Conversationspodcast: We're delighted to have you here. We love you just to sit back, relax, bring your cuppa and listen to the conversations that we have amongst ourselves and with our invited guests.
Danielle Grandinetti: I just told my newsletter subscribers actually this last week as I've been brainstorming some new stories and I'm like, there's so much history in one decade. I'm just like, there's just so many stories to tell, so much history that happened that I'm like, yeah, there's lots of lots more stories because I have ideas. There's
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yes! Yeah. Yeah.
Anna: And I think it's really great to be able to tell those stories from a different perspective. So it's like you can tell it from an Italian background, but then you also then can tell the same story from a Swedish background. And actually the experiences, depending on what the kind of cultural context was, would have been radically different. And even the understanding of what people are going through and how they process it and so on is always going to be, it's going to be quite different depending on, you know, kind of what someone's background is and culture and even what their kind of church history is.
Danielle Grandinetti: Exactly. Exactly.
Anna: It's really quite interesting to pull all that together and say, you know, to the modern reader, we've not always thought the way that we think now. We don't always speak the way that we think now, you know. It's like, you know, writing stories set in South Africa, you have to be quite careful. The language that we use now is not the language that was used at the turn of last century. And it's quite a balancing act, you know, as historical fiction, you want to be accurate for the time.
Danielle Grandinetti: Hmm?
Anna: but at the same time it's like how do you say some things that now it's just not the right thing to say? I mean if you come across any of those sorts of examples when you've been taking kind of your Italian, Swedish background and saying I really can't say some of those things.
Danielle Grandinetti: So the Italians at the time were highly, like part of US immigration law that was set in the 1920s was specifically to anti-Italian. It was covertly designed not to be that specific, but that's who they were targeting. They were trying to keep Italians out because Italians were darker skinned. They weren't white enough. and they weren't Protestant enough. So, and then because of the crime families, they just linked all darker skin, darker hair people together and wanted them all out. And then the Jewish population as well that so linked a little bit in. So was kind of that whole Mediterranean region. They just wanted none of them here.
Anna: Mm. Yo. Yeah. Yeah. Mm.
Danielle Grandinetti: So there was a lot of prejudice. And I mentioned this a little bit in one of my books. The largest mass lynching in America was actually killed 11 Italians. It wasn't African-Americans at the time. They were more of them were, you know, murdered. But as a mass event all at once, it was actually Italians.
Anna: Okay. Sure. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: In Louisiana, New Orleans in the late 1800s, this group of Italians were acquitted. They were found innocent and the people didn't agree. And so they broke into the jail, dragged them out. yeah, so it's and that's actually what started Columbus Day. Columbus Day here in America was a pat the Italians on the head and say,
Anna: Well. So. Okay.
Danielle Grandinetti: We're sorry, so we're going to give you a holiday about a guy who actually was from Genoa. He was born in Genoa, but he sailed from Spain and never actually landed on the continental United States. So we're going to give you a holiday about him because he's white enough or something just to appease you because we did this really bad thing. Yeah, so that's what Columbus Day is all about.
Anna: Spain. You wow. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Anyway...
Anna: that's quite good. Pot of history
Danielle Grandinetti: So...
Anna: of a public holiday in America. I like that. All the Americans listening are going like, is that really what it is?
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Danielle Grandinetti: It's hilarious now because it's really hilarious now because Italians are one of the most are so defensive of it because it's not a culturally acceptable. It's got its issues. But Italians are so protective of it. And that's why because they've been told it's for them. It's not. I mean, it was, but it's not. And so some Italians are actually starting to push for it.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. It's your holiday. Yeah. Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: You
Danielle Grandinetti: them to change who we celebrate that day to make it like Italian Heritage Day just with someone who actually is worth celebrating as an Italian who's actually Italian, American. Anyway.
Anna: Yeah. You gosh wow so yeah that's kind of something you do have to trade a bit carefully when you're writing I can imagine
Danielle Grandinetti: It's it. So I think in a weird and I mentioned this actually in one of my books that I reference a little bit of that history in and how I don't shy away from the racial issues because I write so much immigrant fiction and immigrants have never really been well accepted in America for the plaque on our statue.
Anna: Mm. and
Danielle Grandinetti: of liberty that says we welcome the poor and the masses and give us your weak and your needy. For all of that, all those words, if you aren't the right type of immigrant, they didn't want you. And as someone whose family fell into the we don't want you, it's given me a
Anna: Mm.
