When I opened Confessions of an Italian Marriage, I needed someone to trigger Freja into running away from the wedding shop. It couldn’t be the hero, Giovanni. He uses a wheelchair so he couldn’t very well chase her down on busy Milan streets. In fact, Giovanni needed someone who drew him into the underworld of espionage and represented the pull that Giovanni still had to that life.
Enter Everett. He was only supposed to hang around for a few key scenes, but he and Giovanni had such a fun dynamic, I wound up making him into hero material. In fact, I broke convention for the epilogue for Confessions. It was in Everett’s point of view!
As soon as it hit the shelves, I began getting inquiries. Would Everett get his own story?
Heck yes. Here it is. But boy was he troublesome to write. Not only was he very mysterious, requiring three heavy rewrites, his heroine Bianca has a very complicated life. Oh, and of course I had to bring Giovanni and Freja onto the page. And my editors had to gently suggest I not write a book about them and maybe stick to Everett and Bianca. (Three rewrites. I wish I was joking.)
But I’m so happy with the result. I hope you will be too!
