The Story Behind the Story with JP McLean of Denman Island, British Columbia, Canada.

 

We are pleased to have JP McLean asthe last guest of 2023.

She is no stranger to the Scribbler.This will be her fourth guest visit and we hope it won’t be the last.

The most recent post featuring JP canbe found HERE.

She is sharing the SBTS for hernewest novel.

Read on my friends.

 

 

JP (Jo-Anne) McLean is a bestselling and award-winning author of urbanfantasy and supernatural thrillers. Reviewers call her books addictive, smartand fun. Raised in Toronto, Ontario, JP now lives with her husband on DenmanIsland, which is nestled between the coast of British Columbia and VancouverIsland. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her cooking dishes that turn outlooking nothing like the recipe photos or arguing with weeds in the garden.

 

Title: ScorchMark (ADark Dreams Novel)

 

Synopsis:

Scorch Mark is the third in the Dark Dreams novels and continues thestory of Jane Walker, a woman born with prominent blood-red birthmarks thatsnake around her body. Jane also suffers debilitating nightmares wherein shedreams of the past. In this new installment, Jane is enjoying a reprieve fromthe dreams and on a road trip with her partner Ethan, when a group oftailgaters she doesn’t know seem to recognize her. Their recognition can onlymean that they’ve seen her in a dream she has yet to experience. While she slipsaway to await the dream and learn how she’s connected to the group ofstrangers, her BFF’s boyfriend, who is a cop, starts digging into Jane’shistory. He stumbles across inexplicable deaths in her past and the cop in himsends him searching for more. And when his current investigation into illegalfirearms crosses paths with Jane, she must convince him of the supernaturalforces at play before he gets himself killed and causes the deaths of hisentire law enforcement team.

 

The Story Behind the Story:

Afterwriting seven books in the Gift Legacy series, I was ready to dig intosomething different. I wanted to stretch my writing skills and find a projectthat would challenge me. Little did I know how challenging this new projectwould be.

Iknew the characters had to be markedly different from those I’d writtenpreviously. I also wanted to try a new style of writing. All my previous bookswere written from one character’s first-person point of view. I decided to trymy hand at writing in third person from multiple characters’ perspectives.

Theinspiration for the Dark Dreams novels was an NBC show called Blind Spot,which starred Jaimie Alexander. The opening scene of the first episode has abomb squad tech approaching an abandoned duffle bag in an eerily empty TimesSquare. Emerging from the bag is a woman (Alexander) covered in tattoos fromthe neck down. The woman doesn’t remember who she is or how she got the ink.When I first saw that woman with the tattoos, it stirred my imagination. Iwondered what it might be like to have to live with markings that weren’t ofyour choosing.

Thatwas the seed for Blood Mark. The events that unfolded in Blood Markwere the catalyst for the second book, Ghost Mark, and the events from GhostMark spurred my newest release, Scorch Mark.

Iwas pleased to hear from readers that Jane Walker, the protagonist in the DarkDreams series, is nothing like Emelynn Taylor, the protagonist in the firstseries, so I checked that box. But writing three characters’ stories andweaving the narrative together to get the timing of events right from each oftheir perspectives was a huge challenge. Writing the Dark Dreams books hasstretched my skills and helped me grow as a writer.

 

 

Website: jpmcleanauthor.com

 

 

Acouple questions before you go, JP:

 

Scribbler: Can you tell us about the perfect setting you have, ordesire, for your writing? Music or quiet? Coffee or tequila?  Neat or notes everywhere?

 

JP: I’m so very fortunate to write from acozy home that overlooks the ever-changing Pacific Ocean. In warm lazy weather,I open the doors to hear lapping waves and birdsong. In the colder stormymonths, even with the doors closed, I hear crashing waves, howling wind, andsome days, a crackling fire. Though I prefer the sounds of nature, I can alsowrite with quiet music in the background as long as it’s instrumental. I findlyrics distracting and have to work hard to tune them out.

I’m most creative in the morning, so coffee is mybevvy of choice. If I’m still writing in the afternoon, I’ll make myself a bigmug of tea. Once in a while, I’ll write in the evenings, and on thoseoccasions, I’ll usually have a glass of red wine.

As far as notes go, I’m a bit of a neat freak. I keepa notebook beside my writing chair and take it with me when I travel. Butdespite my best intentions, I inevitably end up with notes on napkins andscraps of paper, which I tuck into the notebook. But I find searching throughwritten notes takes too much time, and sometimes I miss what I’m looking for. Soeventually, everything gets transcribed into a searchable Word document.

But I do use written notes when I’m plotting. I’llwrite scenes on sticky notes, color-coded by character, and move them around thetimeline until the order of events makes sense.

 

Scribbler: How do youdecide on the titles for your novels? Do you have one when you start a newstory or later?

JP: I’m terrible at coming up withtitles. Case in point, my working title for Blood Mark was Witness. It wouldhave been difficult for the book to standout in the sea of books already titledWitness. Happily, my critique partners are much better at brainstorming titles.I’m so grateful they’ve had a hand in almost every title I’ve published.

