'Elenie tipped her chin to search his face. She looked genuinely taken aback. He was close enough to see the flecks, like speckles on a bird’s egg, in the gray of her irises, and wondered what it would take for her to look at him with less suspicion.'
Why did I create a fictional small town setting in the US when I live in the UK? Simple. I had this mental image of some key scenes in More Than Nothing taking place in a diner - and transferring these to an English café just didn't work for me! And so Pine Springs was born.
'His face wasn’t perfect. It was a little too drawn, hollowed around the cheekbones, and the fine line of a well-healed scar ran just below the curve of his jaw, yanking him by the collar out of ‘Aftershave Ad’ territory and into ‘I’ve Seen Some Things In My Time.’'
'Leah drew back slowly until she was sitting on her heels. He nearly reached out to stop her, had to force himself to keep his hands where they were, fisted in the bedcovers. Her light and energy drew him with a gravitational force. He craved more of it all the time when he’d grown used to wanting less of everyone else.'
My husband and I stayed in a stunning Victorian Villa in Michigan, which became the imaginary blueprint for Esther's house. The updating of Amity Court is based heavily on our own experiences of renovating an old property. (Yes, we also suffer with an extremely temperamental hot water system. Yes, we have to keep the WiFi door open. And, yes, the dessicated mouse fell on my shoulder, just like it did on Leah's.)
'There was barely a square inch of him that wasn’t either filthy or sweaty—his hair coated in a thick layer of dust, gray t-shirt more dark patches than light. Even the hairs on his forearms were clogged with grime. He smelled of hard work and stale debris and, damn, if that wasn’t a whole lot more appealing than it sounded.'
'This time with Avery was an injection of peace straight to the vein. There was something about the odd parts of her which soothed the wild parts of him. The parts no one else understood.'
With over 64,000 inland lakes, Michigan is the perfect place to host a pre-wedding weekend of activities and watersports! I've stayed in some beautiful lakeside cabins and it wasn't hard to imagine the chaos that could take place if any of these were overrun by a mixed group of hyper-competitive adults...
'You’d think he was a gladiator, striding into the Coliseum. Heads turned, smiles fluttered, conversations died and resumed in whispers behind hands. There was much metaphorical swooning. In a movie, he’d have crossed the floor in slow motion.'
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