FINALLY DONE

It took a lot longer to produce UNCOVERED, the sequel, than it did to finish UNCHARTED, mostly because of changes in my personal life. My husband, Ed Howle, was my muse and writing partner. Unfortunately, he developed Parkinson’s Disease and I became his caregiver as he declined. No one tells you how time and energy-consuming it is for the caregiver. I couldn’t escape into the world that Kat and Carter lived in, and I could hardly sequence my thoughts to get through my reality days. After he died in 2023, it took me a long time to get to the point I could focus again on writing again.

The idea for UNCOVERED came from an article I happened to read in a Miami newspaper that described a raid on a suspected neo-Nazi cell. One of the persons arrested was a man with dual citizenship, U.S. and the Bahamian. Bingo! A what-if idea began to form. What if this person wasn’t taken into custody, but escaped to the Bahamas with the intent of setting up a neo-Nazi cell there? How would this affect the lives of Bahamians and impact tourism?

I must add, for me, writing the sequel was harder than writing the first novel. I wanted to make sure it could be read as a stand-alone, which meant I had to include at least some of the backstory for both Kat and Carter, while not boring anyone who had read UNCHARTED. That was quite a task. I read a lot of authors who had done this to see how others managed the problem. I hope I hit the right medium.

From that point, the story emerged. It was a natural pursuit for Kat and Carter, since at the end of UNCHARTED she becomes the Minister of Tourism for the Bahamas.