Episode Transcript
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[00:00:16] Speaker B: Parental guidance is recommended because this episode has mature topics and strong language.
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[00:00:27] Speaker A: Da Vinci Code meets Eat Pray Love meets the Celestine Prophecy.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Just so the next moment you can just pick it up and be like, I just need to know what's happening. I need to know the next. That's amazing.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: I love that. And they're in the scavenger hunt for these paintings. And so there's some romance in there and there's mystery and there's thriller, and it's like this rollicking scavenger hunt around Europe.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: We read a romance. It was just a traditional romance. And the consensus was kind of that it's nice when the romance is the B story.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: If there's an A story and the romance is a B story, we can read it all day long.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: The other thing I did is, which I see you're doing, is I let my hair go silver.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: I have a bit of a brain fog these days. I'm perimenopausal, so I'm like holes everywhere. Anyway, thank God.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: But anyway, getting movie made is tough, but I was invited to write the script and my husband said, hey, do it. What do we got to lose? So, yes, definitely, to read a book is the goal.
I want to learn something new.
I don't want to be disrupted.
Mind, body and soul.
Inspiration is the goal.
And we're gonna talk it out on book. On book. Interrupted. Interrupted.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Welcome to the author's spotlight. During these mini episodes, we have authors come on and tell us about their books and why we should read them. Let's listen.
Welcome to the author spotlight. On this episode, we're interviewing Penelope Holt and her book, the Angel Scroll. Hi, Penelope.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Thanks for being on the show. Thank you for having me, Sarah.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: So why don't you let us know why we should read your book?
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Actually, someone asked me to turn it into a movie script, which is sort of a blast from the past because I started life as a playwright and so she hooked me up with a writing partner who is an Emmy award winning director. And then you have to put all your pitch together. And, you know, in Hollywood, famously, you have to come up with a pitch that summarizes the book. So. So the book is like the Da Vinci Code meets Eat Pray Love meets the Celestine Prophecy. I read the Da Vinci Code years ago, and I just sort of love the idea of having these religious fringe themes. Some people think they're conspiracy, others think that they're well documented. So basically, the angel scroll is about a missing Dead Sea scroll that emerges in the 21st century and predicts a visual gospel. Three inspired paintings by three amateurs will be found, and when they are placed together into a triptych, they will create miracles. And my heroine is a New York painter, Claire. She has just lost her husband and the world has blown apart. And then she starts to have visions and dreams and she channels this amazing masterpiece that is warm to the touch and it is healing when it's put in a Manhattan gallery. She's a sort of a conventional young woman, Claire Lucas, and she's having these supernatural experiences. And then she finds out that her painting is one of these three predicted. And so she goes off with Richard Markson on a tour of Europe and Jerusalem and these Rome sacred spaces in Glastonbury Tor, where the Celtic druids used to worship. And they're in the scavenger hunt for these paintings. And so there's some romance in there and there's mystery and this thriller, and it's like this rollicking scavenger hunt around Europe.
And then, you know, the internal thing is that she's grieving and she's looking to create a new life, to figure out how to go on. She wants to believe in miracles because she desperately wants to find her husband again, to believe that she'll see him again. And so it's really about, how do you come back to life when you've been gut punched like that? She meets different spiritual a Benedictine monk and a Buddhist monk and a goddess worship anthropologist. And so she's on this sort of spiritual quest and this emotional quest and then also on this quest for this process prophecy of these three paintings. So there's a lot in there. It's a good read. I mean, I've had people say that they've read it in one sitting or two sittings. They couldn't put it down because, you know, one of the things I think is a must in a book is what we call forward page turning. Like, you got to keep reading. You want to know, you want to find out. And then at the end, when you finish, you're kind of sad, right? Those are the best books. Like, oh, it's over. You know, I wanted it to keep going.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's exactly what I look for in a book. The second you put it down, you're, like, doing some other tasks, just so the next moment you can just pick it up and be like, I just need to know what's happening. I need to know that. That's amazing.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: So I read that it's kind of, you know, it says two lovers. So is Richard the guy that she goes around all over the world with? How does she know him?
