Last week I attended my sixth Wild Deadwood Reads event, and I’m already looking forward to next year’s. Nestled in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, just a stones-throw from the Badlands and other national parks and monuments, Deadwood, is rich with history.

Every year I meet someone new, sit through a talk that teaches me something even when I’m sure I know it all already. This year I attended “Building Stories That Make People Feel and Remember: Tips and Tricks for Layering Emotions for Impact” by Beth A. Freely. It wasn’t only an interesting topic, but I walked out anxious to dive deep into my next book.

“Where Flowers Bloom” is a sequel to my 2025 release, “Under The Endless Sky”, so I was going into the project thinking it would be a quick and easy write. After all, my lead characters are a holdover from the previous book, so I’ve already done all the research and fleshed them out. Was I wrong! While Freya Bergen played a substantial role in the first book, she was only a secondary character. I had no reason to go to such depths to understand her motivations. Her why wasn’t relative to Hannah Becker’s story. That’s not true anymore. Not if I want her story to be at all interesting. Not if I want my readers to care enough about her to keep reading and then recommend my book to others.

After the talk was over, I rushed up to my room, pulled out the blank book I’d purchased at The Hole In The Wall Bookstore in Wall Drug. (I highly recommend. It’s right across the highway from the entrance to the Badlands.) There, I sat and wrote pages of notes delving into Freya’s backstory. How it shaped her as a grown woman who now finds herself living alone on the South Dakota prairie. Thanks to the spark Beth Freely lit in my brain, this book is going to be much more interesting, starting with the first page.

At the signing on Saturday, I found my assigned table to be next to hers. We were able to talk on a more personal level during lulls in the event and at the end we swapped books. I can only hope she enjoys “Cassie” half as much as I’m enjoying “Behind the Eyes of Dorian Gray”.