Inspiration behind the story:
I’ve always wanted to write about a haunted house, so allegedly, I may have partnered up with my childhood best friend down the road, age 10, and got the hair brained idea that the abandoned house down our road was free for the taking. I mean, hello, what does a ten year old know about out real estate? In our minds, all we had to do was get inside, decorate (or a more appropriate word looking back…vandalize), and charge people admission. All that lovely money would be ours for a huge, grand idea…a single room at the Ramada hotel and therefor use of their indoor pool.
Off we marched with our Crayola markers, to ready the tiny house into a haunted a cash cow. But we couldn’t throw the alleged rocks hard enough to break glass. It might be ours for the taking, but some minuscule moral compass hit our gut check with an a least–do it quietly or you’re in trouble. We’d thrown a few rocks when my younger brother rode by on his bike (Spiderman or Superman is up for debate between my cousin and I). He asked what we were doing and we told him.
One rock later, we were in!
While my childhood bestie and I drew a scary witch on a mirror left behind and debated how we could remove our reflections and only keep the witch face, my brother in his eight year old pen, had drawn a purple Frankenstein on the mint green plaster.
Hands were laid (not Pentecostal style), words were had.
And twenty minutes later, when we’d been so involved that we didn’t hear my mother call us for dinner, her car drove by as he hollered for us. We scurried down the street, kept our project quiet and didn’t return.
My mom sucked the fun from the idea, but not the idea in itself. And here we are today. No witches in the mirrors and not Frankenstein monsters on the wall.
But something is clearly wrong with the house on Darkwater road.
Other Fun Facts:
I always wanted to write a murder house story, so when my mom came to visit, I told her that. We started discussing ideas (hers were terrible) and then she told my sister (a therapist) and she happened to to call with a particular twist idea. After three months of working backwards to see if it would work (so many potential plot holes to plug), it did! And here she is.
I asked my Facebook Reader Group to help me name the road Gwen lived on and if I chose on of theirs, I’d name a character in the book. Kailey Bechtel chose Darkwater Road and you’ll find her in the book!
I knew some of the book would be guessed, and I was okay with that. As long as I could fool you a few times. Did I succeed?
This book is set in fictional Maine, loosely based on Bar Harbor, Maine. My author friend lives near there and she helped me tremendously on setting, dialect, etc…any mistakes are all mine. It’s the only book I’ve written that isn’t set in the south (minus my K9 books which the continuity team chooses for us).
This book was picked by Kobo as a Best Book of the Month Pick.
And it was featured in Novel Suspects New Releases You Must Read.