[00:05:23] Speaker A: He is an antiquarian, and he is working a Benedictine monk in Jerusalem. There's actually Benedictine monastery in Jerusalem. They've recovered the scroll. And actually, back in 1999, this is how of came up with the idea. There was all of this news reported that they'd found a missing Dead Sea scroll. And, you know, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found between 47 and 56, and they were this treasure trove. They dated back to the time of the second Temple. They think they were written by the Essenes, who were separatists who lived around the Dead Sea. They just gave so much insight and knowledge about, you know, early Judaism and Christianity and Mosaic law and cultural and linguistic. I mean, it was like a Rosetta Stone type find. And then another one popped up that was found on the Jordanian side called the angel scroll in the 1990s, and they went on this hunt for it. They thought they'd found it, but it turned out to be a hoax. But it was called the angel scroll, and it was found on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea. And when I read about that, I thought, oh, wow, I don't know if you remember 1999, but everybody was worried about Y2K. We thought the world was going to come to an end because all the computers would blow up and the planes would fall out. And I thought, oh, wow, isn't that something? If this Dead Sea scroll is turned up right on the cusp of the millennium, and what if it had a prophecy? And, you know, we're. We're all in such a big mess now. You know, the wars and everything. Wouldn't it be great if this miraculous triptych came and helped? So Claire in the book, asks the Benedictine monk who's found the scroll and is searching for the paintings, you know, what will the paintings, you know, what are they about? What will they do? And he said, well, Jesus left us with two commandments to love God and love one another. And if we can do that, miracles will follow. But of course, we can't do that. It's simple. A simple requ. But it's impossible to execute. So she's introduced to different spiritual faiths as she's. That's kind of why it's like you Pray Love, because she's looking for some spiritual input. And I think in modern society, people are brought up with faith traditions, but they also kind of go seeking to find out about other traditions and how people, if they have a God sized hole in their heart, how did they fill that? How did they come to that? So it's not heavy on religion or anything. It's kind of like you Pray love and Da Vinci Code in that. It's got these fascinating historical facts and stories in it, but it's really about a woman trying to put her life back together. And yes, she is with Richard Marks and he's the antiquarian who is working with the monk who is translating the scroll. And he's sent off to go see if he can find the paintings and he finds Claire. And then he says, come with me and we'll find the other two. And of course, he's been widowed too. I'm not giving anything away. It's earlier sometimes I have to be careful because he's like, you don't have to read the book because I just tell it to you, everything that happened. But he goes off with her and he's mourning too. So they're both kind of coming out of this tunnel of grief. There's a nice romance trope in there, like friends to lovers, you know, I love that.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Actually, just recently on the show, we were talking about how we read a romance. It was just a traditional romance and the consensus was kind of that it's nice when the romance is the B story.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: If there's an A story and the romance is a B story, we can read it all day long. But a lot of the different members on the show, when we read just a straight romance, we're like, it was missing. And then eventually we realized it was missing the B story. So that's great. I love that kind of adventure story with a B story of a romance in that. That's nice.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: That's exactly right. It's like this mystery thriller. There's some sinister characters. It's good versus evil. You know, they find the paintings, the painting goes missing again. There's kind of a whodunit aspect underlying that, is this kind of growing friendship and romance, which is nice because very often people don't want to move on when they've lost love. Even not a husband or a lover. When you lose someone, that's very Dear to you. You want to get over the grief, but the kind of the grief is what keeps you connected to that person. And it feels like a betrayal to let go of the grief. I know myself. I just lost my sister, my best friend a couple of years ago. And you want to move on, but at the same time, you. You don't want to let go. So that's. That's sort of a unit. I think that's a universal challenge with bereavement.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Definitely. Definitely. Ooh. I'm really looking forward to reading this book. And you said that. Are you talking to Hollywood to turn it into a feature film right now?
