After the Sunset (Not) Blog Tour
aka: Questions Nobody Asked Me But I’m Answering Anyway
Hello! I’m hosting my own blog tour on my own blog, asking myself questions about my own book. Though I clearly have no issues talking to myself, I’d love for you join me and send in some questions!
What Inspired After the Sunset?
I have this fairy-tale fantasy of living on a farm that will probably never come to life, given the fact that I’m a city person who gets really restless really fast in the country and I also live in a state where the rural areas are um— Let’s say, not as progressive as I would like. But when I was a kid, my grandparents had a small ten acre farm. They bred and raised racing horses, grew citrus fruits, and at various times had pigs and chickens and ducks. It was an idyllic place to spend Sundays and holidays, or at least it is in my rosy kid-memories.
The farm in After the Sunset is actually based on a different farm I visited once in the Snoqualmie Valley area in Washington state. It was in the center of this lush green valley, surrounded by mountains with huge old-growth evergreen trees, and it was raining, of course, but it was by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It’s been in the back of my mind as a setting for something for a long time. And because I love tropes and playing with tropes, I’d also been wanting to write a “strangers to adversaries to lovers” trope and the romcom classic “someone inherits something that changes their life" trope and TADA! After the Sunset was born.
Making the characters actors really brought the themes of After the Sunset to life: Playing with the idea of fate, particularly Shakespeare’s themes of fate. Are we helpless to our destinies or is believing in the idea of destiny itself the root so many problems? In the story, Caleb and Ty fall on different sides of the argument. And I also touch on the concept of human connection, with Caleb, who just wants to be seen at all, and Ty who wants to be seen for himself, and their surprising connection to a man who all but disappeared years before he passed on. And the connection to the earth and stars and nature and most importantly of all, our connection to goats.
After the Sunset is now available at Interlude Press | Amazon | Smashwords and other ebook retailers
