Fun Notes About The Casanova Code

SERENDIPITY

While writing CASANOVA CODE,  I sort of plotted myself into a corner.  I needed to come up with a reason for my heroine to want to get back into a secret chamber that contained Japanese erotica.  About that time, my husband invited me to go along on a trip to an animal shelter.  We were contemplating getting a new puppy to add to our household.  We didn’t find a puppy at this particular shelter but as we were leaving, my husband asked if I wanted to look at the kittens.  Now I always thought my husband was allergic to kittens – and after 38+ years of marriage – I thought I knew him pretty well.  He said, “I don’t know.  I’ve never had a kitten.”  So I replied, “Then I suppose it’s about time that you did.”

We came home with a little black kitten that we called Shadow.  Shadow proved to be an adventurous little devil.  She was into everything, nothing was safe from her batting paws…which inspired a solution to my plotting problem.  Hence, Isabella was born into the story.  Isabella is the heroine’s kitten named after the famous explorer, Isabella Bird.  

Alas, Shadow slipped from our life as quickly as she had entered.  We only had her about two or three months when she escaped out a door unbeknownst to us.  It was summer and I guess the temptation to explore outside was just to great.  She’d done this once or twice before, but we always found her and she always trotted back to the house when I shook the treat bag.  Not this time.  I think the neighbor’s dogs got her, but I’ll never really know.  My husband brought home a new black kitten, Cocoa, who has been with us for four months now.  She’s less adventurous than Shadow and is skittish about people.  She’s far more content to stay home, but Shadow will never be forgotten.  She lives on in Isabella.

ASHTON’S INSPIRATION

If Ashton Trewelyn seems somewhat familiar, you might consider how closely he resembles Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men.  I’ve always liked that show.  Playboy Charlie Harper is hardly hero material, but when you consider how he relates to his nephew, he has potential.  Thus when I needed a rake who would place a personal ad as the result of a wager (my initial concept), I looked no further than using Charlie Harper as a model. Granted this was before Charlie Sheen’s public meltdown.