Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
~THE INSPIRATION AND RESEARCH BEHIND THE SCENES~
SPOILER ALERT!
The story below contains references to characters and events within the book, and is best saved until after you’ve read the book!
***SPOILERS AHEAD!***
Q: Where did you get the inspiration for the Chestnut Street Book Emporium?
A: All the wonderful independent bookstores I’ve visited in my lifetime have inspired little parts of the Book Emporium, but one special place in particular sparked some ideas, when I visited during the writing of this novel. The Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg, PA is wonderful spot to get lost and browse!
Here are a few pics I took while visiting:
Q: How did you come up with the idea of a magical garden inside an abandoned city lot?
A: Interesting story… This book evolved from an unusual writing exercise I gave myself.
I was ready to start a new book, and wasn’t certain what I wanted to write. So I started a list of everything that sparked my imagination. The list was a random collection of words (shimmer, portal) and places (ancient cities, gardens at night, temples), and themes (longing for home, wanting to belong, creativity) as well as movies and books, quotes and ideas—everything that fired my imagination. When the list started getting near a hundred items, I printed them all on slips of paper and mixed them up in a big bowl on my desk.
Then, every morning, I would pull two slips and free-write for about thirty minutes, writing why I loved whatever was on those two slips of paper, and how those two random things might connect and fit together in a story. Then when I ran out of steam, I’d pull a third slip and try to incorporate it into what I’d already come up with.
By the time I finished all the slips of paper, a story was forming that contained many, many elements that I loved.
I’ve always been sparked by different settings, with many of my books set in a fascinating time and place, like ancient Rome, Pompeii, and others. With this book, the setting that lit my imagination was this secret garden that only Kelsey could experience. I love nature and the outdoors and gardens, and the idea of a nighttime garden party with all these creative people burst into my imagination and wouldn’t let me go. I was finding myself falling asleep at night thinking about going through this gate, into a magical place.
One of my biggest goals when writing is to take readers on a journey, have them feel transported to another place, one they can see, and smell, and taste, and hear. To have them feel as though they’ve actually been there.
It’s my hope that this book not only takes readers on a journey, but also brings them back transformed.
Q: Would it really be possible to put an entire existing bookstore inside a hotel?
A: Yes! This idea came from the very real Montgomery House, built in 1804, and incorporated entirely into the joint architecture of the Lancaster County Convention Center and Lancaster Marriott hotel in Lancaster, PA.
While staying at the beautiful and historical Marriott during a “writing weekend” (when I shut out the rest of the world and just write, write, write), I was introduced to this amazing house, on the National Registry of Historic Places, that stood between the hotel (which was originally a grand city department store) and the planned convention center. Rather than leave a gap between the two buildings where the Montgomery House stood, the builders simply surrounded the original house with the new structures, enfolding the house into the new building.
Q: You never name the city in which the story takes place. Was that intentional? What city is it meant to be?
A: Yes, it was intentional, as I wanted to maintain a bit of mystery around the book shop and the garden. It’s a combination of several small cities, but Lancaster, PA definitely was one of my main influences.
Q: Have you ever been in a garden anything like the Garden in your novel?
A: Well, yes and no. Every garden, especially at night, fires up my imagination. There’s no place on earth exactly like Kelsey’s Garden (that I’ve found!), but I took inspiration from several places…
Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA.
This amazing botancial garden with over 1000 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows is one of my favorite places in the world. And this conservatory below… at night… oh, don’t get me started…
Various garden images online
Copyright protection doesn’t allow me to display my “inspiration pictures” here, but feel free to click the links, to see what I was gazing upon while writing!
My own garden
Yes, I am an avid gardener! In fact, I’m busy creating my own “Secret Garden” for my grandchildren to explore as they get older 🙂 I’m always intrigued by the way light strikes my flowers and landscaping at night. Here are a couple of my favorite spots in my own garden:
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ANOTHER IMAGINATIVE STORY?
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A TIME TO SEEK
2022 CHRISTY AWARD® FINALIST & FHL READER’S CHOICE AWARD WINNER!
Her Future Destiny is Hidden in the Ancient Past.
Sahara Aldridge, a young Egyptologist in 1922, is making a name for herself on the digsite soon to become Egypt’s most sensational discovery—the tomb of the boy-king, Tutankhamun.
Despite opposition from a mostly-male profession, Sahara fights to continue the legacy of her Egyptologist parents, who died tragically at sea when she was a teen.
But then a childhood friend finds a lost journal written by Sahara’s mother, hinting at the bizarre possibility of time-travel, and a crazy suspicion forces Sahara to confront a freak incident years earlier…
Is it possible her parents were time travelers?
And has she inherited this mind-blowing ability?
When the American journalist Jack Moretti begins asking too many questions, Sahara suspects he knows more than he’s telling.
Did her parents truly perish in an accident? Or did someone target and murder them because of their time traveling gift?
There’s only one way to unearth the truth.
Sahara must travel back in time, to the days of King Tut.
But the biggest surprise is yet to come… the truth about her parents, and about her own destiny, discovered in the whispers of conspiracy around the death of Egypt’s most famous Pharaoh.
But what secrets are better left buried?