[00:09:48] Speaker A: I was asked to turn it into a script, and I don't know what the universe is trying to tell me because my writing partner lives in Asheville, North Carolina. And I don't know if you know, but we had terrible floods a few months ago. I mean, absolutely devastating floods. You know, she had to leave her house. They can't drink their water and everything. So that kind of held me up. Finally finished it, got it to the agent, and now we have these terrible fires in the Palisades. And, you know, I reached out to ask how she was and how the project was going, and she just said, it's crippled my outreach because everybody in the industry, not everybody, but a lot of people in the industry are just either dealing with the fires or their loss of home or their friends or their, you know, family. It's like a plague of locusts on me. You know, obviously, much, much bigger and more important challenges than the book or the film script. It's very difficult to get a book turned into a film unless the book is a massive bestseller. I don't know if your group read it, but I loved A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Tals.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: We haven't read it yet.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah, they turned it into like an eight part series on Showtime. Yeah, really good. But it's. And that was an audiobook. I went walking every day. I was the guy who narrated. It was such a beautiful voice. In fact, I went looking for books, other books that you narrate, because sometimes, especially with fiction, if the narrator is wrong, it just kills it. I cannot listen if the narration is not good. So. But anyway, getting movie made is tough. But I was invited to write the script and my husband said, hey, do it. What do we got to lose? So, yes, definitely. Yeah. And it still happen?
[00:11:24] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, just maybe you just need to wait a little. Clearly, I forgot about the fires, of course. Horrible. Oh, that's horrible. Okay, so Listeners. If you'd like to pick up Penelope's book, you can find it on the Book interrupted website at www.bookinterrupted.com. shop under the author spotlight. She'll be there and you just click it and it'll go to Amazon and you can pick up her book before it becomes a movie. That's great.
Yeah, that's right up my era. I love that. I read the Da Vinci Code. We read Eat, Pray Love last year because we did books into movies. Although talking about audiobooks, the one girl loved Eat, Pray Love when it first came out and it's even her top five book. Kim literally carried around in her backpack just as comfort because she was like, this is my book in her 20s. And so we read it again and she didn't want to read it again because she knows the book. So she got it as an audiobook and she said the author had done it and probably when audio books weren't so popular.
And she said it was very difficult to get through the audiobook. It was horrible.
But you know, my sister. Fahrenheit, what is it? Fahrenheit, 451. Fahrenheit, yeah.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: 4. Something like that. Yeah.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: I have a bit of a brain fog these days. I'm perimenopausal, so I'm like, holes everywhere. Anyway, it will pass, thank God. I'm like taking supplements. Some of the members on Book and Drift that are like taking hormone replacement, like, we're all trying to do something, but it's absurd and no one's talking about it, you know?
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I got the bio. I. I do not like pharmaceuticals at all.
I was in such bad shape that I went to every night at 10 o'. Clock. I would have this panic attack, like I was falling down a lift shaft, an elevator shaft. And I'd be like, and the heat and the sweats and the mood swings and the weight gain and. Anyway, I got bioidentical creams. I had them compounded for me and I just took it for six months. I used to rub it into my thigh or my stomach and just made the symptoms calm down. And it kind of got me through it. So that was my, you know, $50 suggestion that the bioidentical, because they measure your hormone levels and then they just.
They kind of concoct these creams for you and it just sort of helps with your levels a little bit. But no hrt, no, none of that. But just that was. Really. Worked well for me.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm doing some herbal mix. It Seems to be. I was out of it for two months and couldn't get it, and then everything just like imploded. So I'm back on it. But I think it takes time to.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Us to build up in your. The black co ash and the St. John's War. All of that. Yeah. And teas. I love my teas.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: One member that's doing the bile. Identical creams. She just switched to it because she was doing hormone replacement.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: And they're like, it doesn't seem to be working for you. Let's try this. So now they're trying that. Well, I'm glad it's going to pass.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: And you find your level.
You find your metabolic level.
Use. Everything seems to balance out. And I came out the other side and I feel fantastic now, like, my weight and everything, you know, because it was at the point where I wasn't eating anything and I was gaining weight because it's, you know, it's just crazy. You come out and you kind of. This is the new. Your new normal. You can kind of work from there. But then the exercise, you know, I shudder because I'm English. I've got crumbly. My bones are a little more than dust bunnies at this point.