Danielle Grandinetti: angle in my stories that I tap because jobs because of the color of my skin. growing up in Chicago, I know what it feels like to have, you know, to be pulled over for the way I look and profiled like.
Anna: Wow. So.
Danielle Grandinetti: And I look pretty white, but you know, get me in the summer sun. It changed, but black hair is enough. I actually was told once that there's no such thing as black hair. It's only brown, red and blonde. I'm like.
Anna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, yeah
Danielle Grandinetti: Okay, sure, sure, whatever you say.
Conversations And Cuppas: I'm just seeing things, it's fine.
Danielle Grandinetti: Anyway, okay.
Anna: Yeah, tell half of the population of Scotland that there's no such thing as black hair.
Danielle Grandinetti: like, I'm not sure what rock you're living under, but okay. But I, there's this in between, like, especially in America concept, and I don't know, like, in South Africa, if you experience this as well, but everything's very black and white, literally, color of our skin, black and white. But there's this in between where you're not black enough, you're not white enough that
Conversations And Cuppas: You
Anna: Yeah, Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: That's the space that I hone in on in my books. And because that is a feeling I have felt, it's a vulnerability I tap into because I know I'm not the only one that doesn't feel enough. Does it matter? You for me, it has that immigrant, immigration, immigrant feeling. But how often do we not feel enough as women, as mothers, as in our career as writers?
Anna: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Like, I think it's a human connection piece and, you know, I dive into it based on what I feel, but it, I think it's a universal feeling that I tap into.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Definitely.
Anna: Yeah, and I think you're almost you're almost the nice thing about a story. You don't have to say that.
Danielle Grandinetti: Exactly.
Anna: it's like readers identify with the heart behind the story, even without the, maybe realizing that that's kind of what they're identifying with. But even it's like, well, why do I like Danielle's books? I like the struggles that people go through and that they, you know, that they're resolved and there's elements of faith. And it's like, in that, what they're hearing is actually the heart of, but we, we all belong and we all are cherished and we've all got place and we've all got purpose but it's like if you just were to write that straight it's like yeah you know who's going to listen to that?
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Right, of course. Perfectly set, Thank you.
Conversations And Cuppas: And the way you write it as well, makes it very accessible because you don't write it as an, I've got a point to prove and I need to tell you this. It's so natural and it's so, that's what some people have to deal with. And that's what they had to deal with. But that's actually quite sad because I've been reading like some of the books and you think, so that happens.
Danielle Grandinetti: It's true!
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: back in the 1930s. But to know that's still part of the story, that's just really sad. But yeah, but you do it in such a gentle way that it brings it to light, but it's not at all like in your face. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm.
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm.
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of Nathan confronting David after his sin with Bathsheba and how Nathan was willing to share a story with David. He never actually really accused David of anything. Right. He just told David a story and David put it together because that's
Anna: Hmm. Yeah. No, it didn't point the finger.
Danielle Grandinetti: I love that concept of how I can just tell a story and it's a story whether there's a lot of different things that a reader could take from a story, but I leave that in God's hands, in their hands, in their soul. There's a quote that talks about how an author is not finished with her story until it is read because the reader experience
Anna: Mm. Mmm.
Danielle Grandinetti: the reader's experience in reading the story is what actually finishes the story. And I just, I love this, like I can tell a story and what someone takes from it is the finishing of the story and letting it do its work, whatever that is. Maybe it's just a safe place for a reader to escape to. mean, that is more, that is perfect.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: that's kids.
Anna: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, and it's not up to you. Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Or maybe it's a deep spiritual lesson that they just needed to hear in that exact moment.
