Essay for Kissing Sin:

For some odd reason, many of the story ideas I get come as complete scenes. It's rather like a snapshot from a movie. I can see the characters, I can see the setting, and I can hear whole conversations. Of course, I also tend to get these 'scenes' in the middle of the night, so it's not usual for me to be found in my study at three in the morning, madly writing down said scene ideas.

So when it came to Kissing Sin, the first idea that came to me was that whole beginning scene. Riley, waking to discover herself laying naked and alone in an alley, having no idea where she was or how she'd gotten there. In my mind, I could see the stars twinkling high above the old wall. I could smell the refuse from the overflowing trash cans. I could see her, covered in blood and reeking of sweat and other, less palatable things. Then she turned her head, and I saw the body of the man with his throat ripped out.

Yes, I have a very vivid and detailed imagination.

Of course, once I had that first scene, it became a matter of working out not only how she gotten there, but why she was there. And then I had to tie it all in the with questions raised--and left unanswered--in Full Moon Rising. I don't actually plot, you see. I'm more an organic writer, and allow the story to go wherever the characters take me. Which isn't to say I don't have preset goals and things I want to achieve in the story. I often do. For example, there's a character I introduce in Full Moon Rising who barely rates more than a line or two in the book, but I knew from the moment he appeared that he would become an important part of Riley's story. I actually intended him to make another appearance later in Full Moon Rising, but as the end of the book drew near and I realized it was going to take more than one or two books to tell Riley's story, I decided to introduce him at a slower, more natural pace. So it's not until Tempting Evil and Dangerous Games that we really begin to see more of him. I also have an overall plan for the emotional path of Riley and her brother, and I have no intention of making things emotionally straightforward for either character. As George Bernard Shaw once said, Life was not meant to be easy, my child.

But allowing myself to be 'organic' was a little more difficult with Kissing Sin, simply because there was threads left over from Full Moon Rising that still had to be explained. For example, Riley might have uncovered the cloning lab, and stopped the madman behind it, but she had no idea who was behind the DNA splicing--and no real idea why they seemed to want her so badly.

Why her, and not her brother? It's a question that's raised in Full Moon Rising, and asking it here actually gave me the tie-in for the first scene. If these people knew what she was, then wouldn't it be natural for them to try and snatch her? Use her? As both a specimen--a sample of what they were trying to achieve--and a breeder?

From there, the story just jumped forward. I guess if the question that sparked the flow of ideas in Full Moon Rising was, 'what if', then the question for Kissing Sin would have to be 'what would you do?"

What would you do if you found yourself naked and alone in the night, a dead man laying beside you with his throat ripped out? What would you do if you knew the people who had kidnapped you were going to come after you again, and again, and again? And what if these same people where threatening the very dreams that had kept you going through a lonely and hard childhood?

Would you run? Hide? Or would you stand up and fight back?

For Riley, there was only ever one answer