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Morgan O’Neill | Tripping Through Time
Author Guest / January 7, 2015

Did you ever wonder how authors get inspiration for scenes in their novels? We, co-authors Cary Morgan Frates and Deborah O’Neill Cordes, have used our actual experiences and things that happened to our family members, some of which occurred well before we were born. This became fodder for scenes in THE THORNLESS ROSE, An Elizabethan Time Travel Novel. What time trippy fun! One incident was passed down in Deborah’s family. On a wintry day in the 1930s, her maternal grandfather came home with something hidden beneath his coat, a bulge in his breast pocket. Everyone assumed it was a bottle of “good cheer,” until it started to wiggle. Out popped the head of a dachshund puppy! Deborah’s uncle, then a little boy, promptly called the pup Whiskey. The name stuck, and Whiskey became a beloved family member. Deborah incorporated some of this story into THE THORNLESS ROSE, in the scene where Dr. Jonathan Brandon gives a Christmas gift to his fiancée, Catherine, just before he vanishes. The amusing incident takes on poignancy as time goes on and Jonathan doesn’t return, for Catherine realizes the dog was his last gift to her. And Cary recalls a visit to a wonderful pub…