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Goodreads asked Jennifer Quail:

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

Jennifer Quail Since it was a sequel, it grew out of my first book, 'Strange Roads.' I find immediate sequels harder than new ideas or stories set farther into a series because you've generally left the characters at the end of an exciting time in the first book, and it's too soon for longer-term plans to come into play. I wanted a smaller, quieter story with a chance to introduce a new character and time for my protagonists both to think about what's happened to them and in one case to start to accept this new role in her life. I had visited the National Building Museum and definitely wanted to use both its amazing architecture and some of the ghost stories surrounding it as the basis for a novel, and book two, which became "The Demon That Is Dreaming", was a good opportunity. It's a large-scale 'locked room' mystery and the setting gave me a lot of ideas for the plot. It lead to some unexpected developments (in "Strange Roads", it's Elaine who really goes on a 'hero's journey', including a near-literal descent into the underworld and a meeting with her predecessor, in "Demon" it's Alan who steps outside his world and really faces the supernatural head-on) and it also provided some lighter moments as well-I had not planned one particular scene that happens early on, but it set up a chemistry between characters I hadn't really expected but which paid off nicely at the end. So a half-thought-out 'research visit' really prompted what turned out to be the entire A plot of the book.

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