OK, so we love a book where music plays a key role but it's so hard to do that well, and make you truly believe in a made-up musician. Thankfully, Holly Brickley has played it brilliantly with Deep Cuts, about a music obsessive and a musician who meet at college and deeply impact each other's lives. Hopefully you trust our instincts, but just in case, actors Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler are already on board to play those two roles in the upcoming movie adaptation. This chat with Holly covered a lot of ground, from merging literary and commercial writing styles, to making music sing on the page, and getting the seal of approval from director Cameron Crowe (who elevated Elton John's Tiny Dancer to the legend status it deserves thanks to his movie Almost Famous).

There's a Spotify playlist to accompany the book which we also highly recommend! You can listen to that here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ZN7YF1Kn24S2kaEGF5JOz?si=4136a5dd2cc44fec

And for more episodes and info on author's recommendations, check out www.bestsellerspodcast.com

The Master Crime Writer and Phil's all time favourite writer, Michael Connelly, returns to Bestsellers to talk about his 40th novel. NightShade features a brand new character, Detective Stilwell, whom Michael loves so much, he's going to return to in future books.

We chat to him about the challenges of creating a brand new series when you're forty books in; where Stilwell fits into the Connelly Universe that already includes Bosch, Ballard and The Lincoln Lawyer and why his characters who all work around law enforcement, seem to be Anti Establishment!

We love Mike here at Bestsellers and wish him well with the unforeseen medical procedures his doctors have ordered, which have led to the cancellation of his UK and US tour. This information was not in the public domain at time of recording, hence why we don't talk about it.

Chris Chibnall is responsible for writing some of the biggest moments in British television. From Broadchurch to Dr Who, you'll have seen his work on screen. Now he's turned his attention to novel writing and speaks to Phil and Natalie about his debut, Death at the White Hart. It's a Christie-esque whodunnit with a follow up already in the works and he's adapting his own novel himself for ITV.

Here he speaks about the challenges of page versus screen, the joy of acquiring new skills later in his career and how he has to be very careful not to wipe the entire plot off his whiteboards when things aren't going his way!