Goodreads asked Michael Phillip Cash:

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

Michael Phillip Cash I love the history of Long Island. I had been to the little town of Cold Spring Harbor to visit the Whaling Museum recently and I thought about the type of people who worked in the whaling industry. The church had been turned into a small museum about the history of the area, and an idea started forming.Eli was fleshed out as I looked at the portraits of the Jones brothers who started the whaling industry. I purchased a bunch of books in the gift shop, read them, and the whole backstory took shape. I had my ghost, he started out as a crusty, menacing sea captain who was going to terrorize a single mother and her child. I chose a single mom because Stillwell was a story about a man who lost his wife to cancer, The Flip was about a marriage in crisis, so I wanted to touch on divorce and abuse. Only Olivia and Captain Eli had other plans. As I wrote it, the tables turned on my ghost and he became the one terrorized by the humans. I wanted Remy to feel that she was really in control of her life and not the victim she started out to be.

flag