 

Jane stands alone between a powerful

artifact and the wrong hands.

Jane Walker is in a race against time to recover apowerful artifact that’s fallen into dangerous hands. But first, she mustconvince a skeptical cop of the supernatural forces at play before a lethalchain of events engulfs them all.

 

1   |   Jane

Now that Jane Walker knew whereher mother had been laid to rest, shefelt drawn there. It wasn’t out of respect or duty—she’d never met her motherin the flesh—it was simply the only thing she could do as the daughter she wasnever allowed to be. The visceral loathing she felt for Rick Kristan, the manwho’d taken her mother away from her, grew deeper as the day of his trialapproached.

Heat rippled off the asphalt parking lot. It had already been a long,hot ride, and they had two hours yet to go. Jane dismounted her Honda Rebel,glad for the opportunity to stretch her legs. Ethan Bryce pulled in beside herand killed the ignition of his Fat Boy. Across a swath of summer-scorched lawn,Windermere Lake sparkled like a cool oasis. This was their last stop before thefinal leg to the cemetery on the outskirts of Canmore, Alberta.

She removed her helmet, shook out her dark, cropped hair, and brushedthe road dust from her jeans. Ahead, just before the path to Kinsmen Beach, atailgate party had taken root, spilling onto the lawn behind a row of pickuptrucks. The tailgaters, mostly young men flaunting their abs and red Solo cups,had confiscated a collection of the park’s picnic tables. Music pounded out ofspeakers, and the scent of barbecue made Jane’s mouth water.

After the helmets were locked, Ethan pulled their towel rolls from oneof the saddlebags. He stretched his neck and raked his fingers through hiscomically flattened hair. “Ready?”

Jane let a saucy smile cross her lips. She’d happily watch Ethan Bryce’sbackside all day long. “Lead the way.”

Ethan came to stand toe-to-toe with her, his light brown eyes sparklingwith mischief. He leaned down and kissed her. “I love it when your mind’s inthe bedroom.” He started across the parking lot and Jane held back a moment,admiring his swagger and the broad shoulders under his leather jacket. Shequickly caught up and matched his stride, looking ahead to the lake,anticipating the splash of relief from the cool water.

Her focus was on the lake, so she wasn’t paying attention to thetailgaters as she and Ethan passed. But when Ethan took her hand—an unusualgesture for him—she glanced at him, and then at the men who had stopped theirpartying. One by one, they nudged each other and, in turn, stared at her.Startled, Jane looked away.

“You know them?” Ethan asked.

“No.” Goosebumps skated across her arms. Jane surreptitiously checkedher boots and jacket, smoothed her hair, searching for something—anything—toexplain their attention. Anything other than the one thing the goosebumpsforetold.

Ethan’s carefree smile hid the tension she felt in the firm grip of hishand as he wove his way through the families who’d laid claim to patches ofsand with beach blankets and umbrellas. They followed the shore to the thinningedge of the crowd, far from the tailgaters.

“That was weird, wasn’t it?” Jane said.

“Depends.” Ethan kicked off his boots. “Regular weird or yourstratosphere weird?”

She’d already considered how a handful of men she’d never met looked ather like they knew her. Like they’d seen her before. Or met her ghost.

“They know our rides now,” she said.

“We can’t change that. Let’s cool off and get out of here.” Ethan keptan eye on the distant parking lot as he stripped down to his boxers, but heleft his T-shirt on, unwilling to endure the stares his burn-scarred stomachwould draw.

Jane removed everything but a tank top and bikini bottoms, anunthinkable disrobing had she still borne the blood-red birthmarks that hadhaunted her until the year before. The final birthmark had disappeared on hertwenty-fifth birthday.

She glanced back, relieved the tailgaters hadn’t followed. “Race you!”she said and took off for the water at a run. Ethan laughed, a competitorthrough and through. She rushed into the lake, high-stepping until the waterwas above her knees, and then dove under. The water felt like an ice-cold beeron a sweltering day, a delicious quenching for her overheated skin.

They kept to the shallows, sparing an occasional glance at theirbelongings. Afterwards, they lay on their towels, drying off.

“Another dream’s coming. I feel it.” Jane hadn’t had a visiting dreamsince the night she’d learned what had become of the man she’d once known asBuddy. A man whose life she’d accidentally and irrevocably altered. He was nowDylan O’Brien, an undercover cop. That was five months ago. But her reprievewas over.

“Because of the tailgaters?”

“Why else would those men behave like they’d seen me before?”

Ethan scrubbed his face with his hands. Accepting Jane’s visiting dreamswas easier for him when the dreams were dormant. Once they started up, theydidn’t stop until whatever events Jane was destined to witness had finishedplaying out. There was no avoiding it: Jane’s dreams identified her as unatestigo, a Witness in the Inca tradition.

 

 

 

Thank you forbeing our guest this week, JP. It’s always a pleasure to have you visit theScribbler. Wishing you continued success with your writing and clever stories.

 

And anotherHUGE thank you to all our visitors and readers. Wishing you all the very bestin 2024.