Dear Amazon Readers:
One night I was sitting up in my office, which is all spooky anyhow. Our house was built on top of an Indian burial ground, which nobody bothered to tell me when we moved in. Considering how The Body of Christopher Creed reached its pitch in an Indian burial ground, I was forever freaked out, especially while working between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m., my usual.
I felt something over my shoulder. It was strong, like, strong enough so that you would NOT turn and look. It might change your life.
And this voice went off in my head. Not my voice and not aloud, but it went like this. "Wouldn't it be cool if four years later some college newspaper reporter, Torey's age, came to Steepleton because there was another dead body found...Wouldn't it be cool if the story started on a cold and stormy night with detectives trying to determine if this was finally Christopher Creed's bones being uncovered?
"Wouldn't it be cool if, in the end..."
Well, that would obviously be a HUGE spoiler, and the point is...this storyline was so clear I kept thinking it came from a source outside myself.
And I said aloud, "Woe!! Why did I never think of this before????"
My desk chair has wheels on it. I yanked myself up to the keypad, started pounding, and knocked out about 30 pages before the Dark Hour (5 a.m.) when I finally stopped to sleep.
See, I've been asked a thousand times if I'd ever write a sequel to Creed. The answer has always been "No," because I could never think of anything really good. Some people kept saying, "You should do it now because that book is selling so well." But I never wanted to add to Creed for the wrong reasons, like trying to get rich off him. I wanted to wait until I had something really good, and if that day never came, so be it.
I had so much fun revisiting Steepleton, the people, and meeting new people, like the 16-year-old Justin Creed, who is nothing like his brother! I feel I've done what people really wanted: To be able to come back to those dark and shadowy woods, visit characters they may have missed and wanted to hear more of.
Hope you enjoy...
--Carol Plum-Ucci