Anna: Yeah, that was really good.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah, I like that, that's really good. Yeah. So do you have a particular Bible verse or scripture or word that you feel kind of frames all your work and what you do or, yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: It's Micah 6, 6, 8, I think it is. It's what does the Lord require of you to love mercy, to execute justice and to walk humbly with your Lord? And this combination of walking humbly as an author is, you know, sometimes you just wrote a book to walk There's almost an element of pride in that too. pride is a funny thing. Like humility is a funny thing. Like false humility is false for a reason. And to walk humbly, but then the two, to hold both mercy and justice close. Especially as a, again, a mystery suspense author, like the bad guy gets it in the end. Like, but that's the justice side. But then the mercy side is like,
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
Danielle Grandinetti: is that welcoming feeling that I want my readers to feel. Like, the happily ever after, justice is served. There is completion. The Lord is still on the throne, no matter what horrible things happen. And yet, you know what? Jesus loves you. And that those things can coexist together. And yeah.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also that the bad guy gets his just desserts, but at the same time there's really why he's a bad guy in the first place. I think you've done that in quite a few of the books where, of yours that I've read, where you've actually explored why has the bad guy become the bad guy. And I think that also helps us just to kind of see.
Danielle Grandinetti: Exactly.
Anna: You know what, there's always someone that we're having a fight with or that we don't agree with, but actually sometimes we've just got to do the whole thing of stepping into somebody else's shoes and realise, well, actually there's circumstances that have got them to that point too. And I might not agree with them and they might not be right or whatever, but there's still a process that that person has gone through in order to get to being the bad guy. And I think sometimes it's quite nice to have a bad guy who's got real, like he's not just kind of born nasty. It's like they've gone through a process of it being nasty.
Danielle Grandinetti: There are baby steps that they've made, choices they've made that have led them to these moments. Actually, in the book that releases in May, I actually, don't often give the bad guys perspective, but in this one I did because it needed to be part of the story.
Conversations And Cuppas: so that begs the... opens a platform to tell us about this book.
Danielle Grandinetti: The question, so Shepard faith, it's the hero in the story is Irish immigrant. And at the time of the story, it's the Irish mob was trying to step into the vacuum, like was fighting with the Italian mob, which had the control of Chicago. And the Italian mob wasn't coordinated enough yet, but the. Valentine's Day massacre I mentioned earlier was like these two clashing. Anyway, that happened in early 1929 and then the stock market crashed at the end of 1929. talk about that in a little bit. But Kellan, my hero, lost his parents and was taken in by his older cousin, who's part of the Irish mob. And I give the perspective, his cousin's perspective. because the choices Kellan makes, the cousin feels betrayed. And in Irish and Italian mob situations like those, betraying family is a deeper betrayal than, you know, one of the random runners on the street, like that they use selling them out. Like family doesn't betray family no matter what. And that's the choice Kellan made.
Anna: and Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: So from Tiernan's perspective, like, Kellen made a grievous error and that's why Kellen has to pay for it. Granted, from our perspective, Kellen's a hero. Because he actually, like, know, served up evidence to put his cousin in jail for really bad things.
Anna: Hmm No.
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: But from Tiernan's perspective, family just betrayed him and that's not acceptable. So you have this bad guy who thinks he's not a bad guy. And there's another quote that I love. It's, the villain is always a hero in his own story. Just the choices he makes aren't good ones, but he's still a hero in his own story.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah that's very good.
Conversations And Cuppas: So the book that you've got there, you've got? Okay.
Danielle Grandinetti: it's a first in a new series. It's actually published by Ashbury Lane, a part of Whitefire Publishing Group. It's their, my cover designer is Rosanna White, whose books I absolutely love. And she owns her own publishing company and her editor reached out recently and was like, hey, you got a story laying around somewhere that you feel like submitting. Yes, I do actually. And it turned into a whole trilogy.
Conversations And Cuppas: Bye.
Anna: Hahaha
Conversations And Cuppas: Wow.
Danielle Grandinetti: So I just actually finished writing book three for it. So, yay. But yeah, so this one, it follows three sisters, the Donning sisters, and each sister gets their own book. so one of my favorite research tools is to look at old newspapers. Because you just get a sense of what's happening and what people care about. Like, what are the headlines?
Conversations And Cuppas: Cool!
Anna: well done! Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: And his local papers then were the social media of the time, you know. the social columns. Fascinating. So the headlines in southern Wisconsin, again, on the day of the stock market crash, weren't about stock market crash at all. It was like it was off to the corner. I think it might have even been below the fold. Like the big headline was the fact that there was a shipwreck.
Anna: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: And people died and the Coast Guard had to go out and rescue them. And then as the days went on, the Coast Guard gets medals. And I'm like, what is the shipwreck that usurped what we think of as the worst day in American history? Like, what happened? Well, it turned out to be the SS Wisconsin right there. The SS Wisconsin left port on late on the 28th out of Chicago and the captain knew there was a big storm coming.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Anna: Yeah. Okay.
