Читать книгу Bringing Maddie Home - Janice Johnson Kay - Страница 4

Dear Reader,

Why do some places feel like home and others never do? I lived in central Oregon for only three years when I was a child, but writing this trilogy, The Mysteries of Angel Butte, felt like a homecoming to me. I’ve only been back to Bend, where my family lived, a few times as an adult, but the first thing I always notice is the smell. I think it might be the ponderosa and lodgepole pines, maybe the volcanic soil, but that part of Oregon smells different to me than anywhere I’ve ever been. I can roll down the car window and feel amazing, just breathing it in.

My memories of those years are vivid, too. My dad was a college professor who worked as a naturalist during summers. He set up the first interpretive center at Lava Butte, a volcanic cinder cone not far from Bend. Like Maddie, the heroine in this first book, I’d often go to work with him during the summer. I was happy feeding the chipmunks that lived in the crater and looked pretty darn healthy considering all the stuff tourists fed them! My father was a runner; we lived only a few blocks away from Pilot Butte, the smaller cinder cone that is right in the middle of Bend (needless to say, the model for Angel Butte in my stories), and Dad ran to the top nearly every day. Quite often, I’m not that interested in the setting for my books, but this was different from the very beginning. The town may be fictional, but I was writing about home, in a very real sense.

Of course, to my recollection no skeletons were recovered from beneath the cinders at either Lava Butte or Pilot Butte while we lived there, but think what a great place to hide a body that would be! Both the first two books in this trilogy have characters haunted by their memories of growing up in this town. Tapping into those memories turned out to be easier than I could have imagined, even though they were far darker than mine. I’d say enjoy your visit to Angel Butte—but really I’d like to keep you awake tonight, wondering if you dare go home….

Best,

Janice Kay Johnson

PS—I enjoy hearing from readers! Visit me on Facebook or write me c/o Harlequin, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, ON M3B 3K9, Canada.