Appetite for Innocence with Lucinda Berry

Subscriber-only episode

We are thrilled to bring you our interview with Lucinda Berry about her book, which she calls her most disturbing, Appetite For Innocence. 

TW: Sexual Assault, Miscarriage/Abortion, Kidnapping/child abandonment, Murder.

https://lucindaberry.com/

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Music is Ur Karma (Instrumental Version) by Craig Reever.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of Emily and Ashley of The Creepy Book Club alone.

Transcript

Fully edited appetite 

Hi, I'm Emily. I'm Ashley, and this is books with your besties. Today, as a part of our Read With Us series, we have Lucinda Berry chatting about appetite for innocence. Please make sure that you check the show notes for all trigger warnings when it comes to this book. There are a lot. We hope you enjoy. Lucinda. victory. Can you guys hear the pounding outside now? Oh, okay. Good. They're, like, ripping apart my neighbor's, like, entire roof today. And it is so loud. And there's, like, 20 just, like, descended on the house and there's little. Anyways, they're like, this is this is perfect. I was hoping I, I absolutely the day I have all of my calls to take it. Oh and show up to like. But anyways, I'm glad you get here. No. Hi. It's nice to see your face. Hi, how are you? Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. So funny. I thought, like, the whole creepy book club crew was getting on. I was like, damn, night in the morning is very early to. But now it makes more sense. So no, we didn't let them. We just wanted to steal you for ourselves. We're gonna let them fawn all over you at Retreat. What a scholarly year. Before we know it. I know. Um. Crazy. That's craziness. Okay, so we read appetite for innocence. Our members picked it for us on Patreon. We do a read with us, and they voted and said, you have to read this one. So Ashley and I read it and then would hop on. We hopped on twice to just talk about where we were in the book and what was how we were on the right. Oh, sorry, I can't look at her face like it's my face gives everything I know. It's like I cannot look at her. I have to look at you. I mean, first off, you're brilliant. Five stars. Loved it. You're a ridiculously amazing author. The second that I finished it, I ordered another one of yours because I just have to go through the whole catalogue, and I haven't. I haven't devoted all the time, and they're all amazing. So loved it. Number one. Number two, Ashley is here to interview you, and I'm just here to make dumb comments, so don't mind me if I'm just quiet. Yeah. Also, Emily is, like, beautiful. And at work. I'm in my bedroom with sick people in my house who I have told to stay the absolute hell out of my bedroom. So what do they have? Just fall. Crud. I already went back to school and got hot or throw like it's terrible. So no one is going around with all the kiddos here. Yeah, sorry we did send you more information. I think we take advantage of the fact that we were friends with you and we're like, she'll just hop on and then say, you know what this calls about? We're like, oh yeah, we should give her some information about what we're talking about, who's going to be on. So thank you. Sorry. It was kind of last minute. No, that's fine about me and my calendar. I had creepy book club. I'm like, well, that's super helpful. I had nothing else. I was like, that's really awful. That's really awful. Good job, good job. We're going to talk about appetite for innocence, and then we're going to do a fun little just like Q&A with you. That's not anything too personal or horrible. It's just for our like insiders because it's fun. So we are lucky enough to have Lucinda Berry here with us today. Uh, there are going to be massive spoilers if you have not read appetite for innocence, stop listening now and go read it and then come back. Also, thoughts and prayers to you for getting through this book. I know we were horrified when we posted, I think or texted you that we were reading this, and you, as the author said to us, you think it's your most disturbing book. Can you talk a little bit about what what you think makes it your most disturbing book? Well, I think it's my most disturbing book in actual, like, thriller realm, right? Because it has the creepy serial killer vibes. Right? And all of a sudden, the whole spoilers thing. All the beginning. Yeah, I just get to talk freely. This is even better. So. Yeah. So it's like it has the whole serial killer by, um, it has some very, very, like, dark graphic scenes and there's, it's bloody, you know, so in like the actual thriller umbrella, it is definitely like my darkest book. Maybe not necessarily the one that's going to make you, like, think the most or get under your skin or make you question stuff, but it is definitely the most like it's the it's my only one that I've written. It has a serial killer. I do think it it does make you think, you know, Emily and I were talking about it yesterday saying when you look at. The 

