1) This book is roughly based on the very first novel I wrote and never published. I simplified and tweaked the plot, changed the location from Jerome, Arizona to a fictional town in Colorado (both former mining and ghost towns that people claim are haunted), changed my characters' names, etc.
2) The story was in part inspired by my fascination with the supernatural: spirits and near-death experiences, two topics I've studied extensively for well over a decade.
3) With every book I write, my writing style changes and evolves and hopefully gets better and better. I'm always pushing to improve myself. In the past couple of years, I've been reading more beautifully written books by Stephanie Kemler, Laini Taylor, Kathe Koja and V E Schwab, among others. I've read several writing craft articles and more poetry. I made a real effort to do the gothic romance genre justice and elevate my writing. I hope I succeeded!
4) Although I sprinkle bits of myself in all my main characters, Charlotte and Lucian are less like me than some of my other characters. (For example, Chloe from Gone Away Girl and Finding Home and September from Pictures are practically my clones, with a few differences. Obviously, they're prettier than me and unlike Chloe, I pride myself in being an honest person.) Charlotte is partially based on a friend who is really pure, innocent and happy and has managed to have a relatively easy life (What would that be like?!) and my brother, who's a filmmaker and watches several movies a week. Lucian is partially inspired by a former best guy friend, who is romantic, passionate, artistic and philosophical. Lucian is also partly inspired by me.
5) I've been an artist longer than I have a writer. I loved drawing since I was old enough to pick up a crayon. So, it was a fun opportunity to paint the cover of my own book. I used pen and watercolor. This is how I imagine my characters to look. Obviously, this is from the Victorian masquerade ball because they're wearing 19th century apparel. Charlotte, who has shorter hair, is wearing a wig. I left the masks off because I wanted the reader to have a chance to see their lovely faces.
6) I got to explore a lot of firsts with this book. It's my first time writing a man's point of view, first writing in third person (Lucian's chapters), first gothic romance and first historical fiction.
7) I set the story in the late 1960s rather than modern day because the plot required that Charlotte not have access to modern tools like the internet. If the story took place today, finding Lucian and looking him up and discovering parts of his history would have been fairly easy. I also chose this era because the 1960's cars and fashions have a certain charm and people enjoyed a slower pace in those times.
