Goodreads asked Rin Hoshigumo:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Rin Hoshigumo Hm. Gus was the first character who came to me. I saw him dressed in black, black-haired, white-skinned, with pale green eyes, sitting in a casement, his knees drawn up to his chest, with the pale light of a cool, cloudy afternoon shining upon him. Initially, his name was Hiver (pronounced as HEE-vuh, like a corruption of the French word for winter). I think the influence behind this image was an illustration of Snow White's mother in a Ladybird book that my mother read to me as a preschooler. Like her, Hiver was dreaming of something that he wanted, but did not exist.

Originally, Hiver was fifteen. He went to stay with his Uncle Julian, who lived in a mansion in the middle of the desert. Hiver fell for Julian's wife, Claudia, whom he viewed as beautiful and underappreciated. The truth was, she was just bored and availed herself of Hiver because he was attractive and made himself available to her. But her love was for Julian. And by the end of the summer, Hiver was heartbroken and disillusioned.

That was the original story. But it's been turned upside down and inside out so that now, it's a very different beast.

Films that have influenced this novel are The Howling, Chiller and The Deep End (with John Moulder-Brown and Jane Asher). There was also a dream that I had about a young man whom I met at Warwick University sometime in the early '90s, who slept in a very bizarre...You'll find out when you read the book.

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