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Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Series Oddities

 ***WARNING!!!!*** IF YOU haven't read Wicked Obsession yet and you want the ending to the suspense to be a surprise, do NOT read this blog post!***




As I write this, I'm working on book 2 of the Paladin League series. This is Finn's story. You'll meet him in Wicked Obsession. It's been an interesting experience on a couple of fronts.

First strangeness: This is a proposal I started before I moved from Minneapolis to Atlanta. Which means it's around 8 years old. I've touched it briefly off and on over those 8 years, but not enough to really count as working on it.

A big gap between starting a project and actively working on it isn't completely odd because I've had gaps with some of my previously published work before, but the biggest gap to this point was 18 months for In the Midnight Hour. An 8 year gap is another story all together. No pun intended. :-)

Why I find this so strangely interesting is that the story has actually crystalized rather than fading in my memory. Normally projects I'm not actively working on because less concrete in my mind.

The other thing that intrigues me is how steady the characters have stayed over the years. This kind of cements my belief that my characters come to me fully formed and it's a matter of me getting to know them rather than shaping them myself. I knew this hero and heroine exceptionally well from working on their proposal eight years ago and they've stuck with me over the years.

The second strangeness is one that I've never experienced before--this book was supposed to be the first book in the series.

Actually, this book was odd before number two. Originally--as this series was created--the same hero and heroine would have been the main couple in all three stories with an emotional arc for them across the books. Things happened, though, and Griff and Kyle showed up (as did their heroines) and it went from being a trilogy with Finn to a trilogy with Finn, Griff, and Kyle. And I think it works better this way, TBH.

Anyway, Finn, Griff and Kyle. There was no Ryder (hero from Wicked Obsession), but a funny thing happened when my friend, Trish McCallan, mentioned writing connected books--Ryder showed up and so did his heroine.

His story became Book 1 in The Paladin League. I think this worked out right, too.