Fun Facts

There are many fun perks to making up stories, and one of those is pulling a little bit of crazy and real from the life we live every day.  Each one of my books has a kernel of my real life embedded in it somewhere.  Especially the very first one.  🙂   Enjoy a little trivia on me!

• Nathaniel, Dani’s dad in THE REASON IS YOU, was my father’s middle name.
• Orange soda, the blue fishing hat, and the Steens Cane Syrup is alllllll my dad.

• The song “I Love You” by Climax Blues Band that was featured in BEFORE AND EVER SINCE, was my favorite gut-wrenching song as a teenager.  To this day, I’ll stop whatever I’m doing if it ever comes on.  LOVE that song.
• Savi collects skeleton keys in STAY WITH ME, and so does my daughter…and by default I’ve picked up the love for them as well.  When she went into the Navy, I wore her skeleton key necklace (that she made from one she found in a thrift shop) the entire 9 weeks she was in boot camp, for support.

  

• The boat in JUST ONE DAY that was Andie’s dad’s boat, and ends up Jesse’s, was modeled after my dad’s boat.
• In THE REASON IS YOU, all the fishing spots mentioned in Sabine Pass are real, and where I grew up.  The alligator Dani named Herman Munster as a kid–yep, so did I.  🙂
• The house in BEFORE AND EVER SINCE is essentially my childhood home, but nicer.  See that garage roof with the tree over it?  Mm-hmm, there’s a window there.  🙂

• The three stars that Holly’s bike gets painted with in BEFORE AND EVER SINCE, from Orion’s belt, are very very personal to me.  That was my dad’s and my three stars when I was little.  And to this day, I still look up and say hello.  🙂
• Dani calls her daughter Riley “boog” as a nickname in THE REASON IS YOU, and Jules and her daughter Becca have a special way of saying I love you in DON’T LET GO.  They say “loves”.  Both of these things are what my daughter and I do.  In fact, when she turned 20, we did this….

• The tattoo Becca wants to get in DON’T LET GO is from the one my daughter got in real life.  From Alice in Wonderland, it says “We’re All Mad Here”.
• The old lady ghost “Helen June” was my mom. 🙂  And what she says about hating her name and her kids putting it on her gravestone anyway….true.  LOL.
• Bojangles the big black Rottweiler in THE REASON IS YOU was named after a tiny dive bar I passed while driving through a small town in Texas.
• Dolly and Max the donkeys in STAY WITH ME, were real donkeys my daughter and I stopped and got out of the car and petted while driving through ANOTHER small town in Texas. LOL.  And we named them.  Because…we do that.

 

• Harley, the pit bull in DON’T LET GO, is my friend’s real life dog, Harley!