Kendra Leigh Castle Guest Blogging

Okay, I admit it. I have a tendency to trip over stuff. Lots of stuff. Toys, furniture, my own two feet…nothing is too big or too small for me to get my feet unwittingly tangled up in it. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that in writing my debut novel, Call of the Highland Moon, I stumbled over the story idea just like I do everything else. This time, however, I wasn’t left with a bruise that looked like a purple sunrise. Which is good, because if writing left bruises, I would be in some serious trouble.

It all started with a name. Or rather, a big, sexy Scottish werewolf who needed a name. I’ve always loved the supernatural, so when I started out with this book the hero was the clearest thing in my head. Well over six feet tall, longish wavy brown hair, and a slashing scar across one golden eye. He tapped his foot impatiently and looked at his watch a lot while I hemmed and hawed over his future (alpha heroes can be like this). What part of the Highlands was he from? What was he doing in America? Who was his family? I pondered, and he tapped his foot. Finally, I had a first name for him: Gideon. Naming a werewolf after an angel made perfect sense to me. And no, I didn’t hit my head during all of that falling over stuff. Not much, anyway. Still, I knew the last name was the key. It would tell me where his home was, at the least. The very least, as it turned out!

I started digging around on the internet, hunting for pages about Scottish clans so I could get overviews and find one that might fit. Lucky for me, there’s a lot of Scottish pride out there, and people take a great deal of interest in preserving the history of their clans. I had plenty of information to stumble through, if I so chose. However, the very first site I hit was the only one I needed to make a decision. It was about a clan that had a history dating back to the very founding of Scotland, that had once resided in the remote Western Highlands, and that had kept, for a time, the legendary Stone of Destiny upon which all the kings of Scotland were crowned up until the 1400s, when it was (supposedly) taken by the British. My imagination caught fire. The remote location was ideal for the seat of the werewolf pack, and I just knew I was going to be able to work with anything called the Stone of Destiny. Turns out I was right…and Gideon MacInnes it was. It also turned out that he was the future Alpha of his pack, guardians of the mysterious Stone, and that his vacation to America was about to be rudely interrupted by a power hungry cousin and some lackeys who would stop at nothing to get their hands on his birthright. Then came Carly Silver, proprietor of Bodice Rippers and Baubles, with her biting wit and romantic heart, and the rest is history.

It’s funny how inspiration works. The smallest thing can set of a chain reaction in your head, and suddenly you have a story. Fortunately for me, inspiration is a thing often stumbled into, even by the non-clutzy! I hope everyone who reads what happened when I gave Gideon a magical, ancient relic and a secluded, ancient pack that guards it without truly understanding what it is enjoys reading the story as much as I enjoyed creating it. Call of the Highland Moon is a combination of my memories (the snowstorm in Northern New York that delivers a wounded Gideon into the arms of a shy and beautiful bookshop owner), my dreams (the Stone of Destiny, coveted by enemies both Earthly and otherworldly), and the fun facts and ideas I only ever seem to find when they get tangled up in my own two feet. Not that I mind…falling into a story is my favorite thing!

Kendra

www.kendraleighcastle.com, www.wickedlyromantic.blogspot.com

***Don’t forget to leave a comment! One reader will receive a copy of CALL OF THE HIGHLAND MOON.