Ed Ireland asked D.B. Nielsen:

Looking at your characters, how much of real people you know do they reflect?

D.B. Nielsen Hi Ed, thanks for the question. It's a mixed bag, to be honest. The main protagonist, Sage, and her sister, Saffron, are modelled loosely on the students I've taught over the years (I lecture/ tutor young adults at university) - so, for instance, Saffron's struggle with anorexia is quite real as is her more overt sensuality whereas Sage is the bookish teenager. And, as my own mother was an artist, it was easy to use that as a character device for Sage's mother. The places the characters come from are also those I know well from extended family members residing there (even the references to Eton College). But other characters like Louis Gravois are pure fiction.
Yet the desire was to make them believable as I wanted complexity and the shades of grey in a character (not just good or evil).
But, in answer to your question, no character resembles a real person I know fully but are usually a collection of traits of various people I know or know of.

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