Those Who Live follows two cousins who stumble onto a chilling family secret—six baby girls, all born into their family, all dead in infancy, and they start investigating the family’s dark secrets. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

As this book unwound, like silk thread from its cocoon, there were many inspirations. For example, the character, Cody, emanated from a pedicurist who just didn’t seem like a pedicurist–wearing a hunting shirt and being the only Caucasian in a Thai establishment. The original inspiration came from my fascination with my maternal grandmother’s early life. Daughter of Irish “newspaper men” in the 1840s, she was expected to lead the life of a faithful Irish Republican girl on the same block in Brooklyn where her family lived. Her “perfect” sister, Mary, lived there her whole life, married a Murphy, and saw her first child become a nun. However, my grandmother ran off with a PROTESTANT, and some on the block said they never married, but they did, and worse, they left Brooklyn for New Jersey, where my grandmother became a landlord. I just thought, there must be so many mysteries there. Also, my mother was born blue and was indeed rushed to the kitchen sink where she was baptized by Mary, the perfect sister, who gave her the name, “Mary,” later changed.

What was your inspiration for Chinle and Mae and their relationship?

My husband and I were booked to go to Chinle, Arizona, the land of the Navajo. We planned to tour the cases, led by a native leader, but I broke my arm, ending the trip. Chinle came somehow from that. I had a terrible triad injury to the arm, and there was talk of whether it would ever heal. It did, but that fear stirred in me. As a child, I had a phobia about amputees, and I let some of my feelings about my arm ( I didn’t like it) brew into my character and I decided to write about amputation as someone over the phobia. As to Mae, she was at first a mirror to Chinle, but as she went through her own losses, I found her maturing and I began to like her quite a lot, so I let her become brave enough to take the challenge Cody offered, so it was her own courage that led her to her second sweet life.

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

Amputation was one. I also wanted to explore something about the West and its allure. As the book unfurled, I wanted to imagine what it would be like for a father and daughter to rekindle after the life decisions that were made in the novel. I wanted Chinle’s love of life to permeate the entire book, which happened along the way and especially when she talked to Ennis. I wanted to explore how a person becomes a myth, which is what Chinle became in the eyes of all who loved her. That’s what those last two chapters are about.

What is the next book that you’re working on and when can your fans expect it out?

I am into my fifth novel. It is called Rosaline. The six chapters each look at a different time in history, but all of the female leads are named Rosaline. The reason is that was the name of the ideal woman in sonnet sequences and during the Renaissance. In Romeo and Juliet, before Romeo meets Juliet, he is out of his mind in love with Rosaline, who is never in the play. She is merely a figment from Romeo’s mind of what the ideal woman is. That is what I explore here: how physical beauty in a woman, though much admired by men, is a curse for women, who are never actually SEEN for who they are because that beauty blurs any chance of knowing them. I’m in chapter 3 of 6 or 7 chapters, so I’d guess it would be finished in 2026.

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