You captured the adventure of childhood very well between the two sisters Becca and Claire. I wanted to join their adventures! Did you share adventures with your siblings or friends when you were a child? I know I did. Those were the times when you could go investigating in the woods like Becca, Claire, and Joe did and only be afraid of the things your imagination conjured up rather than being afraid of someone accosting you. I miss those times.

Oh yes, you nailed it there. Growing up in North Carolina in the '60s, we five kids were given free rein to plunder the woods behind our house, and nobody worried because what harm could possibly come to you in the woods? (Yes, it was a very different time.) Our mother would call us home by the dinner bell, and we would stumble back into the "real world" tired but happy, sometimes scratched up by tree branches andbriars , but that just went with the territory. Our neighborhood, like the one Claire and Becca grow up in, was on the very outskirts of town--half civilized, half rural and wild. My siblings and I played at an abandoned estate we called the Haunted House, and down the road was a vacant lot inexplicably filled with boulders. Across the street from the Boulders was a magical place the neighborhood kids dubbed Shady Rest with huge canopy oaks and dirt roads winding through it. I think of how much fun we had back then--the wars and dramas and vine-hanging we experienced--and feel regret that today's children miss out on so much wholesome outdoor play. Those woods, especially, became the breeding ground for my imagination. The glade described in garden behind the Rectory Inn is very much like one my sister and I found in the woods behind our house.

My favorite character is Gretchen because she was the most mysterious and complex. Who is your favorite character and why?

Without a doubt, my favorite character is Colin Lockwood because he is in many ways my idea of the perfect male. Like Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy, he has that irresistible combination of aloofness and genuine goodness once you get to know him. He has a certain mystique about him that draws Claire like crazy, but instead of finding bad character underneath she is surprised to discover that in this case still waters run VERY deep. Colin is what I would call a good guy/bad guy, inherently good but still quite a bit bohemian. He has long hair, and in the original manuscript he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes (tobacco), but my publisher made me take that out! I have fallen in love with this character and can't wait to pursue more about him and Claire in a sequel.But how cool to hear that Gretchen was your favorite character! I didn't see that one coming.