Goodreads asked M.M. Justus:

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

M.M. Justus From a throwaway line in the first book in the series. One character happened to mention another character who showed up and left before the book began, and I wondered who she was. Then a friend of that character decided it was her story to tell instead, and I was off.

I got the idea for the series in general from a trip I took to the Okanogan Country of Washington state a couple of years ago. I promptly fell in love with the real town of Conconully in particular and the whole region in general and decided to write a book set there. The Okanogan Country has some nifty place names, a fascinating history, and beautiful scenery, among many other good things. Turns out that Conconully has more than one book in it, too.

A sense of place is very important to my writing. My first series was set in part in Yellowstone National Park (the cover in the icon is from the first book in that series), and I spent many happy days in the park archives and those of the Montana Historical Society getting the details right, not to mention tramping around the park and watching time travel devices, er, geysers erupt.

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