Behind the Scenes

How did you get the idea for the scene where Uno, the greyhound, cuts his tail?

This actually happened to my rescue greyhound, Flash, except it was my friend standing on my front porch who got spattered with blood from his wagging tail. Fortunately, she’s an animal lover and a very forgiving friend, so she didn’t freak out. But it took us ages to clean up all the blood in the entryway.

What inspired the taste testing scene?

For my son’s fourteenth birthday party, we held a MasterChef blindfold tasting challenge. It was a huge hit with the kids. When I needed Gideon to rescue Lisset’s birthday party, I immediately thought of the tasting challenge. And then of course, the idea came for Gideon and Kate’s first kiss and I had so much fun taking it to the next level.

What was the first scene you wrote?

Gideon and Kate’s blindfold game that led to their first kiss. It came to me so vividly and the words poured out of me. I often write scenes out of order. I’m a combination of a discovery writer and a broad plotter, and then I join all the dots together.

Kate escaped an abusive marriage. How did you research this heavy topic?

I mainly drew on a relationship I had in my early twenties with a guy who shall remain anonymous. Although he wasn’t physically abusive, he was an expert emotional manipulator.

One day, he instructed me to put his socks on his feet. For the first time, I stood up to him and refused. He then told me he couldn’t be with someone who would put limits on a relationship and promptly broke up with me. The naïve, twenty-something me was devastated, but the older me is so thankful it ended when it did. I took all my feelings and insecurities from that time and amplified them for Kate’s character.