Danielle Grandinetti: There was a ship that sank a few days earlier because of a big storm on Lake Michigan. But the captain thought the ship has made it through hundreds of storms. We can do it. I think we'll be fine. We got to make this delivery. It wasn't a passenger. It was a freighter. And so they left port and round about just before dawn, they took on water. So set down anchor to try to weather the storm, started taking on water. and had to, and it affected the boilers, so they couldn't raise anchor, And so they had to shut the boiler room off. And the ship just took on water and floundered and sank just about dawn that day. It...
Anna: Yeah. I know.
Danielle Grandinetti: Nine people, think, nine to 13. The estimates are a little odd, like depends on who you look at to see what the actual estimate is of how many died. But nine was like the minimum number, including the captain. The captain made it to shore alive and died on the dock, actually. But the waves were like 10 to 20 feet high. Again, when I say a lake, like this is, you know.
Anna: Yeah. No, gosh.
Conversations And Cuppas: No. Ooh.
Anna: Yeah that's like the ocean.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Yes,
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: yes. So and it's October. And if you know the song by Gordon Lightfoot about the Edmund Fitzgerald and talked about like, it's that same concept of like, the waves just crash over and break a ship apart. And the November is the most dangerous time in shipping in
Anna: Okay. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: on the Great Lakes because these storms just come out of nowhere and they just. So there were like two to three shipwrecks in that week in in Lake Michigan, and they were like big shipwrecks. So anyway, so again, the what if I'm intrigued. And at the time, it was again during 2020 at the time when this story idea started. And UW, that's University of Wisconsin at Madison was doing.
Anna: Okay. Yeah. So. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Danielle Grandinetti: free virtual classes just for people. Yeah, and they happened to be doing a class on shipwrecks, in particular the SS Wisconsin shipwreck, because they found it and they've done scuba excavation. like
Anna: You
Conversations And Cuppas: What?
Anna: sure. yeah. Exploration.
Danielle Grandinetti: So they showed video of the actual shipwreck of a scuba diver going down and looking. I'm like, okay, this story has to get written because I'm literally looking at the ship. So I took notes and notes in this class and then all the testimonials. People watched it sink from shore. It was that close. It was about five miles offshore. They watched it go down, but they couldn't get out to save the ship because the waves were too high for everyone else.
Anna: So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sure. Wow.
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: So that's why the Coast Guard, like the fact that they even made it to the ship at all and saved anybody was a big deal. And there was a fishing boat that managed to get out there too. If that was it, no one else could get out there. So real historical events, and I'm like, this has to be a story. So I managed to find a way to get my hero and heroine on the boat, which again, it's not a passenger boat. that took some crazy.
Anna: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. well done.
Conversations And Cuppas: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's based on fact but it's fiction, it's fine.
Anna: Yeah,
Conversations And Cuppas: So that book's coming out. Okay, and then I'm guessing then the second one's coming out pretty soon afterwards if you're already onto your third book. December.
Danielle Grandinetti: May 15th. It's December, mid-December. And
Anna: Ugh.
Danielle Grandinetti: then the third one will be out August of the following year. So, yeah.
Anna: fantastic
Conversations And Cuppas: Amazing! so we will put a link up for your websites and stuff and everyone knows to follow your newsletter now so we can like hang out with your dog. Of course we want to hang out with you too, but you know, the dog has it.
Danielle Grandinetti: that'd be great. Perfect. Yeah! Definitely! Yes! always, always!
Anna: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Right, well thank you so much for chatting with us today, Danielle. It's been so fascinating hearing more about you and your writing and yeah, just this like amazing history that you get to write from. That is really cool.
Danielle Grandinetti: Yeah, you're very welcome!
Anna: Yeah
Danielle Grandinetti: Thank you. It's fun to talk about. Thank
Anna: keep
Danielle Grandinetti: I'm glad.
Anna: loving writing because we love reading.
Danielle Grandinetti: Yes. Well, like I said, lot more stories.
Anna: Yeah,
Conversations And Cuppas: Yay!
Anna: that's great.
Conversations And Cuppas: Okay then, well, bye just now and take care.
Danielle Grandinetti: Bye everyone!
Anna: Bye!
