In the past, I have used imaginary West Virginia towns as settings for my novels. This time, I used my own hometown of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, located on the point where the Kanawha and the Ohio rivers meet For fictional purposes, I enlarged the population and created a few sites that do not exist here, including Photo Finish, Heaven’s Door, and most important, the haunting hotel, La Belle Rivière.
Sometimes, though, when I’m driving north at night along the Ohio River, I look up, and, through the fog, I could almost swear I see a graceful, ephemeral shape that strongly resembles a beautiful white Georgian hotel hovering slightly above the ground like a palace in a dream.