Origin Story

I love hearing from my favorite authors about where their books came from, the stories of when the idea for the book came to them in a flash, or the long, laborious process by which they knitted together seemingly disparate plot threads and themes to form a coherent whole. I thought it would be fun to share with you a bit of the origin story of A Distant Grave.

In 2019, I spent about a week in West Cork, Ireland researching the follow-up to The Mountains Wild. The trip was fantastic. I stayed in Clonakilty for a few days and in Glengarriff for another few and from these two home-bases, I explored the peninsulas, towns, and villages of this most bewitching region of the country. It was the off-season, so I was able to experience it the way residents do, without traffic and with views uncluttered by my fellow tourists to the sea and the mountains. I got everything I needed for the book and went home to start writing.

I knew I had a good story — and a good investigation — for my main character, Maggie, but as I worked on the draft, a little voice inside my head kept saying, She wouldn't just leave Long Island. She wouldn't do it without a really good reason. Maggie is a homicide detective. It's who she is. Other than her daughter, her job is the most important thing in the world to her.

I realized that the book I thought was the second book in the series was actually the third book in the series and that in between, I needed to show Maggie in her element as a detective and in her community on Long Island. I knew that something monumental needed to happen to prompt Maggie to leave Long Island and I wanted to show her at the height of her powers, solving a case that seemed impossible to solve. A Distant Grave is about that monumental thing. When an unidentified murder victim is found in a wealthy beach community, Maggie starts to peel away the layers of his identity, his work, and the secrets that led to his murder.

I'm glad I listened to that little voice and I'm so excited for you all to read Maggie's third (formerly second!) adventure, set in West Cork, which will be out next year.