Goodreads asked Paula Shablo:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Paula Shablo My latest book, Emma: Ancestor's Tales, was the product of an overactive imagination while doing family history research. The more information I discovered, the more questions I had. Then I would embark on a more in-depth search, hoping for answers: was there one child who died in the crossing from England to Boston, or were there really two? How many battles were there in New Mexico? What does our ancestry mean to us? And the one thing that kept leaping into my mind was this: I wish it was possible to just ask them!

My desire to communicate with my own ancestors led to the character, Emma, who is able to do exactly that. Of course, being the touchstone in the living world for many who have gone before her is not all sunshine and roses; communication with beings unseen by others is bound to lead to some complications.

Nevertheless, the desire to ask a few questions of my own remains with me, and writing Emma's stories has only made it more maddening for me, since the spirits who taunt me from time to time with phantom perfumes and slamming doors still refuse to answer any questions, or even bother to speak to me at all.

Dang!

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