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When I wrote The Hazard of Hearts in 2020, I incorporated a sly character, a novelist, sister to the atrocious doctor, by name of Miss Beale. I listed six titles that Miss Beale had written. All had either a gothic tone or a touch of mysterious history. Then I proceeded to close out the Hearts in Hazard series and look for other things.
Yet those titles haunted me. I should have anticipated that they would. The Dark Lord. The Captive in Green. The Prisoner of Stone. How could those titles fail to haunt someone? My bird-flitting mind proceeded to hatch story ideas for each of the titles even though I had other writing to seize my concentration.
The Dark Lord clamored to be next. I was even a third of the way into a different novella for my fantasy pen name. Then I walked to my desk, and when I looked up, I had 3,000 wonderful words that I never intended to write. And my hand cramped from holding the pen.
Last Christmas, I had a dozen different tasks that had to be completed, yet The Dark Lord continued to haunt me. And The Captive in Green began to demand her own story. Why am I surprised at this turn of events?
Herewith, The Dark Lord. The other novellas in the Miss Beale Writes series will gradually trickle out. Each will be a suspenseful stand-alone, some with touches of the gothic, all with a mysterious recurring character—for that is the taste of the character of Miss Beale.
Enjoy!
~ M.