certain characters. It does make you think how you want to not like them, but you have empathy for them at the same time, like Sarah. You just think, oh my gosh, the things you've been through, but then the pain you caused, you do such a good job making us feel such different ways about one particular character, especially somebody that is the bad guy. Right? So like the villain, you know, when you find out that she's someone's a part of, like luring the girls to him and to the basement and all those things, like, that's pretty horrific. But then when you realize she was basically sold to him, it makes you understand another side to it. Because and really, I mean, I think that, like, that's kind of the crux of all of my books, right? Is like the gray area is that exists in people, you know, even people that are really, really bad. Yeah, absolutely. I, I do think there should be a general therapy support group for Lucinda Berry. Readers like it should be a service that's offered, just like buy a book and get a therapist, because both your books are disturbing. But, you know, Emily and I were also talking about how the scenes that were so hard to read in this book, like the bathing scenes, and none of them felt unnecessary. They felt like a piece of the book that had to be there, but they were really like, we might have to put the book down for a second and just walk away and then come back. So every scene probably that happens in that bathroom is awful. Um, you know, those are some of the most, but I do. It could be so much worse, you know what I mean? Like when I actually write about pretty brutal trauma scenes, I try to do so in a way that is true to the experience, but at the same time, isn't, um, retraumatizing people that are reading it, you know, in a, in a significant way, you know, but enough that it shows what that experience is like for the person going through it. So the amount of detail given, I think, at least for me, um, you can speak differently, but it makes you like I had goosebumps. I could feel her fear, I could feel her pain, but none of it was gratuitous or gross or over-the-top. It's just like you put us in the room with her to to feel that fear, which was just devastating. Yeah. You do such a good job of demonstrating the complexity of the human condition and just how difficult it is to put people in boxes in a specific way. And so you feel so many different things. But also, I think a lot of books gloss over a lot of that in a good way for people who don't want to handle that or can't handle those kinds of things, but it makes. You may be more sympathetic or more understanding if you have to confront that. Like this is this is real. This is the real kind of trauma that people are experiencing. And it's beyond what I can fathom for those people in the book. But it allows for a little a little understanding. Right. And I think it's I mean, it's really interesting because, like, I get really interesting messages from people, right? Like, uh, when you're out there and a lot of the things that I get because of what I write are people sharing really awful things that have happened to them or their loved ones with me. You know, I still I'm like, I still sometimes feel like I'm very much doing therapy, you know, like I haven't stepped away, you know, and I think that that's one of the things that my books also do is they help people that have experienced those events. Um, well, not like necessarily like as horrific as the appetite for innocence. Right? I mean, most people haven't, like, been kidnapped and all of those things. But a lot of women have had very, very horrific assaults. Right. And reading it. It's sort of like when you when you can't fly over your own life, but you listen to a really sad song and it helps you access that part that you can't get to, and then maybe process that and move through those emotions. I mean, sometimes that's what happens with a lot of my books, is that it helps people from that sort of like detached perspective also because it is about somebody else actually then access those parts of themselves and then process it. Can I ask a follow up question to that? Yes. Um, you mentioned just that you're still practicing therapy, essentially because you are getting all of these stories. So you had a career as a clinical psychologist. I mean, you're still a clinical psychologist, but doing therapy and working with, um, kids with trauma. How do you take care of yourself when you are still so immersed in this world of trauma and getting still taking on those clients in an informal way? But. I'm not the best self-care person, like for sure. Um, I think that there's people that are probably take a lot 

