I wrote Bound by the Nexus from a place in my life where I didn’t know how to make the changes needed to survive. I had already spent two years post-widowhood trying all sorts of new doors and seeking all sorts of opportunities. Not for lack of trying, none of those doors ever panned out. Nothing just worked, nothing saved me from making harder and harder choices, nothing actually got better, and nothing took the pain away.
Because it wasn’t just losing my best friend; it was slowly losing everything we built together just to create something I could carry alone. It was the loss of our favorite rituals, the great big bear hugs that told me I was never alone in our challenges, and having someone who believed in me no matter what.
So when I was writing Ellis’s introduction to the paranormal world, I wasn’t thinking of dazzling the reader with a million new details. I was thinking of how I would react if the reality I was stuck in simply dissolved and I didn’t have a choice but to follow the path that actually existed. Because for me, the wish-fulfillment of this novel wasn’t the relationship—it wasn’t really Brennan, no matter how fun he is to write. It was having a direction, even if you don’t fully understand it yet. Because movement forward is better than staying stuck in that tiny rented bedroom, which to me was a slow death and not really survival.
Ellis was past the grief stages of bargaining and denial. But she was still wrestling with anger at the universe, depression over the loss, and ultimately, the heavy acceptance that only she could change her circumstances if she so chose. Or if she found a direction that actually panned out. So I forced her into a direction that had to pan out, even if it meant stripping everything she thought she knew away, even further. A clean-slate situation, even if she wasn’t quite ready to stop carrying the baggage of her loss yet.
In the end, Ellis didn’t need a savior. She just needed a way out of the dark. And sometimes, stepping into the unknown isn't about losing your past—it's about finally giving yourself permission to have a future.
