Missteps Perfecting the Shutterbug Strut

Q. What inspired you to write this book? Was there a particular moment or event that sparked the idea?

Ans. I was a big Indiana Jones fan in my youth and always thought a female spinoff would have been special. As part of a family vacation in 2017, I traveled to the Ecuadorian Amazon along the Napo River. Our lodge had a pool, and while teaching my then three-year-old daughter, Alexandra, to swim, I quipped, "At least Alee will be able to honestly say she learned to swim in the Amazon jungle." I thought it would make a good opening line for a book. Six months later while in Costa Rica--teaching my daughter to swim again with howler monkeys in the trees above--it hit me: the character will be a photographer in the 1920s and the book will start in Papua (I still don't know where the Papua angle came from). I went to work on this novel upon return to the States.

Q. What research did you undertake to write this book? Were there any surprising or unexpected findings that you discovered during your research?

Ans. I am a serious history buff and the 1920s have always been of great interest: the dichotomy between its "Wonderful Nonsense" while the world healed from the devastations of the First World War and Spanish flu pandemic. The fashion style, Jazz Age music, lingo... all of it. While this novel is quite humorous, the transportive elements to take the reader to the fading years of the Roaring Twenties are well-researched (right down to the breakfast menu items in some of the mentioned hotels). Historical events like the St. Moritz Winter Olympics, Coronation of King Zog of Albania, the excavation of Tel Megiddo, are featured with the undertone of jazz, Prohibition, and the overall ethos of the era front and center. I actually needed to purchase George Dyott's book on the Fawcett Relief Expedition into uncharted Amazonia, written in 1930, to gain insight into that event, as little else is written about it. This research proved enjoyable and paid big dividends.

Q. What was the biggest challenge you faced while writing this book? How did you overcome it?

Ans. Combatting the formulaic genre preferences of literary agents. This novel is what I label "An offbeat historical adventure with supernatural undertones." While often lighthearted, it has moments of great peril and unsettling circumstances. Life is like that. History is like that. Books should be like that.

Q. How did you go about developing the characters in the book? Were any of them based on real people or events?

Ans. My heroine, Alexandra Bathenbrook, is a composite of so many screen personalities: Adele Blanc-Sec, Lady Mary Crawley, Katharine Hepburn's character in Bringing Up Baby, and so many others. Secondary characters also had their inspirations, but this novel is fueled and focused on Alexandra: witty, mistake-prone, adventurous, and haunted as she is.

Q. Can you share any interesting anecdotes or stories related to the writing of this book?

Ans. Historical fiction is meant to be transportive to the places and events of a particular time. Among such settings are people, both unsung and renowned. I sprinkled in encounters with the famous, soon to be famous, and underappreciated real-life characters based on their proximity or involvement in the stories plotline travels. Some fell in place beautifully: Archibald Leach (aka Cary Grant) being in New York, a young girl (soon to be known as Mother Teresa) setting off to become a nun, a famous author traveling incognito on the Orient Express, Salvador Dali in Paris--all in the exact timeline and locations Alexandra is involved in her escapades. These findings just fell into my lap during the research phase.