better care of themselves than I do, but I will say, because, I mean, it used to be my entire life was trauma, right? Like every single piece of it. And so at least now I have spaces that I've carved out, um, that are not right. So because before it was like my work life was trauma and then my, you know, every spare minute that I have was writing, which was also trauma. And then, of course, the minute you do anything, then you have all the media, so you know what I mean. So I was like all of that. So now that I just write, it does allow me to have time where I'm not just involved in something that's related to trauma and some sort of way. And it's easier now. Lightning with the writing is that there's a lot of it, that it's all trauma. That's like within my control. I mean, some of this stuff with people gets very intense. You know, I was gonna remind our listeners here that both Emily and Lucinda are psychologists. So I'm just going to stop talking now because, um, well, I'm gonna ask. I was gonna say in people who know your background, speaking of psychology, are people aware of what you bring to the table a little? One. And I don't know, I blather on about antisocial personality disorder or something like that now and again. But, you know, I don't practice clinical psychology, so I don't have the same level. And part of the reason for that and part of why I'm so curious about you, you know, taking care of yourself is that I felt like it would be really difficult to listen to those things. And I do have just students who talk to me about things, and they can really weigh on me, and it can come to a point where I'm like, this is a lot. This is really hard to process and manage. And that's not even close to the kinds of things that you're getting, you know? Well, one of the things that, you know, uh, is great, there's been a huge movement in the field is the idea of secondary traumatic stress, right. Like we actually have a name for that and like realizing that like, oh, people that were, um, in these like, really intense situations with people and families and children and communities, you know, I mean, not just therapists and psychologists, but first responders, police officers, firefighters, that that has an impact on them as well. You know, and so we're really, you know, that we're trying we're finding, you know, we actually have words. We have a name for it now. and it does affect you. And in order to do your job in those places and in and in those positions, there's a level. Um, a first responder can arrive on the scene and it's bloody and they, like, start crying and fall apart on the sidewalk, you know what I mean? Like, that's not helpful to anyone, nor is it also when you're working with, you know, parents and families who've gone through horrific things, you know, there's a part of you that, you know, has to put that emotional piece aside in order to be effective. Um, and over time, I mean, that's what it had an impact, you know what I mean? So it's like we're just, you know, starting to figure out how that's played out for, you know, people in helping professions, uh, that are really in it, in it. So, yeah, I think you're in it in it. Back to some of the specifics with the books are we did this as our like the people picked it, they read it with us, a few of the scenes that were super impactful. And I just want to know about how you decided to put that in the book and kind of why I think the biggest one that people have said that was really hard, but really necessary was the abortion scene. And this book was written in 27. When he was 17. Well, you probably wrote it years before, but yeah, so I think it was published in 2016 or 2017 and I wrote it like 2014, 2015. Um, just with what we're staring down during this, I know it's like, right. I mean, like, I don't even I don't even know where to go with, uh, that, um, because, yeah, I mean, here we are. You know, the abortion scene that happens in the bathroom. That's the scene that happens when women don't have access to reproductive, you know, rights and felt it felt necessary. But it was really hard. It also made us, Emily and I were saying, look at Sarah again as we were already like, oh, you know, seeing her as a partial villain, that when when Ella was going through that she really did become a caretaker and thought, we need to help her and just that, women empowering women in those moments. But really, the scene later on in the book that was so hard was Ella deciding not to tell her mom and taking on that, trying to protect her mother from this information and then saying she's happy she couldn't have kids because she wouldn't want to bring kids into this world as it is. 

