Here’s an amazing holiday gift for everyone you know and love — Nora Roberts’ newest book, “The Mirror”

December 2024: A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, founder and president, Inkandescent PR + Publishing Co. — What an honor it is to feature #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts in our final cover story of 2024 for Inkandescent.us.

Based on the article that appeared last month in Costco’s Connection magazine, we had the privilege of also doing a Q&A with the prolific writer about her 251st novel, The Mirror, which is book two in the haunting Lost Bride Trilogy.

Here’s the story: When Sonya MacTavish inherits the huge Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine, she has no idea that the house is haunted. The footsteps she hears at night, the doors slamming, the music playing, are not figments of her imagination. In her dreams, she sees glimpses of the past. In the present, she finds portraits of brides. And when she has visions of an antique mirror, she is drawn to it, sensing it holds dark family secrets. Then, one night, the mirror appears, and Sonya glides through this looking glass into the past—and sees a bride murdered on her wedding day, the circle of gold torn from her finger. It is a scene that will play out again and again—a centuries-old curse that must be broken—and a puzzle she must solve if there is any hope of breaking the curse.

This holiday season, click here to buy the book for yourself and your friends and family.

Scroll down for our Q&A.

And be sure to check out our article in the November issue of the Costco Connection.

Bestselling author Nora Roberts, photo by Bruce Wilder

Hope: Tell us about The Mirror and what inspired this story and trilogy.

Nora Roberts: Inspiration’s much too fickle to depend on in my world. Instead of waiting for that to strike, I depend on What If. The Lost Bride Trilogy grew from What If I wrote about a haunted house? Then, there are questions to ask and answer. Who haunts it and why? Who lives there, and why? Where is it? What does it look like? More what-ifs follow as I’m building the basic premise, building characters — in this case, the living and the dead. That’s my process.

The Mirror is the middle book of The Lost Bride Trilogy, and as such picks up where the first book, The Inheritance, left off. To tell a full story while continuing the thread that must weave through all three books, I go right back to the what-ifs.

Hope: You have written 251 novels novels?  What do you credit for your prolific career? 

Nora Roberts: It definitely helps to love your job, and I do. I feel I have the best job in the world. It’s hard work, but it wouldn’t be rewarding otherwise. While I love it, I treat it like a job. I write every day and sit at the keyboard for six to eight hours five days a week. Early on in my career, I learned the job I’d chosen required discipline, drive, and desire. You need to sit your butt down, put your fingers on that keyboard, put your mind into the story, and want, deeply, to tell the best story you can at that time. I’ve tried to do that with every book.

Hope: What are the hallmarks of a Nora Roberts novel?

Nora Roberts: You’re probably better off asking readers that question. And I expect you might get a dozen different answers if you asked a dozen. Reading is so subjective, and what one reader loves another may not. I go back to the previous answer. I really try to write the best story I can each and every time. I hope, as it’s important to me as a writer and as a reader, I’ve created strong, interesting characters. Whatever the plot, it’s not going to hold my interest–as a writer or as a reader–if I don’t care about the people inside it.

Hope: Is there one book you are best known for? If so, which one and why?

Nora Roberts: This is definitely a reader question, with as many answers as readers and reasons for those answers.

Hope: What’s next for you?

Nora Roberts: The next book, and all those what-ifs that launch it.

Hope: You have a romantic inn in Boonsboro, Maryland: innboonsboro.com. What’s your favorite part of being a business owner, and how is it different from being a bestselling author?

Nora Roberts: Again, it wasn’t inspiration but more like love. Both my sons went to school in Boonsboro. My husband and I opened Turn The Page Bookstore on Main Street in Boonsboro. Whenever I’d drive into town, I’d see this old, sad, beautiful building on The Square, with its two-story porches sagging, with a tree growing out of the gutter, broken windows. And oh, that beautiful old stone and brick, that faded dignity.

And because it’s my wiring, I thought: What if? What if we could restore it, bring it back to life? It had once been an inn, why couldn’t it be an inn again — somewhere to stay in Boonsboro, a charming town near Antietam, just off the Appalachian Trail? More than stone and brick, it was history, and we wanted to honor that history while offering visitors a warm and welcoming place to stay.

For me, the best parts of being a business owner are bringing old buildings back to life, giving them a purpose, providing people with jobs in a good work environment, and adding something meaningful to a town I’m very fond of. By the way, Inn Boonsboro is haunted, but the ghosts who walk there are very benign. We even have a ghost cat.

Writing is solitary, and for me, that’s a big plus. It’s just me and the story, the people in it. Owning businesses means teamwork, constantly! And trusting your team.