Danielle Grandinetti: I just told my newsletter subscribers actually this last week as I've been brainstorming some new stories and I'm like, there's so much history in one decade. I'm just like, there's just so many stories to tell, so much history that happened that I'm like, yeah, there's lots of lots more stories because I have ideas. There's
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yes! Yeah. Yeah.
Anna: And I think it's really great to be able to tell those stories from a different perspective. So it's like you can tell it from an Italian background, but then you also then can tell the same story from a Swedish background. And actually the experiences, depending on what the kind of cultural context was, would have been radically different. And even the understanding of what people are going through and how they process it and so on is always going to be, it's going to be quite different depending on, you know, kind of what someone's background is and culture and even what their kind of church history is.
Danielle Grandinetti: Exactly. Exactly.
Anna: It's really quite interesting to pull all that together and say, you know, to the modern reader, we've not always thought the way that we think now. We don't always speak the way that we think now, you know. It's like, you know, writing stories set in South Africa, you have to be quite careful. The language that we use now is not the language that was used at the turn of last century. And it's quite a balancing act, you know, as historical fiction, you want to be accurate for the time.
Danielle Grandinetti: Hmm?
Anna: but at the same time it's like how do you say some things that now it's just not the right thing to say? I mean if you come across any of those sorts of examples when you've been taking kind of your Italian, Swedish background and saying I really can't say some of those things.
Danielle Grandinetti: So the Italians at the time were highly, like part of US immigration law that was set in the 1920s was specifically to anti-Italian. It was covertly designed not to be that specific, but that's who they were targeting. They were trying to keep Italians out because Italians were darker skinned. They weren't white enough. and they weren't Protestant enough. So, and then because of the crime families, they just linked all darker skin, darker hair people together and wanted them all out. And then the Jewish population as well that so linked a little bit in. So was kind of that whole Mediterranean region. They just wanted none of them here.
Anna: Mm. Yo. Yeah. Yeah. Mm.
Danielle Grandinetti: So there was a lot of prejudice. And I mentioned this a little bit in one of my books. The largest mass lynching in America was actually killed 11 Italians. It wasn't African-Americans at the time. They were more of them were, you know, murdered. But as a mass event all at once, it was actually Italians.
Anna: Okay. Sure. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: In Louisiana, New Orleans in the late 1800s, this group of Italians were acquitted. They were found innocent and the people didn't agree. And so they broke into the jail, dragged them out. yeah, so it's and that's actually what started Columbus Day. Columbus Day here in America was a pat the Italians on the head and say,
Anna: Well. So. Okay.
Danielle Grandinetti: We're sorry, so we're going to give you a holiday about a guy who actually was from Genoa. He was born in Genoa, but he sailed from Spain and never actually landed on the continental United States. So we're going to give you a holiday about him because he's white enough or something just to appease you because we did this really bad thing. Yeah, so that's what Columbus Day is all about.
Anna: Spain. You wow. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Anyway...
Anna: that's quite good. Pot of history
Danielle Grandinetti: So...
Anna: of a public holiday in America. I like that. All the Americans listening are going like, is that really what it is?
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Danielle Grandinetti: It's hilarious now because it's really hilarious now because Italians are one of the most are so defensive of it because it's not a culturally acceptable. It's got its issues. But Italians are so protective of it. And that's why because they've been told it's for them. It's not. I mean, it was, but it's not. And so some Italians are actually starting to push for it.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. It's your holiday. Yeah. Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: You
Danielle Grandinetti: them to change who we celebrate that day to make it like Italian Heritage Day just with someone who actually is worth celebrating as an Italian who's actually Italian, American. Anyway.
Anna: Yeah. You gosh wow so yeah that's kind of something you do have to trade a bit carefully when you're writing I can imagine
Danielle Grandinetti: It's it. So I think in a weird and I mentioned this actually in one of my books that I reference a little bit of that history in and how I don't shy away from the racial issues because I write so much immigrant fiction and immigrants have never really been well accepted in America for the plaque on our statue.
Anna: Mm. and
Danielle Grandinetti: of liberty that says we welcome the poor and the masses and give us your weak and your needy. For all of that, all those words, if you aren't the right type of immigrant, they didn't want you. And as someone whose family fell into the we don't want you, it's given me a
Anna: Mm.
