In this week’s blog post I’m trying something a little different.

My domestic suspense/thriller, When Love Won’t Die debuted in 2014 with Splice Publishing. It’s the story of a woman desperate to keep her past a secret and how obsession fuels the nightmare she is about to endure.

My protagonist is Eleanor Bennett, a suspense author living an idyllic life writing novels and living in the country in a big Victorian house with her successful lawyer husband.

My antagonist is Mel Hanson, an angry, abusive man whose birth mother left him in a dumpster when he was just a few weeks old.

So what is their connection?

Eleanor, whose real name is Charlotte, escaped her abusive relationship with Mel years ago. She changed her identity, moved somewhere no one knew her, and started a different life, always looking over her shoulder.

Furious that she left him, Mel obsesses over their relationship and will stop at nothing to reunite with her.

So how did they come together in the first place?

Here’s an extra scene of backstory that didn’t make it into the book:

Mel tore the covers from the bed and threw them about the room, all the while calling her stupid and incompetent. She tried so hard not to cry, but tonight she didn’t have the strength after another week of his constant berating. Mel taunted her about being weak, only eliciting a fresh batch of tears to which he had responded, “I’ll give you something to cry about!”

Charlotte knew she shouldn’t have begged him not to hurt her. As usual, it fell on deaf ears. Tonight, Mel’s wild-eyed stare shook through her tired, sore body until she couldn’t control the trembling. He beat her for close to an hour. Every time she tried to get up, he knocked her down again.

Lying in bed next to him, she couldn’t control the tears that escaped down her cheeks and onto her pillowcase. Charlotte swallowed. She didn’t know what she was going to do but she knew she had to do something before he really did kill her, as he had threatened many times.

Charlotte closed her eyes, trying to force her thoughts to anything else. After several minutes, she managed to settle on memories of her childhood, what little she could remember. Visions of a scene with her mother at the park, her playing on the swings. Her dad had walked the short block to the park after work to meet them for a picnic. She could almost smell the fresh air and hear the other children’s laughter. Almost.

But Charlotte’s beautiful memory soon faded away, replaced with the next memory of the police coming to her house and her babysitter waking her up out of a deep sleep. Her parents had been killed in a hit and run accident. She had been taken from her house, still in her pajamas. The heaviness of the next few days, strangers packing up her little belongings before being shipped to an aunt she had never met, all the week before her eighth birthday. Charlotte’s tears flowed more freely, and she covered her mouth for fear she would sob out loud and wake up Mel.

Tension tugged all along her body. She shuddered at the thought of the man sleeping beside her. How could she have been so fooled by him? When her aunt passed away right before her seventeenth birthday, Charlotte was so thankful to have her aunt’s tenant Mel by her side, helping her. When he proposed and offered to look after her for the rest of her life, Charlotte felt like she was finally home again. How quickly those feelings had faded. The first month or two had been fine but Charlotte had sensed a difference in Mel almost immediately. The beatings had started exactly three months to the day they had gotten married and they were escalating at a rapid pace.

Mel stirred and Charlotte swiped at her face. She held her breath as he rolled over. Dare she look to see if he was awake? He would be angry if he knew she was crying again. He hated any signs of weakness. The sound of his regular, even breathing assured Charlotte that he was still asleep, and she inhaled, realizing she had been holding her breath.

Does this type of blog post interest you? Would you like to see more *extras* from this book and my two books coming out in 2027? Let me know in the comments.