I could have been Olivia Grant
The story behind Judged, the Casey Cort legal thriller from Aime Austin…
I wanted to talk with you a bit about the story behind the story of Judged. Each legal thriller I've written was inspired by personal events or was a 'ripped from the headlines' story. I'll be sharing the inspiration for each book with you in future essays.
As it says in my bio, I lived in Cleveland, Ohio for five years. Before that, I was born in Brooklyn, New York. School took me up and down the eastern seaboard, but until Ohio, I hadn't lived outside of any east coast states. Cleveland probably wouldn't have been my first choice, but my husband at the time (now ex) got a job offer to work for a judge after graduate school and I followed him there.
Like Casey, I opened a solo practice and started by taking everything that came through the door. I quickly learned that I needed specific expertise for everything, and decided to limit my practice to the two areas that interested me the most, family and juvenile law and criminal defense work.
About fifty percent of the time, I was downtown representing defendants at the justice center. The rest I split between juvenile court - juvenile crime and child abuse and neglect and general family law - mostly divorce cases and custody disputes.
Judged was the first book I ever wrote. Never did I think in my wildest imagination at the time that one book would evolve into a ten book series with a spinoff. There's an adage that every author's first book is autobiographical in some way. While every Casey Cort title is very personal for me, all characters are fictional.
That said, in many ways, I was Olivia Grant. I moved from inner-city Brooklyn to a rich, white suburb in Connecticut. My mother was an alcoholic whose job was to place neglected and abused children in foster care. I always knew that my home life wasn't good. But having gone on dozens of client visits in New York City's fiercest public housing projects, I feared foster care more. Nothing that I witnessed as a young child made me believe that anything outside of my own dysfunctional home would be better.
When I became a guardian-ad-Litem in Cuyahoga County, my fears were fully realized. Writing those first chapters brought up a lot of memories. Feeling left out of my new school and environs. Going home to a mother who was unhappy with her life, and let that spill over into drinking and lashing out at her only daughter.
The hardest part was that no one ever really knew what went on because my mother worked very hard to portray a certain lifestyle to outsiders: a well-educated and successful single mom. A daughter who excelled at school and never misbehaved. I learned early on to keep a lot of secrets.
To this day I don't know whether there's ever a good choice between a child staying in a messed up family situation or playing the lottery with foster care. I deeply admire all the children who come out of either background.
Right now Judged (ebook) is free on all retailers. If you haven't already downloaded it, now's a great time.
Talk soon.
Aime Austin
Aime Austin is the author of the Casey Cort and Nicole Long Series of legal thrillers. She is also the host of the podcast, A Time to Thrill. When she's not writing crime fiction or interviewing brilliant creators for her podcast, she's in a yoga pose, knitting, or reading. Aime splits her time between Los Angeles and Budapest. Before turning to writing, Aime practiced family and criminal law in Cleveland, Ohio.