Danielle Grandinetti: angle in my stories that I tap because jobs because of the color of my skin. growing up in Chicago, I know what it feels like to have, you know, to be pulled over for the way I look and profiled like.
Anna: Wow. So.
Danielle Grandinetti: And I look pretty white, but you know, get me in the summer sun. It changed, but black hair is enough. I actually was told once that there's no such thing as black hair. It's only brown, red and blonde. I'm like.
Anna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, yeah
Danielle Grandinetti: Okay, sure, sure, whatever you say.
Conversations And Cuppas: I'm just seeing things, it's fine.
Danielle Grandinetti: Anyway, okay.
Anna: Yeah, tell half of the population of Scotland that there's no such thing as black hair.
Danielle Grandinetti: like, I'm not sure what rock you're living under, but okay. But I, there's this in between, like, especially in America concept, and I don't know, like, in South Africa, if you experience this as well, but everything's very black and white, literally, color of our skin, black and white. But there's this in between where you're not black enough, you're not white enough that
Conversations And Cuppas: You
Anna: Yeah, Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: That's the space that I hone in on in my books. And because that is a feeling I have felt, it's a vulnerability I tap into because I know I'm not the only one that doesn't feel enough. Does it matter? You for me, it has that immigrant, immigration, immigrant feeling. But how often do we not feel enough as women, as mothers, as in our career as writers?
Anna: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Like, I think it's a human connection piece and, you know, I dive into it based on what I feel, but it, I think it's a universal feeling that I tap into.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Definitely.
Anna: Yeah, and I think you're almost you're almost the nice thing about a story. You don't have to say that.
Danielle Grandinetti: Exactly.
Anna: it's like readers identify with the heart behind the story, even without the, maybe realizing that that's kind of what they're identifying with. But even it's like, well, why do I like Danielle's books? I like the struggles that people go through and that they, you know, that they're resolved and there's elements of faith. And it's like, in that, what they're hearing is actually the heart of, but we, we all belong and we all are cherished and we've all got place and we've all got purpose but it's like if you just were to write that straight it's like yeah you know who's going to listen to that?
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Right, of course. Perfectly set, Thank you.
Conversations And Cuppas: And the way you write it as well, makes it very accessible because you don't write it as an, I've got a point to prove and I need to tell you this. It's so natural and it's so, that's what some people have to deal with. And that's what they had to deal with. But that's actually quite sad because I've been reading like some of the books and you think, so that happens.
Danielle Grandinetti: It's true!
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: back in the 1930s. But to know that's still part of the story, that's just really sad. But yeah, but you do it in such a gentle way that it brings it to light, but it's not at all like in your face. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm.
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Mm-hmm.
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of Nathan confronting David after his sin with Bathsheba and how Nathan was willing to share a story with David. He never actually really accused David of anything. Right. He just told David a story and David put it together because that's
Anna: Hmm. Yeah. No, it didn't point the finger.
Danielle Grandinetti: I love that concept of how I can just tell a story and it's a story whether there's a lot of different things that a reader could take from a story, but I leave that in God's hands, in their hands, in their soul. There's a quote that talks about how an author is not finished with her story until it is read because the reader experience
Anna: Mm. Mmm.
Danielle Grandinetti: the reader's experience in reading the story is what actually finishes the story. And I just, I love this, like I can tell a story and what someone takes from it is the finishing of the story and letting it do its work, whatever that is. Maybe it's just a safe place for a reader to escape to. mean, that is more, that is perfect.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: that's kids.
Anna: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, and it's not up to you. Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Or maybe it's a deep spiritual lesson that they just needed to hear in that exact moment.
Anna: Yeah, that was really good.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah, I like that, that's really good. Yeah. So do you have a particular Bible verse or scripture or word that you feel kind of frames all your work and what you do or, yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: It's Micah 6, 6, 8, I think it is. It's what does the Lord require of you to love mercy, to execute justice and to walk humbly with your Lord? And this combination of walking humbly as an author is, you know, sometimes you just wrote a book to walk There's almost an element of pride in that too. pride is a funny thing. Like humility is a funny thing. Like false humility is false for a reason. And to walk humbly, but then the two, to hold both mercy and justice close. Especially as a, again, a mystery suspense author, like the bad guy gets it in the end. Like, but that's the justice side. But then the mercy side is like,
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
Danielle Grandinetti: is that welcoming feeling that I want my readers to feel. Like, the happily ever after, justice is served. There is completion. The Lord is still on the throne, no matter what horrible things happen. And yet, you know what? Jesus loves you. And that those things can coexist together. And yeah.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also that the bad guy gets his just desserts, but at the same time there's really why he's a bad guy in the first place. I think you've done that in quite a few of the books where, of yours that I've read, where you've actually explored why has the bad guy become the bad guy. And I think that also helps us just to kind of see.
