The Evolution of a Novel: A Pale Shade of Winter

Before A Pale Shade of Winter became a novel-length story, it began as a short story challenge from a dear friend and was titled 90 Degrees North. New Orleans sits approximately at 90 degrees north longitude. A Pale Shade of Winter has become one of my best-selling audiobooks and my first attempt at writing a Southern Gothic novel. 

I’ve only visited New Orleans once, and that was several years before I wrote the book, but its atmosphere has always stuck with me. I was also inspired by the stylistic writing of Anne Rice and if you’ve read the book you’ll recoginize Lenore Kensington’s Garden District House sits at the same address as Rice’s former home.

However, I needed to create an original cast of characters, and while I toyed with the idea of vampires, I settled on a different spin on my favorite type of character–the ghost. While I didn’t set out to write a family saga type of book, what’s better for a Southern Gothic than a family torn apart by secrets? A son hellbent on revenge? A sister caught in the middle? And lies?

90 Degrees North began as a story about a pair of sibling grifters and evolved into a hauntingly beautiful love story, and I plan to have part two–the final book in the saga published later this year.

Stay tuned for updates and a blog about the book titles in the series. Pictured in the gallery are some of the storyboard images I used in creating the book.