Goodreads asked Marissa Harrison:

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

Marissa Harrison The moment that planted the seed for the idea behind my first book occurred during a lazy night of watching Netflix. My husband and I had started getting into documentaries about the eighties, and I was feeling very nostalgic about my childhood. We decided to watch old episodes of Saturday Night Live. One of the episodes skipped past the musical performance, and showed only the band after they'd finished. That band was Nirvana. Something went off in my brain. There was something about Kurt Cobain, the way he stood there so uncaring and nonchalant, and I said to my husband, "I want to watch a documentary about him. I want to know everything about him." And so began my obsession with Grunge and Seattle in the 1980s.

As I was researching, I started reading a lot of true crime, and stumbled upon a book about the Green River Killer. I couldn't believe what I was reading, I couldn't wrap my head around the number of young girls whose lives were cut short by the brutality of one man. The more I read, the more I wanted to remember those girls. They were the people who mattered to me. I wanted to know everything about them, and what brought them to a life on the streets. I think a lot of crime stories focus on the who done it, but I found myself wanting to know more about the victims.

So there I was, obsessed with the music of bands like Alice In Chains and Nirvana and Mudhoney and Soundgarden. I was struck by the story of teenage prostitutes working in Pike Place Market. And I saw there was a commonality in both worlds, a disease called addiction. It was a disease that affected my family and has affected countless others. And I decided I wanted to tell a story about loving an addict, the pain it causes and the forgiveness it requires, and how a young woman is forced to learn how to navigate a dangerous world.

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