about, it's not so much about having large blocks. It's just about being consistent and finding the little ones.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Yeah, I think for a lot of people, it's about just getting down to a discipline. And when I'm asked, like, what's the number one thing you would tell spiring authors, I say finish.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

You know, don't stop and don't get distressed, don't get discouraged. I mean, or if you do, overcome it. But you can say all those things, but if you're not writing every day, some people would say if you're not reading and writing every day, you're not going to be at the top of your game. And it's going to be very hard to complete a project, particularly if it's a novel, because a novel is not a light thing to finish. It's it's hard work, it's fun work if you really like your craft, but it's hard work and it requires discipline just like anything else.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Now, question four if you could time travel to witness any historical event, which one would you choose?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

I would definitely go back to the times of Jesus. I would like to have been a witness to how that transpired and how it marries up to what we read in the Bible.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

That would be really interesting. So now, question five. I'm asking everyone the same thing because I am completing a list of recommendations from all of our authors to our readers for your favorite authors that you have read. So whenever someone comes up and asks you, who would you recommend I read? Who's the first author you think of?

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Robert Ludlum.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Oh, good one.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah, Ludlum has a way about him for those that like the spy thrillers and read Ian Fleming, James Bond, but Robert Ludlum, I think, really mastered his craft. And I, it's funny because we all have our own style, we out, we all have our own way of writing and character development and those things. But we have AI now, and AI can tell you who you mimic. And when they first ran AI on Scavenger Hunt, it came back as one of the posthumous writers for Robert Ludlum. So he's got the Bourne series, and then there are authors now that are hired to come in and write new books, and so they're all mimicking his writing style. And so it wasn't Robert Ludlum that I was thinking, I was actually mimicking, and I've never even paid that much attention to those posthumous writers, but it was funny because that was kind of the style that I most mimicked, and uh never even thought about it before. But yeah, I'm a huge fan of Robert Ludlum. But I do think for character development, the Stephen King, both his horror and his non-horror, I think he really gets character development well. And so if you were really focused on the latter, I would say Stephen King. If you're focused on, you know, just exciting thrillers in the spy genre, then Robert Ludlum is is usually who I recommend.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yeah, Stephen King's Misery is still one of my favorite books.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah, The Gunslinger for me was my favorite series. I remember reading uh there were seven at the time, all seven really just back to back to back. I'd read them on the Washington Metro on the way to and from work, and just Roland, the main character, but then all the characters were just so well developed. And then he has a knack for bringing in during that series a bunch of characters from his other books. So there's a part in the gunslinger series, the Dark Tower series, where we go back to, I guess it's Darry Main, and you can see some of the characters from it in between their their time of experiencing the clown that we talked about, their jumping rope. And I just thought that was pretty fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Then do you have a favorite book by Robert Ludlam?

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yeah, I like the Born Identity. I um, you know, I love the movie too with Matt Damon, but the book, Born Identity, is it was just so new. It was something I had never read before, and then the plot line and the character were just so extraordinary that I fell in love. Fell in love with that entire series. So it's it's it's really interesting when you can find kind of something new in a genre because there's so much piggybacking on on everything, and some of them just aren't real. I I will say, like just this last week, I I don't know where I've been. I guess I've been in a cave or writing books, but I I watched uh The Equalizer for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

And uh and last night I I was gonna watch number two, and it said that it was, and I was just gonna watch 15 minutes of it, and it said that it was coming off Netflix in a day. So I stayed up later than I should watching part two, but but that was a character and um plot line that I hadn't seen before either. I really liked it. Oh yeah, I love both.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Because it used to be a TV show originally quite a while ago. I can't remember who the original person was that was the equalizer, but it was such a great storyline. I loved that. Now, what is next for you?

