It’s always fun to take a peek at the behind-the-scenes creation of a book and a peek at the research too!

Story Inspiration

The story spark for this story came from a variety of places. The political/judicial corruption and city rioting came from an event in 1884 that I discovered while researching Counterfeit Love. Two men were responsible for the violent death of their employer, William Berner and Joe Palmer. William Berner had connections, while Joe was a black man. Berner received a conviction of manslaughter with a maximum 20-year sentence, while his partner received a murder conviction and death sentence. The city felt someone had bought the jury in Berner’s favor and rioted. In the end, fifty-four men died, an estimated two hundred were wounded, and Berner escaped safely to the State Penitentiary to serve eleven years of his twenty-year sentence before being released for good behavior.

A Bit About Dime Novels

Dime novels were the first novel type to make books and reading available to the common man. On a wage of $5 to $8 a week, traditional books that cost $2 to $3 were cost-prohibitive to anyone below the middle class. Dime novels were cheaply printed, much smaller in length and size, and cost only a nickel to twenty-five cents.

In addition to being cheap, dime novels were the precursor to genre fiction. Searching for crime, suspense, mystery, romance, thrillers, westerns, etc? Thank Dime Novels. These stories became wildly popular and spurred other variations and genres. Are you a fan of subscription fiction services like Love Inspired or Guidepost? Yep, dime novels were their start.

Personal Behind-the-Scenes Facts

I wrote this story during one of my life’s most challenging caregiving seasons. Generally, a novel takes me about 6 months to draft, with another month or two for self-editing. However, due to lots of stops and starts as I dealt with multiple significant health crises for my mother-in-law (including a broken neck), this book took 14 months to draft, and I had to squeeze edits down to two weeks. This book was such a disjointed mess that I never thought it would come together, but by God’s grace and mercy (and a fantastic editing team), it is the book you read now.

Writing a “spin-off” series from Counterfeit Love brought challenges I hadn’t expected. In the first draft, the characters didn’t closely enough resemble their portrayal in Counterfeit Love, so I had to do some serious reworking of characters–especially Abraham Hall and Dr. Pelton. Although I swore I would never reread one of my books once published, I did indeed have to reread Counterfeit Love. I created a detailed document of information from Counterfeit Love that had to be kept the same in Written in Secret. Even more challenging, the characters had to stay similar to what they were in Counterfeit Love while being different enough to show how they grew between 1880 and 1884.

Each “Guardian” has flavors of my core group of girls and critique partners, The Mayhemmers. I am the one most like Theresa, Liz the one most like Lydia, Angela the most like Nora, and Voni the most like Flossie. However, each character is still their own person and not directly based on a Mayhemmer.

Written in Secret by Crystal Caudill

In the heart of nineteenth-century Cincinnati one woman holds the power to rewrite history.

What happens when fiction becomes reality? In the corruption-infested Queen City, danger lurks in every shadow, but Lydia Pelton refuses to stay silent. She writes under a pseudonym, E. A. Dupin, crafting crime novels to exact justice and right the wrongs she sees in society. When a serial killer decides to be the sword to her pen, Lydia is confronted with the consequences of her words. Four men are dead, and the city blames her.

With murders on the rise, Officer Abraham Hall’s only lead is Lydia’s fiction, and he is thrust into an investigation with the “Killer Queen of Romance.” Despite his misgivings about the woman, he realizes that even with his reputation for catching elusive criminals, he needs her help. But his unexpected attraction to Lydia proves as difficult to manage as the woman herself.

As the mystery unfolds, Abraham and Lydia race to rewrite the ending, not only for Cincinnati’s citizens, but for their own hearts too.

Purchase Links:  Amazon  |  Apple Books  |  Baker Book House  |  Barnes & Noble |  Books-A-Million  | Christianbook  |  IndieBound  | Kobo  |  Kregel Parable Christian Book Store

Month-Long Blog Giveaway #1

Help me celebrate the release of Written in Secret and get the word out about the new series. From March 4 to April 1, this giveaway will be open to those legally allowed to enter both domestically and internationally. International winners will be given a prize of equal value as shipping costs are prohibitive. See my giveaway policies for more details.

Prize: homemade book cozy, fuzzy socks, journal, reader mug mat, bookmarks, stickers, tea, and chapstick.

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Month-Long Giveaway #2

Already have the book?? This giveaway is for you. Somewhere in the first fifty pages of Written in Secret is the answer to “What attacked Lydia and Abraham inside the circus tent?” Fill out the below Google Form to be entered for your chance to win a $25 gift card to Amazon or Baker Book House. The giveaway runs until April 11, 2024. The winner will be selected the week of April 12 and notified by email.

Enter Here

What is something you’d like to know about my research or behind the scenes that maybe I didn’t answer?