Love, Loss and Statham

Every book I write begins the same way.

It's late. The house is quiet. I climb into bed, close my eyes and tell myself it's time to sleep. Instead, that's usually the moment my imagination decides the day is only just beginning.

The stories that begin in my head often grow from something I've seen, read or experienced during the day. The scenes play out like a film in my mind, and all I can do is watch. I don't try to control them. I simply let them unfold.

That's exactly how Love, Loss and Statham was born.

For days, the movie continued to unfold in my mind. Every evening another scene appeared before I drifted off to sleep. Somewhere along the way, I stopped watching Catherine from the outside. I stepped into her world and experienced everything through her eyes. I walked through the offices of Revenir, made the decisions she had to make and carried the weight she carried. For those moments, I wasn't writing a character. I was living her story.

I wanted to know what kept her awake at night. What she was fighting for. What had shaped her into the woman she had become.

Erik had already taken shape in my mind. As always, I instantly knew his name and exactly what he looked like. It still amazes me how effortlessly those details seem to appear. I suppose that's one of the advantages of thinking in pictures.

From the moment Catherine and Erik shared their first conversation, something shifted. Their chemistry grew naturally, one conversation at a time, exactly the way real relationships often do.

And then the writing proces starts

That's when you'll usually find me curled up on the sofa with my laptop on my knees, a cup of tea within reach, trying to capture every scene before the next one begins. Writing never feels like inventing a story from scratch. It feels much more like translating a film that's already playing in my imagination into words that other people can experience too.

People often ask whether I know exactly how a book will end before I begin writing.

The honest answer is that I rarely do.

I know my characters. By the time I start writing, I know who they are, what they long for, what they're afraid of and what they would sacrifice for the people they love.

Once I understand those things, the story begins to reveal itself. Every chapter becomes another step in discovering where those characters are meant to go. Every chapter becomes another step in discovering where those characters are meant to go.

That's what I love most about writing.

Long before anyone else reads one of my books, I've already lived the story myself, one quiet evening at a time.

And it all begins in exactly the same place.

Just before I fall asleep.

I thought their story was finished

When I finished Love, Loss and Statham, I genuinely believed Catherine and Erik had told me everything they wanted to say.

I closed my laptop, let the manuscript rest for a while and moved on to other projects.

Or at least, I tried to.

A few months later, the movie started playing again.

Familiar faces returned. Then someone I hadn't been expecting quietly stepped into the story. His name was Juliano.

The moment I saw him, I knew Catherine and Erik's journey wasn't over after all. Their world had grown larger than I had ever imagined, and new relationships, old rivalries and unexpected challenges were waiting to unfold.

I'm currently writing the second book in the series, and although I have a much clearer idea of where this story is heading than I did with the first book, experience has taught me not to trust that feeling completely.

My characters have a habit of surprising me.

Somehow, they always know the story before I do.

Meet Erik Statham