SPEAKER_01 30:11

So I have a book that's being published in March that's called Mob Justice. And Mob Justice is a scavenger hunt sequel. I won't tell you who the main characters are because some of them may have survived the uh original. But uh, it is a book that takes us uh from DC to Chicago. And in Chicago, we see that the Northside gang and the Chicago outfit have been revitalized. So there is a lot of Capone shadow in the book. There's a lot of history that's kind of bred into the book about the Chicago mafia, but it's a current day thriller where we are going through the city of Chicago, and we have, I will just say, we have Blake Hudson who is back in action. I will tell you, he survives, and he is battling the mafia there, and he has an antagonist of sorts, although I think people are going to love the antagonist, who is a consigliary for the Chicago outfit. And his life is much like Blake's the way he was raised academically, but he chose the dark side, and Blake chose the righteous side, and those two kind of battle it out throughout the book.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Now, remind everybody who you are and where they can find your work.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

I'm Chad Boudreau. I'm a novelist. I have three books, two that have been published, one that'll be published in March that we just talked about. And you can find everything you need to know about me online at my website. And my website is just my name. So it's www.chadboudreau.com. And Boudreaux is B-O-U-D-R-E-A-U-X. But if you get close and Google it, you'll find it.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Yeah, because I had that a couple of times. It took me a little while. I always kept switching the E and the A. I do that a lot. Thank you so much for joining me for today with this interview because this has been so much fun. And I think your book is going to be perfect for people who want like a really good kind of edge of your seat thriller to read for Halloween.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I hope so. It it's not horror in the truest sense, but it will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat and it does have some spookiness to it.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Well, these are the kind of books that I usually like better than straight horror because it gives you that, I don't know, nervous feeling that you're just waiting for the next shoe to drop.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, well, Homecoming Queen is definitely a book for you then.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Thank you so much for joining me here today. This has been fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Thank you. I really appreciated my time on your show.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

So there you have it, folks. My incredible interview with the award-winning thriller author, Chad Boudreau. Now be sure to go straight to his website and check out his work, and be sure to sign up for his mailing list so that you'll be able to keep up to date on all of the incredible work that he's got coming out in the future. Now, next week I'll be speaking with Canadian author KT Engelhard, and we're going to be discussing her Scottish Scrolls series. Not only is KT pretty passionate about all of her creative writing work, but she also happens to have a rescue job from Puerto Rico and a couple of bunnies. We had a great time discussing her work and career, and of course, everything magical in her life. Now KT will be our last author for a Haunting the Good Reads before Halloween hits, but we do have one bonus author in this category for you, which will be showing up the first Wednesday of November, and I'll tell you more about her next week. Now, if you're wondering, last week I just finished all of the interviews for this season. Everything is recorded and just waiting to be edited and broadcast up until the second week of December when we will have our season finale, episode 200, with best selling author Melissa Payne. I'm going to be telling you more about that, and we'll have some more information on her up on our website at Burkhartbooks.com slash podcast coming up very soon. Now, as far as Bookheart Books news, we are still working very diligently on the first book to come out in our haunted heart series. It is our paranormal romance series from author D.S. Stevens. Right now, what we're looking at is having a publication date in February in time for the season opener love fest. We might have a little surprise for you in those episodes coming up this February. So be sure and hop on to Burkhartbooks.com and sign up for our mailing list too so that you can keep up on everything that is coming out with Burkhart Books and BookBanter Productions. And speaking of BookBanter Productions, I am currently working on the BookBanter magazine year-in holiday book buying guide that we will be dropping in November. Now, if you've been following along with my broken leg saga and you're wondering what's been going on, because I really haven't been updating too much lately. I did have a new MRI and I saw the doctor again, and at that point he said I had to spend two more weeks on bed rest, which ends this Friday. I am so looking forward to that. I have been on strict bed rest since the beginning of August and I am so over it. But I get to actually get up and start getting around again after this Friday, and I am really looking forward to that. I go see the doctor again on Halloween, and there had better be candy involved. If not at the doctor's office, we're stopping and picking some up on the way home because I will deserve a treat by then. But anyway, I will know then if I can just ditch the crutches and maybe actually get to physical therapy so I can get past this and start moving again. It'll be nice to get back to my normal routine. But we'll have more on that after Halloween. Thank you all for joining us today, and be sure to check out all of the other episodes that are available. There are another 192 that have been broadcast or available for you to listen to with everyone from romance to nonfiction. So I'm sure there is something there for everyone. There are even kids' picture books, young adults, young readers, adult books, everything you could possibly think of. There has probably been somebody that we have spoken to, and we have got so many great authors still yet to come. We're already looking ahead for season five, which will begin the first week of February in 2026. And we've got great plans coming up for next season. So be sure to stick around and subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to them. We're on just about every podcast streaming source available, or you can follow along at burkehartbooks.com slash podcast and just listen to it on our website. But that's more than enough for today. So you know what time it is, folks? It's time for y'all to go forth and be really happy.