Dec. 9, 2024: Bestselling author Nora Roberts Takes Us Through the Looking Glass in her newest tome, “The Mirror”

Monday Morning Magic from Inkandescent® PR + Publishing Co. — It’s always a thrill to get an assignment from my editor at Costco’s magazine. I’ve been writing for amazing Stephanie Ponder for 30 years, and my beat is the author interviews. Often, I get to interview writers who are my literary heroes — including this feature on Nora Roberts. Her newest book, “The Mirror,” is part of The Lost Bride Trilogy. Scroll down to read the article that appeared in the magazine.
Here’s the story: When Sonya MacTavish inherits a Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine, she has no idea that the house is haunted—until a mystical mirror appears one night and Sonya glides into the past. She sees a bride murdered on her wedding day, the circle of gold torn from her finger, and what happens next is part of the magic that pulls readers into the 251 book that Nora penned—the hauntingly spectacular Lost Bride Trilogy. This tale, The Mirror, picks up where book one, The Inheritance, left off.
The Lost Bride Trilogy grew from a simple question, explains Nora. “I asked myself, What-if I wrote about a haunted house? Who haunts it and why? Who lives there, and why? More What-ifs followed as I built the basic premise, the characters—living and dead.”
Nora shares that her books are all born of that What-If question. But the secret to her success is no secret: Writing is a job. “I sit at the keyboard for six to eight hours, five days a week. Early in my career, I learned my chosen job 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.”
The same focus is true of Nora’s entrepreneurial endeavors.
She and her husband, Bruce Wilder, own the Turn The Page Bookstore on Main Street in Boonsboro, MD. And whenever she drove into town, “I’d see this old, sad, beautiful building on The Square, with its two-story porches sagging, a tree growing out of the gutter, broken windows, and I thought: What-if? What if we could restore it, bring it back to life?”
This year, that refurbished Inn BoonsBoro celebrates its 15th anniversary: www.innboonsboro.com. “More than stone and brick, it is history that we wanted to honor while offering visitors a warm and welcoming place to stay.”
Of course, The Inn Boonsboro is haunted, Nora believes. “But the ghosts who walk there are very benign. We even have a ghost cat.”
This article originally appeared in Costco’s magazine, The Connection. Click here to read it.
Until next Monday: Join me in a trip to Nora’s Inn BoonsBoro. We’ll look for that cat. — Hope Katz Gibbs, founder and president, Inkandescent® Inc. Inkandescent.us
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