Goodreads asked Stephanie Osborn:

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

Stephanie Osborn My most recent book was Displaced Detective #5, A Case of Spontaneous Combustion, where all of the inhabitants of a small village in southern England are wiped out by an apparent case of mass spontaneous combustion, and Holmes is called in to investigate. But I'm not entirely sure where the idea came from. I never can quite figure that out. I brainstorm and ponder until an idea hits that I instinctively know is the right one, and then the events start just falling into my lap.

I do know that this one was influenced strongly by the fact that I myself am highly pyrophobic, to the point of it taking many years just to learn to light a match. This is, I think, due to the fact that my grandfather died as a result of a fire when I was just a toddler. So when the idea came to me it seemed appropriately horrific and outre to garner my, and my readers', interest.

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