What’s in a name?

I obsess over character names. The heroine of this new series is Miriam (Miri) Feldman and while I usually go through a ton of different possibilities before I settle on a name, this was the choice from the get-go.

Miriam is kind of old-fashioned, but that’s appropriate, given where the inspiration for that name came from. See, when I was a kid, my grandmother had a tight-knit group of friends who would regularly lunch together.

Not only that, every Saturday, they would meet up in the morning at the hair salon. They’d hang out and gossip while they got dolled up for whatever event was on their calendar that night.

It was definitely a different era. However, my grandmother would often let me come along to these outings and I loved it. There was something so incredible about being amongst all these amazing women who had gone through wars and tragedy and yet, celebrated life with everything they had.

One of her most glamorous friends (to my young self) was the only divorcée in the group – Miriam. This was huge at the time, but every time I saw her, she was laughing and gorgeous and living life on her terms.

So with the creation of paranormal women’s fiction and the opportunity to write a character in her forties, there was really little doubt about what her name was going to be.

Throwing Shade (Magic After Midlife #1) comes out on March 15 and you can pre-order it here: readerlinks.com/l/1593400

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