Hi! I think those horror stories of the wilds, the woods, and the night served an important purpose - it discouraged kids from wandering off and ending up in real danger.

John Douglas, Behavior Profiler for the FBI, has also observed that when people came across the horrific crime scenes left by serial killers or any kind of killer, they couldn't imagine that a human being in their own community was responsible, so they came up with monsters.

Those monster stories warned people about a very real danger without describing exactly what was going on, probably because they didn't know, themselves.

As for the Banshee, if you've ever heard a Barn Owl screech at night, especially if you're walking at night, it sounds like you'd imagine a demon or witch would sound (though you'd think that anyone living close to nature would know what that screech was).

Thank you! I began knowing the starting and ending locations, and then filled in the possibilities in between. There are many people who helped me with locations along the route, once I determined what that probably was. Writing this novel was an enormous learning opportunity.

How wonderful that your family recorded their history. There is so much I wish I knew.

I understand some of my great uncles were good tellers. They told stories about the Irish Banshee that were so frightening that my father, a teen at the time, was too scared to go out at night.

denise

You were there when I transitioned from writing books for children to this very dark YA novel. What a bumpy beginning that was!

I am overly tempted to include more of what I learned while researching than is needed, and love those rabbit holes far too much.

The Karma series is awesome. Nestor Yazzi is such an interesting character. I look forward to this next series.

Brilliant way to describe your love of history, Christopher.

Those rabbit holes run deep! Thankfully I didn't get too lost. There are so many interesting twists and turns to follow.

The next manuscript has me chasing after information on espionage. I am hoping the search engine doesn't flag trouble. Thank goodness for the wonderful writers that populate the pages of this blog! I'm reading bios of spies gleaned from Piper Bayard and Jay Holmes, invaluable information.

Thank you, Laurie! I love this story and wish I could have met my great aunt and uncle, who actually made the trek. I can only imagine how frightening that all must have been.

Every now and then I'd see a side note from my editor stating that I was showing my research. There were so many cool things I wanted to include, but they didn't carry the plot along.

Even if you're not writing historical fiction this kind of research can be interesting and helpful. While writing Cold Karma I had to do a lot of research for the character of Nestor Yazzi. It took me deep into the history of the Navajo culture and the Navajo Code Talkers. So much of what I learned never made it into the book but was still important when it came to understanding and writing the character.