The Bond release is officially less than a month away. It’s exciting, terrifying, and lovely in equal measure. I’ve been writing this book for over a decade (and also the two books that follow in The Bond trilogy). These characters and creatures have had full lives in my head. Now, they are about to be loosed in the world!
While updating my website, I realized that the writing of The Bond goes back to my childhood, when I used 
sheets of steno paper to draw horses for my stable. I had dozens of them, of all colors and ages. All of them had romantic or funny or inventive names (lots of weather names like Thunder or Storm). I’d shuffle them and create stories between several horses, entertaining myself for hours. I also rode (that’s me jumping on Smoky).
I wish I knew what happened to those sheets! I imagine that when I became a middle schooler, such things embarrassed me. My parents divorced when I was in high school, and much of that memorabilia was tossed.
I just updated my website and was writing about this and other influences to the novel. I can pick out many moments in my life that have joined to form the weave and weft to this story. The landscape of the Andes, so much a part of my world; my love of animals; and even the central drama of the book, how people can come to believe that other people must be eliminated for the good of all. As someone who has also worked in and written about human rights, this will always be an element of human behavior I struggle to understand.
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