Footprints in the Sand - Villain is Taking Shape

With Footprints in the Sand, the main characters are fleshed out from Lilah and the Locket - so I need to focus on the area of the Outer Banks where most of the action will take place. I also wanted to get my head around the villain and figuring out the "who", "what", "when", "why" and "how" of the crime.

I like this clipart - so I used it, but I'm not ready to reveal whether the villain is a man or a woman. Actually, you won't know that answer until you read the book :)

I got all that under control yesterday and even determined where the crime will take place along the Outer Banks. I had about 200 miles of coast to work with - but I wanted to use a section where I had details about the storm - so it will be near Whalebone Junction.


This is an aerial shot of the Outer Banks. That little narrow white strip on the picture in the land known as the Outer Banks. the green/blue to the right is the Atlantic Ocean and the green/brown area to the left of that strip is Pamlico Sound -- lots of water and so, you may understand why I'll write the story around a time when one of the worst storms of the century hit the area.

One of my goals is to have the reader feel that they were in the storm on Ash Wednesday 1962. This nor'easter hit the east coast and stalled for over 2 days. That time of the year is the spring solstice, so the tide is higher than normal, there was a new mooon - so the tide was even higher than normal --- add to that, three weather events that created a storm that sat on the coast for over 2 days and 5 tides cycles and you have high winds and a lot of water. Now, add to that a horrible crime the evening before this unexpected storm hits to coast - and I hope to reel you into this story.

Fan favorites, Kristie, Nathan and Lilah will be back. i got a number of comments from readers that they wanted to see Kristie and Nathan get together. In Footprints in the Sand, Nathan and Kristie are married and expecting their first child.

More soon...

Nikki Leigh

Sequel to Lilah and the Locket

For a year and a half, I've been thinking about a sequel to Lilah and the Locket. For people who are familiar with the book - the three main characters, a man, a woman and a dog - are all based on real people and a dog :) So, to write a sequel, I needed their approval to include them in a story. February 2008, Kristie and Nathan (the real Kristie and Nathan) became the proud parents of Walker.

A couple of months before Walker was born, I was speaking with Kristie on the phone - her parents were in town and wanted to get copies of Lilah and the Locket from me. During the call Nathan mentioned in the background, that we need a book that includes Walker. That was the opening I needed - so I emailed a release to Kristie and in the back of my mind I was thinking about possibilities for the book.

But, first I had to finish a book I started in November 2007. That book - Book Promo 201: Learn to Promote on the Internet and With Web 2.0 - is finished and in the hands of my publisher. Now, I can start working on the next Lilah book - the tentative title is Footprints in the Sand and take place around the time of the Ash Wednesday Storm on the Outer Banks.



Footprints in the Sand will be a crime novel set on the Outer Banks and Kristie will be pregnant. I'm not ready to divulge any more details at the moment, but to get a very real sense of the storm that will be in this book - I highly recommend The Ash Wednesday Storm by David Stick.

This picture is in the specific area where I plan to focus a good amount of the book - you will learn more about that later :)

These pictures are from the book - which shows pictures during the storm and 25 years later. The pictures that were taken in the same locations 25 years later show how much the area changed and in some cases - how little has changed. These pictures are also featured on this website - http://www.gresham-photography.com/book.html