Danielle Grandinetti: Exactly.
Anna: You know what, there's always someone that we're having a fight with or that we don't agree with, but actually sometimes we've just got to do the whole thing of stepping into somebody else's shoes and realise, well, actually there's circumstances that have got them to that point too. And I might not agree with them and they might not be right or whatever, but there's still a process that that person has gone through in order to get to being the bad guy. And I think sometimes it's quite nice to have a bad guy who's got real, like he's not just kind of born nasty. It's like they've gone through a process of it being nasty.
Danielle Grandinetti: There are baby steps that they've made, choices they've made that have led them to these moments. Actually, in the book that releases in May, I actually, don't often give the bad guys perspective, but in this one I did because it needed to be part of the story.
Conversations And Cuppas: so that begs the... opens a platform to tell us about this book.
Danielle Grandinetti: The question, so Shepard faith, it's the hero in the story is Irish immigrant. And at the time of the story, it's the Irish mob was trying to step into the vacuum, like was fighting with the Italian mob, which had the control of Chicago. And the Italian mob wasn't coordinated enough yet, but the. Valentine's Day massacre I mentioned earlier was like these two clashing. Anyway, that happened in early 1929 and then the stock market crashed at the end of 1929. talk about that in a little bit. But Kellan, my hero, lost his parents and was taken in by his older cousin, who's part of the Irish mob. And I give the perspective, his cousin's perspective. because the choices Kellan makes, the cousin feels betrayed. And in Irish and Italian mob situations like those, betraying family is a deeper betrayal than, you know, one of the random runners on the street, like that they use selling them out. Like family doesn't betray family no matter what. And that's the choice Kellan made.
Anna: and Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: So from Tiernan's perspective, like, Kellen made a grievous error and that's why Kellen has to pay for it. Granted, from our perspective, Kellen's a hero. Because he actually, like, know, served up evidence to put his cousin in jail for really bad things.
Anna: Hmm No.
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: But from Tiernan's perspective, family just betrayed him and that's not acceptable. So you have this bad guy who thinks he's not a bad guy. And there's another quote that I love. It's, the villain is always a hero in his own story. Just the choices he makes aren't good ones, but he's still a hero in his own story.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah that's very good.
Conversations And Cuppas: So the book that you've got there, you've got? Okay.
Danielle Grandinetti: it's a first in a new series. It's actually published by Ashbury Lane, a part of Whitefire Publishing Group. It's their, my cover designer is Rosanna White, whose books I absolutely love. And she owns her own publishing company and her editor reached out recently and was like, hey, you got a story laying around somewhere that you feel like submitting. Yes, I do actually. And it turned into a whole trilogy.
Conversations And Cuppas: Bye.
Anna: Hahaha
Conversations And Cuppas: Wow.
Danielle Grandinetti: So I just actually finished writing book three for it. So, yay. But yeah, so this one, it follows three sisters, the Donning sisters, and each sister gets their own book. so one of my favorite research tools is to look at old newspapers. Because you just get a sense of what's happening and what people care about. Like, what are the headlines?
Conversations And Cuppas: Cool!
Anna: well done! Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: And his local papers then were the social media of the time, you know. the social columns. Fascinating. So the headlines in southern Wisconsin, again, on the day of the stock market crash, weren't about stock market crash at all. It was like it was off to the corner. I think it might have even been below the fold. Like the big headline was the fact that there was a shipwreck.
Anna: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: And people died and the Coast Guard had to go out and rescue them. And then as the days went on, the Coast Guard gets medals. And I'm like, what is the shipwreck that usurped what we think of as the worst day in American history? Like, what happened? Well, it turned out to be the SS Wisconsin right there. The SS Wisconsin left port on late on the 28th out of Chicago and the captain knew there was a big storm coming.
Anna: Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Anna: Yeah. Okay.
