The House on Chambers Road is a haunting novel about a grieving widow drawn to a mysterious colonial house where the past refuses to stay buried and grief takes spectral form. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

First of all, I wanted to write a ghost story. But not one that depended on jump scares and malevolence. I wanted it to be about the characters and their journeys. And since I love history, the story had to feature some element of the past that is connected to the present, that is still alive. Old houses fill that role nicely. The old house in the story is very much influenced by Historic Waynesborough, an 18th-century property where I’m a tour guide. Every time I walk through the door there, the past washes in around me. It feels close and immediate.   

How did you approach balancing historical accuracy with supernatural elements in the 18th-century timeline?

I had already done a lot of research for my last book, Clara in a Time of War, set during the Revolutionary War, so I had lots of good material from that regarding time, place and culture. And having grown up just outside of Philadelphia, I was steeped in history, especially the 18th century. Also, I love old objects and wanted to incorporate them into the story. But I wanted them to have their own histories and to illuminate character and emotion. They weren’t to be just old things. They had to have mystery to them, to have meaning to the people who owned them, and to echo through time, in fact travel through time.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Love, loss, and grief, for sure. And guilt. It’s the part of loss that rarely gets talked about. It feels so uncomfortable. In this story the element of guilt is heightened for both main characters. And with that goes a desire for redemption. How do we find a way to forgive ourselves and move on? Navigating relationships, with all their complicated facets, was also a theme. Marriages and friendships form the crux of the characters’ lives, and just as with an old house or object, they have histories. The good, the difficult, and everything in between.     

What was the most challenging scene for you to write?

The scenes having to do with the haunting were challenging. I didn’t want to overdo them. They needed to be measured, to build one upon the other, and to have an element of fear but not too much too soon. The other difficult scene was Libby’s final realization of what happened in the house and how it tied into her own experience. How would she react in a way appropriate to the moment and circumstance? It’s an epiphany, and a vital one. How would she process it?        

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