hurricanes and haunted houses

BEHIND THE SCENES: DEEP DIVE DIARIES

The Storm Behind Sabrina’s Storm
Some stories come from imagination. Others come from experience. Sabrina’s Storm came from both: the eerie beauty of the North Carolina coast and the unforgettable experience of living through a hurricane as a child.

Before I ever wrote Sabrina Morningstar, before Grant Dalton ever stepped onto the page with his skeptical charm, I knew exactly what a hurricane felt like—its sound, its violence, its aftermath. Those memories shaped every wind-lashed scene in Sabrina’s Storm, and they remain among the most vivid of my life.
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Here is the behind-the-scenes inspiration that breathed realism—and fear—into my coastal romantic suspense.

🌪 My Hurricane Memory: Living Through Hurricane Andrew
I grew up in Louisiana, and in August of 1992, Hurricane Andrew tore through the region with the full force of a Category 3 storm. Even now, decades later, I can still feel the dread of that moment when the world goes strangely quiet… right before the winds begin to roar.

Towering pine trees—ones I thought immovable—bent in wide, unnatural arcs. The wind howled like something alive, a constant unrelenting force pounding the world outside. Part of our barn roof ripped away, the metal screaming as it peeled.

We ran on generator power for three days, rationing fuel and trying to pretend the candlelight was cozy rather than necessary. When the storm finally passed, flooding locked us in place, turning roads into brown churning rivers.

We were well prepared. We were safe. But it was still terrifying. That primal mix of awe and fear—the knowledge that nature can take and break and bend at will—never leaves you. And it became the emotional foundation of Sabrina’s Storm.

🏚 The Setting: A Haunted House on the NC Coast
When I created Sabrina Morningstar, I placed her in a secluded beach house on the North Carolina shoreline—a home rumored to be haunted, a place she chose specifically because no one else wanted it.

Here, she welcomes the solitude, hides from her past, and lets the ocean drown out everything she doesn’t want to remember.

Until Grant Dalton arrives.

Grant is a ghost hunter whose job is to debunk hauntings, not validate them. He comes to Sabrina’s home expecting fog machines and flickering lights. What he finds instead are events even he can’t explain.

And amid their unraveling truths and rising tensions, a hurricane spins toward them—an unstoppable force echoing the one I lived through.

💀 The Poetic Thread: The Mariner’s Albatross
Throughout Sabrina’s Storm, I wove in lines from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the haunting Coleridge poem about sin, fate, and the symbolic albatross.
The poem becomes:

• a chilling echo of Sabrina’s guilt
• a literary rhythm that heightens the atmosphere
• an omen that parallels the approaching storm
• and ultimately, a guide toward redemption

Using those snippets gave the book a poetic eeriness, a lyrical undercurrent beneath the thunder and fear. The albatross haunts the pages as much as any ghost—until the final light begins to break.

🌩 From Real Hurricane to Fictional Storm
Writing Sabrina’s Storm meant returning to that childhood memory of Hurricane Andrew—the fierce winds, the cracking trees, the flashlight-lit nights. It meant imagining what it would be like to face that kind of danger again… only this time with ghosts, trauma, and unexpected love tangled in the tempest.

Sabrina’s storm is literal and emotional. Grant’s storm is existential. And together, they discover that survival requires not only strength but trust. My hope is that readers feel the poetic dread, the rising fear, the electric chemistry, and finally, the relief of sunlight after the longest night.
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If you’ve ever stood on a coastline and felt the wind shift… you know storms can change you. This one certainly changed my characters. And writing it brought me full circle from Louisiana’s hurricane-swept pines to a haunting tale on the NC shore.

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