Danielle Grandinetti: There was a ship that sank a few days earlier because of a big storm on Lake Michigan. But the captain thought the ship has made it through hundreds of storms. We can do it. I think we'll be fine. We got to make this delivery. It wasn't a passenger. It was a freighter. And so they left port and round about just before dawn, they took on water. So set down anchor to try to weather the storm, started taking on water. and had to, and it affected the boilers, so they couldn't raise anchor, And so they had to shut the boiler room off. And the ship just took on water and floundered and sank just about dawn that day. It...
Anna: Yeah. I know.
Danielle Grandinetti: Nine people, think, nine to 13. The estimates are a little odd, like depends on who you look at to see what the actual estimate is of how many died. But nine was like the minimum number, including the captain. The captain made it to shore alive and died on the dock, actually. But the waves were like 10 to 20 feet high. Again, when I say a lake, like this is, you know.
Anna: Yeah. No, gosh.
Conversations And Cuppas: No. Ooh.
Anna: Yeah that's like the ocean.
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: Yes,
Conversations And Cuppas: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: yes. So and it's October. And if you know the song by Gordon Lightfoot about the Edmund Fitzgerald and talked about like, it's that same concept of like, the waves just crash over and break a ship apart. And the November is the most dangerous time in shipping in
Anna: Okay. Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: on the Great Lakes because these storms just come out of nowhere and they just. So there were like two to three shipwrecks in that week in in Lake Michigan, and they were like big shipwrecks. So anyway, so again, the what if I'm intrigued. And at the time, it was again during 2020 at the time when this story idea started. And UW, that's University of Wisconsin at Madison was doing.
Anna: Okay. Yeah. So. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Danielle Grandinetti: free virtual classes just for people. Yeah, and they happened to be doing a class on shipwrecks, in particular the SS Wisconsin shipwreck, because they found it and they've done scuba excavation. like
Anna: You
Conversations And Cuppas: What?
Anna: sure. yeah. Exploration.
Danielle Grandinetti: So they showed video of the actual shipwreck of a scuba diver going down and looking. I'm like, okay, this story has to get written because I'm literally looking at the ship. So I took notes and notes in this class and then all the testimonials. People watched it sink from shore. It was that close. It was about five miles offshore. They watched it go down, but they couldn't get out to save the ship because the waves were too high for everyone else.
Anna: So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sure. Wow.
Conversations And Cuppas: you
Anna: Yeah.
Danielle Grandinetti: So that's why the Coast Guard, like the fact that they even made it to the ship at all and saved anybody was a big deal. And there was a fishing boat that managed to get out there too. If that was it, no one else could get out there. So real historical events, and I'm like, this has to be a story. So I managed to find a way to get my hero and heroine on the boat, which again, it's not a passenger boat. that took some crazy.
Anna: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. well done.
Conversations And Cuppas: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's based on fact but it's fiction, it's fine.
Anna: Yeah,
Conversations And Cuppas: So that book's coming out. Okay, and then I'm guessing then the second one's coming out pretty soon afterwards if you're already onto your third book. December.
Danielle Grandinetti: May 15th. It's December, mid-December. And
Anna: Ugh.
Danielle Grandinetti: then the third one will be out August of the following year. So, yeah.
Anna: fantastic
Conversations And Cuppas: Amazing! so we will put a link up for your websites and stuff and everyone knows to follow your newsletter now so we can like hang out with your dog. Of course we want to hang out with you too, but you know, the dog has it.
Danielle Grandinetti: that'd be great. Perfect. Yeah! Definitely! Yes! always, always!
Anna: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
Conversations And Cuppas: Right, well thank you so much for chatting with us today, Danielle. It's been so fascinating hearing more about you and your writing and yeah, just this like amazing history that you get to write from. That is really cool.
Danielle Grandinetti: Yeah, you're very welcome!
Anna: Yeah
Danielle Grandinetti: Thank you. It's fun to talk about. Thank
Anna: keep
Danielle Grandinetti: I'm glad.
Anna: loving writing because we love reading.
Danielle Grandinetti: Yes. Well, like I said, lot more stories.
Anna: Yeah,
Conversations And Cuppas: Yay!
Anna: that's great.
Conversations And Cuppas: Okay then, well, bye just now and take care.
Danielle Grandinetti: Bye everyone!
Anna: Bye!
