While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 4…

Tomorrow, you’ll get a chance to win Sanctuary—my one and only published story with Whispers, which released in 2005. For now, here’s what I kept on the old website as my “Story Behind the Book”.

I write so many vampires that it really becomes a challenge to find something fresh to say—especially something outside my MIK world, which has taken on a life of its own!

So when Whispers asked for a submission, and they wanted something paranormal, I decided to place my story in the “near” future about twenty years from now.

First, I imagined how the world might be changed if some of our current political issues weren’t resolved well. I’m such a pessimist I imagined the worst possible outcome—a modern Armageddon.

In the time before technology, people believed in magic. So I wondered how that might be inverted. When technology begins to fail, will the magical creatures crawl back out of the darkness? In my future world they do!

But how would humans exist? I looked out my window at my front yard, which borders a ranch and thought that a Texas ranch might be a pretty self-sufficient place if forced back into a subsistence mode. So I put my heroine on a West Texas ranch patrolling her borders to make sure the creatures of the night don’t invade, while trying to keep her people safe and fed.

What would be her greatest fear? Facing one of those creatures. So, naturally the hero has to be one. Their story isn’t new. I just hope I built a really interesting adventure for them to meet and fall in love.