0:00

Every great romance story has a

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happily ever after. Two people meet,

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fall in love, and end

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up together for the rest of their days.

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Nancy and Dan Brophy were one of

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those couples. Dan was a

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chef who taught at a Portland

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culinary school. Nancy was a romance

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writer who filled her novels with

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sexy fantasies, betrayals, and murder. When

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Dan ends up dead, details of his

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murder that could have been ripped from

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the pages of Nancy's novels become

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clues, and Nancy becomes a

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main suspect. So this

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isn't a romance story. It starts

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with a happily ever after, but

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it doesn't end with one. I

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was a member of Nancy's writing

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group, and this case had us

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all asking the same question. Was

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Nancy just researching her next novel,

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or was she planning a murder?

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This is a story about what

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happens when the line blurs between

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fiction and reality. I'm about to

0:59

play a clip from Happily Never

1:01

After, Dan and Nancy. Follow Happily

1:03

Never After, Dan and Nancy, on

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1:08

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1:22

Nicole Herman was lounging on a

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beach in Croatia with

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a perfect view of the ocean. It

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looks a lot like Oregon, with the exception

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that the water is like turquoise. It

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was nice and sunny, exactly

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how Nicole pictured her honeymoon.

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Nicole's new husband got up to take a

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swim, but she didn't join

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him. She was in the middle

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of a novel. The man on the

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book cover had a square

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jaw and a come-hither stare. All

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day, Nicole had just been waiting

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to get back to him. She

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sat on the floor and just looked for her

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to sit between his legs. He

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showed her how everything worked. Then

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loaded and unloaded each of them.

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Are you showing me this so

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I can kill my husband? Drava

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spoke slowly, choosing each word with

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care. Maybe in the beginning you

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met Son of Dam. But

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now you're just another loose end. He

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will know a hundred ways to kill

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you and make it look like an accident. She

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pressed her forehead against his and

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closed her eyes. Don't make me

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like you. I'd rather

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you were a knuckle dragging me under the

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hole. Unless I'm

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dead. And this

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is over. Maybe. But

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I do plan to use your body until

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I leave. Scandalous.

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I was probably reading anywhere from 150 to 300 pages a day.

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Nicole had been laid out on the

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beach for hours reading. She

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was already on book number two

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in the Wrong Never Felt So

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Right series. And she

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was determined to get through all five books

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by the end of her trip. Every

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book was more or less the same. The

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burly former Navy SEAL comes to

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the rescue of beautiful young woman on

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the run from her dangerous husband. It

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was an odd choice of reading for a honeymoon.

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But away from the beaches of Croatia,

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back home in Portland, Oregon, Nicole

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was a deputy district attorney. Those are

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things as a prosecutor that you sometimes want

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to get ahead of and in front of. And

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for months, she and her team had

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been trying to solve a

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murder. But progress

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had been slow. Direct

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evidence kept eluding them. As

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the pressure mounted. Nicole and her

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team had turned to an unlikely

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lead, a series of

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romance novels written by the dead man's

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wife. It was a little bit meta

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in terms of what we were dealing

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with. Her books were packed with details

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borrowed from their own lives as

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a local Portland chef and a

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romance novelist, details

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that the DAs had no other way

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to get their hands on. So

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now Nicole was doing homework on

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her honeymoon. I

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wasn't so sure there would truly be

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anything, but it was sort

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of in the back of my mind, what if

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something similar to this has played out in

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one of her novels and it's all written

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right there for us to find. More shirts

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were going to be unbuttoned. More

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dresses were going to get unzipped.

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And every new chapter, every

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new scene, could potentially

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be the one to crack the murder

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case that was waiting for her back

4:57

home. Binge

5:03

all episodes of Happily Never

5:05

After, Dan and Nancy, early

5:07

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5:10

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