First, the setting. Although I now make North Carolina my home, I lived in California for many years and visit it often. On one visit, I drove along the stunning Seventeen-Mile Drive in Monterey, getting out of my car near the mystical “ghost trees” that cling to the rocky coastline. From there, I spotted a mansion high on a cliff. In my imagination, I saw two little girls on the mansion’s veranda. It was as if the ghost trees were offering me an image from the past. I thought about those girls and what it would have been like to grow up on a cliff high above the Pacific. From that seedling of an idea, the story for The Shadow Wife developed into something complex and intriguing.

Another reason this story is special to me is that I gave the central character, Joelle D’Angelo, my old job as a clinical social worker in a high-risk maternity unit.