Author’s Note from “The Witch and the Devourer of Souls” (slightly edited for spoilers)

I have a confession to make. A huge confession. Let me work up my courage, take a few deep breaths, calm my trembling hands.

Okay.

Here goes . . .

I love Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”

There. I said it. Now all the world knows (or at least those few who actually read this Author’s Note).

Okay, now before you take away my man-card, hear me out.

I enjoy a good, well-written horror tale, but I also enjoy a good love story. And as anyone who is familiar with my work can attest, I firmly and enthusiastically believe the two need not be mutually exclusive.

While I do love “Pride and Prejudice,” it ends (in my not-so-humble-opinion, and with a small—very small—apology to Miss Austen) far too early in the story. I want a sequel! And not from a modern writer—I want to know from Miss Jane herself. I want to know how the Darcys kept their romance alive! I want to know how they survived the horrors and vicissitudes of the Napoleonic Wars!

Romance doesn’t end with the first kiss or even at the altar.

At least it shouldn’t.

In the early 1980’s, shortly after Cindy and I had completed our separate church missions (hers in Spain and mine in South Korea and Los Angeles, Korean-speaking) and early in our married life together, while I was finishing my degree at Brigham Young University (where I took exactly zero English and/or creative writing classes—which may be painfully obvious), I discovered a TV show called Hart to Hart. This little gem related the adventures of a married couple who solved mysteries together. What drew me to the show was the chemistry between the husband and wife. The two characters obviously loved each other and were devoted to each other. There was no “romantic tension.” There was just romance. (All the tension came from outside—from the villains and the adventure—it was never about “will they or won’t they.”) And it was exciting! And it never got old. At least not to me.

In “The Witch of White Lady Hollow,” when last we met the intrepid and courageous (and short) Tabitha Moonshadow, she had just met . And although we knew the two of them would or should end up together, that didn’t happen in that first book—we merely had the potential for love and romance. All we had was a handshake (literally) and a spark. And a mutual penchant for watching old, scary movies.

In writing the sequel, I could have picked up the story right there and have related all the details of the courtship and the wedding—not too many details about the wedding, since it takes place in a temple, but I digress—but I didn’t tell that part of the tale. I skipped all that. (Oh, the horror! I think I may faint. Quick! The smelling salts!) No, I jumped ahead in their lives—to when they were starving married students with a baby at BYU. I mean, so many of us can relate to similar scenarios, right? It wasn’t that the courtship and the wedding weren’t important—they absolutely were. Courtship is exciting and it’s new, and the wedding is (or should be) glorious and beautiful and sacred. But courtship must not end at marriage. Courtship is a grand, life-long adventure.

But sometimes, the grand adventure is mired in the mundane and in the everyday problems of life. Tabitha and  have classes, homework, low-paying jobs, a barely running, high-mileage car, bills, nearly empty cupboards, dishes to wash, floors to sweep, laundry to do, and a baby to feed and clean and nurture. (“Whatever you do, don’t you dare wake the baby!”) Romance can get lost in all of that. All too frequently, it does.

So, I wanted to tell a story about two people who have to deal with all of that crap (literally—remember, there are dirty diapers to change) and somehow still find time for romance and love and rejoicing in what brought them together in the first place. In short, I wanted to tell a story of passionate, tender, married romance . . . with the Power and a supernatural serial-killer thrown into the mix.

I mean, we can all relate to that, right?