Anyway, that was devastating. And I mean, that is the whole piece with that too, right? Is it, um, the timing about how, like, my books offer sort of like a different perspective that you might not see, right. It's like she gets pregnant from her rapist, right? A man that locked her in the basement and brutalized her. And I don't think there I mean, there's probably I mean, maybe there's. A couple of people that would read that and think, oh, um, but most people would read that and be understanding of why she absolutely does, um, what she does in that bathroom. That might be the first time they've ever had that thought, and they had that thought through something that was fictional. There's a lot of that that I think is a theme in a lot of my books. You know, it's part of the reason some people don't like them. And I really, you know, for that very reason, um, is that I slipped some of that stuff in there. You got a compliment for one of our. Or. Actually, it was in a private message from one of our Patreon members who said she had really shied away from books like this because of a personal trauma, but that the way that you were able to to write those scenes has made her appreciate this type of writing again, and she has begun reading more of your books. So I think the way that you write it feels really respectful. But I hear the thing that I hold to and that I always like were so hard is like, I don't ever use it as something that I'm using to shock, like it's never a part of. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not ever doing it to be just or like the shock factor alone. I'm always, always very intentional with the way that I handle. Like, there's drama, which sounds pretty weird, but I really am. Like, I'm very intentional with how I handle those pieces in the same way that I was, you know, that I handle. Lions are even, you know, friends of mine that I have that I don't ever want to do it in a way that's like, exploitative, you know? Um, and it's insane, you know, and sensational, but in a way that is, um, part of the actual story itself and making people think and making people experience and making people think about experiences in a way that they probably never have before, especially in a lot of my, like, earlier stuff, which is where appetite for innocence comes from. Which book was this for you? That was one of the first questions I wanted to ask. So, uh, it was like it was this. It was so Phantom limb was the first ever thriller that I wrote, and that again, that was based on a case that was actually happening around me. And then outside her innocence was the second thriller that I wrote, and I wrote appetite for innocence fell in three and a half weeks. It was off of my fastest book to come out of me. And can we ask? Because we know from being lucky enough to have you at retreat last year and retreat in 2025, are any any pieces of appetite for innocence based on cases you worked on or around you, or just stories? Well, yes. So not the the sound proof basement or that piece. Um, but definitely, um, like Sarah's story is based on a mother that basically gave her two daughters up on to sold her two daughters to, you know, a man and then who knows what happened, you know, so those pieces are very true to form, like people. People sell their children to other people or for drugs or money on a regular basis. It's horrific, you know. So those pieces are indeed very real. But I never had like an actual, you know, any clients that were kept in basements or anything like that and then just, um, uh, and again to go back to Sarah, though, like somebody that's so young, you know, one of the adaptive way is, quite honestly, to cope in those situations is to bond with your abuser. That's how you stay alive. And she did stay alive, you know, and she had more privileges in that house than anyone else, you know. And, um, that's a very similar dynamic in like a house that's full of like, you know, women and children that are being sex trafficked. Right? Like there's just always you'll find within those groups, um, somebody that has sort of like bonded with who's ever at the top, you know, they, they're way up. And um, so that dynamic very much occurs in the real world. There's, there's something else I noticed that I swear I loved so much because it's so true to life, and it's something you probably take for granted just knowing this. But the way you describe John as. Handsome, clean cut, wealthy, nice. Seeming like that is so true. And not how serial killers are often written, right? Right. I mean, I mean, most predators are super charming, you know, super charming. So down the line, uh, um, people. And it's 