So I'm doing the walking and I wear the heavy. The vest. You've got to start and then take taking the calcium. You know, there's issues that come after menopause and you really need to jump on it, start taking those supplements, start doing those exercises because your body has just changed so much and it doesn't have the harms. It doesn't have a lot of the stuff that you used to have. And you really got to get on it and not wait until you start. It's bits start falling off, you know? Yeah.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: I think that's the nice thing about our book club is because we're all kind of going through it right now. So we're all like, talking about, like, what are you doing? And you got to do some weight training and you got to, like, you got to start doing some stuff now.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: You do. You got to eat protein and you got to work. You got to do weight. You got. Got to do weight and it doesn't have to be big, but you just. You have to keep those. Build up that muscle and keep the bones strong.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks. I love that. I'm sure our listeners love it too. So we have. Our listeners are 98% women in our age group.
Yeah.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Well, men are probably dealing with women that are going through it. So it's kind of a PSA for them, too. So that's true. They should.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: Well, I'm sure many husbands are very educated on it now because we're making them. Our generation is like, listen, there's no shame. This is us. Let's talk about it.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: It's effective life. The other thing I did is, which I see you're doing, is I let my hair go silver. I did it right at a time when it became very modish. Like, silver became the new blonde. And I put like a blue tone on it or a purple tone. And then young kids would run up, girls would run up to me in the mall and be like, I love your hair. And I'd be like, yeah, hang around for another 50 years. You can have it too.
So, you know, refusing that pressure to, like, I hate to say, age gracefully, but if you do figure out how to do it, you can look better than ever. It's when you're trying to hold onto the past and, you know, your old self, it starts to crack up a bit. But if you just move into it and find the clothes that work for you and the makeup that works for you and the, you know, and let your hair go. And, I mean, there's just. When I was going through letting my hair go silver, I just. That's the Internet. What a time to be alive, right? I found all of these women on their silver journeys, and I watched them how they got through the ugly die period where it's all growing out. I did wigs, I did scarves, I did cuts, I did hair stripping. I did the whole shebang. But, yeah, now I feel better than I've ever done. This is my time now. Live in the now. Actually, in the angel scroll, that is the message that no matter what happens to you in life, bereavement, bankruptcy, you don't have to let it take you down. You have the power of your creativity. You can get up in the morning and you can start constructing a new life for yourself. And it's very. I'm not saying it's easy. It's not. Inertia sets and despair can set in. But as long as you can creatively visualize a life for yourself, can go out and you can start building back and.
And that's kind of what Claire does in the book. So yay for that.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Yes, I love.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Inspirational, for sure. So once again, listeners, if you'd like to pick up Penelope's book, it's the angel scroll, and it's on the author spotlight section of our shop which is www.bookinterrupted.com shop.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: I've got a website, Penelope Holt.com. it's got my other books on. In fact, talking about pure romance, I just did, I'm doing a romance series just for the fun of it because the angel scroll was sort of of heavier and I love to do the research, you know, and it's like, I think Julia Roberts did a great job in the movie Eat Pray, Love because you go to Rome, all of these great places. And so I did a lot of research with a lot of work and then I thought I'm going to do something light and fluffy. So I've started a romance series called Women who Want.
And the first one is Polly Wants a Lover. And it's about a dancer who gave up her career, successful dance career, to marry someone who turns out to be a serial cheetah. So she's back to trying to find herself, find her career, find new love. That just came out this month through Ink Spell Publishers. But that's a light, frothy read, pure romance. But the angel scroll is, it's got a lot of good stuff packed in between two covers. So I hope your readers enjoy and if you don't, let me know. I like to hear from people who love the book, but I don't mind hearing from people who didn't enjoy it too. And they can tell me where I went wrong.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great. Thanks again for being on the show. I really enjoyed having you on the show.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: It was great. I loved it. I really, I'm talking to someone at the other side of the world. It's fantastic. So thank you for having me. Sarah, you enjoy your beautiful sunshine and I will shiver here in 30 degree weather in New York. Thank you.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Book Interrupted. If you'd like to see the video highlights from this episode, please go to our YouTube channel, book interrupted. You can also find our videos on www.bookinterrupted.com.
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