People always ask me about the inspiration for my stories, and I always answer that it comes from everyday life, from the people I meet and the places I go. My books to date have been mostly Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance. I love the idea of a ‘what if’ world. A world of magic and of things that go beyond what we can see and comprehend. I also love to laugh. Humor to me is the most powerful aphrodisiac around. I love to find humor in almost everything, even when life gets heavy. It’s the reason I try to make my readers laugh, even when my stories get dark.

With Hollow’s End the inspiration was a bit different. I still love the whole idea of ‘what if’, but in this case the question of what if came after the actual historic fact. The inspiration for Hollow’s End came from the story of Cornelius and Elizabeth Van Tassell. Cornelius was an American patriot fighting against the British during the Revolutionary War. At that time in 1777, tensions were high, and the American forces were starting to become a thorn in then Governor Tryon’s side. He gave the order to “Burn the Tarrytowns” and that included the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow. The Van Tassell home and lands were on the list to be burned, and Cornelius captured as a prisoner of war. On the night of November 17, 1777, one of the coldest of the year, the burning occurred at the hands of a hessian commander by the name of Andreas Emmerich. He was so vicious in his command, that he burned the house with the Van Tassell’s two year old daughter, Leah, still inside. As Elizabeth Van Tassel cried for her daughter, her husband Cornelius was dragged away as a prisoner of war tied to the back of one of his cattle. BUT, a soldier in Emmerich’s command, also a hessian, broke rank and rescued the child, reuniting her with her mother and bringing the two to safety in a root cellar to await help. Town legend then takes the story further, that when this same soldier was later killed, decapitated in a skirmish, the Van Tassells had him buried in a clandestine Christian burial and interred in an unmarked grave in the Old Dutch Burial ground. It was to repay kindness with kindness, but with the soldier being a mercenary on the side of the British, they couldn’t bury him outright in a patriot strong hold such as the Old Dutch Church.

THAT, my readers and friends, is the inspiration for Hollow’s End. A wronged spirit in the graveyard, dishonored for centuries as being a harbinger of horror as the headless horseman…