like, yeah, I mean, most narcissists are, you know, most sociopaths are very, very charming people. It's, you know, they're very, very good at pretending as if they experience emotion. That's not the problem. I think a lot of the times, people that you think that it's, you know, they're like these recognizable dots because they're, you know, it makes us feel safe to think that, oh, well, I would know because they're creepy or they somehow. But no, it's the it's the really nice guy next door. And it's, it's a often very successful people. Because the other thing about if you are a sociopath, you can you might be able to fake it or a psychopath, you can fake it and you can be very charming, and you can have all those characteristics that make you likable, but you're also a little bit willing to step on some other people to get to the top and get to where you need to get. And that not not everybody is like that, right? But you see them gain positions of power sometimes because of that willingness and ability. Yes. So I just loved that I was very enthralled with the whole book and all of the characters I just thought were really well written. But also, you're a liar when you said you don't write things to shock us because Emily and I yesterday were like, well, I think in the last whatever one page that she's like on her in her bedroom, on top of her trying to kill her, I yeah, I mean, but I did. That is a fun one to write stuff to is shot. Yes. That's true. It's in her room on top of her, in her bed, trying to full on murder her. So? So there's that. That was slightly shocking. But then her mom comes in. So I did feel like you're a mom. And although the character didn't have a huge role. Ella's mom, you just felt like Emma and I talked yesterday about how she wanted to take Sarah in and just your motherly instinct, which overrides everything else. Telling you maybe this is not a smart idea. Was that hard to write as a mom? Or were you like, no. I get how this would feel playing that like protector role. I mean, I just feel like it was sort of easy because I don't know, most moms in that situation wouldn't immediately just want to embrace her and heal her and help her, you know? So we often misread flags as moms when we're just wanting to protect our kids and their friends. Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. And also, I found it. Devastating and shocking when Sarah shot and killed Blake. Can we just talk about. There were scenes in this book that make you go, oh, what a shame. It's actually, it's funny, and it's been a while since I just talked about empathy for innocence, and I. Sometimes I actually forget this town. We don't there. So. Yeah. That's right. I forgot that also. That also happened. So what was the question about Sarah? It's not I was just calling you a liar saying I mean that is. Yes, I very much do. Yes. There's I very much to many shocking things as well too. But just back to what Emily was saying, that she, Sarah did what she felt like she had had to do to protect herself and to stay safe, which unfortunately, was killing someone else. And that scene was just hard to to read. I mean, very little choice there for her. And it was so brilliant on your part to write that in as a manipulation, that then how could she look at herself as anything other than partnered with him right. And the reality is we outside of that would would look at her as a survivor, even knowing that and be wow in awe of her. We would not say, oh well, she didn't kill her. And then they both got killed. Good for her, right? So we can be very, very judgmental about it. You know, again, the human complexity that you present, very powerful, all great areas, all grace, all the grace. That's where I exist. Yeah. Do you see people as great? Generally, yes, I do like I am not I'm not a black or white sort of. I'm not saying that like dichotomous. I think Ashley and I are a bit more naive than that. Ashley for sure. Ashley. Ashley thinks everybody's safe. Yeah, I can respond because I'm laughing so hard. Because it's so true. Yeah. It's like, here's a picture of me with my address in the background. Come to my house. That is what she is like. Well, not like that, though. I'm bad at that kind of. Yeah, I'm bad at that. So what, one of your other books would you recommend? Um, if they really liked appetite for innocence? Um. How in the secrets of us. Okay. Yeah, the secrets of us. I say save saving Noah. For when? For never. Um, saving Noah is like, I don't know. I don't even know. Emily hasn't read it. So, like, category you would put saving Noah. And, like, I feel bad for people that go into saving Noah, thinking it's going to, like, be a gorilla, you know, um, because it's, 

you know, but I don't know what you and I don't know what you would call it, you know, without any spoilers, I would say, sorry. We veered off into a different book, but I would say it is a necessary read for any parent that's gonna, like, rip your heart out completely, but honestly make you more intentional in how you parent and the decisions you make around your kids every single day. Yes, the true. Like what would you do in this moment you don't know? Yeah, that is definitely my loss. What would you do in this moment? But for sure, besides me, like even a Barnes and Noble where even, you know, it ends up in thrillers and mysteries, but it's like it's not a thriller and a mystery. It's all something else. Is there anything you want people to know about appetite for innocence that we haven't talked about, or you think doesn't get talked about enough? I'm not that smart. I don't think I need it to really made me actually want to read appetite again, because it's been so long since I was in that book. And some of the stuff I forget that I did like. I went back when I did a welcome reunion, you know, which is the one that came after Perfect Child. Um, I went back and read The Perfect Child a couple times because I normally like want something is out. It's like, it's not like I go back and, um, read it against, but it's kind of made me want to revisit appetite because I think, like, Sara wouldn't be so fun to, like, continue her story of, like, what happens to her, right? Um, because she's, you know, she has to get out. So that would that would be fun. Um, to do with appetite. But as far as, like, anything, loved hanging. I don't think so. Sarah only got three years, so she'd be out by now. So that's what I mean. I mean, she's better. Dude, she's roaming the street. Uh. Watch out, watch out! There. Was three years. I don't remember how she got three years. That was it. Oh. She's out. I mean, Sarah, here's the thing. Sarah would be, like, a fun you. I wouldn't do a stand up, like, serial killer series. Like, with her. Like she'd be a great grown up sociopath character, for sure. I like it. We're here if you need help and present to you. There you go. I mean, with the idea. Already went to the country club. You heard the ear. You heard it right. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I was talking. Thanks for listening. For more content, find us on Patreon at the Creepy Book Club. Happy reading!