Where did you get the idea for your most... â€� Chris Scully Q&A

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Chris Scully Until September started life (shortly after the US Supreme Court 2013 decision on same sex marriage) as a sweet and fluffy romance about a young man (Ryan) who wants to get married but falls for a guy who does not. It was going to be a battle-of-the-wills-type story, and to some extent that still remains, but as I built the character of Archer, it began to change. From the beginning I knew Archer had to come from a non-traditional background, but I was stuck on the details. In 2014 as I was writing this, Canadian news was filled with stories of missing and murdered indigenous women. It was a political and social awakening of sorts for me. It made me think about how we're shaped by our upbringing, and more specifically, what it would be like to grow up not knowing what had happened to your mother. That's when I decided to make Archer an aboriginal man struggling with his identity. It's not the focus of the novel, but it certainly shapes Archer. From that point on, this became a more serious story about love and loss, the nature of family, and overcoming the obstacles fate puts in our way.

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