Blogs by Flo Fitzpatrick
Legacy of Silence - Spooky Houses and Hot Air Balloons
11/8/2025 8:27:59 AM
My first Abby Fouchet novel,“Sweet Dreams”, was originally published by a small press. I don’t know the precise negotiations but they were able to sell the contract (with my permission) to Worldwide Mystery (WWM) which was a Harlequin Publishing imprint that primarily did “re-releases” of books that had been published before. I’m still not sure how I managed to get the second Abby Fouchet (“Aria in Ice”)into Worldwide Mystery as the first publisher but I’m pretty sure it has to do with the editor who really liked “Sweet Dreams” and thought having that sequel readily available would be a good plan.(I never even sent Aria anywhere else.)But I digress.
In 2011 I was living in Texas, teaching dance and drama at a private high school. And one night, I get a call from the WWM editor who tells me Harlequin is launching a new imprint, called Heartwarming, and she thought I might be interested since I write “clean” and I could incorporate suspense if I wanted. She also explained that the books were closer to women’s fiction than “straight” romance, which she knew wasn’t my thing :)! After I picked myself up from the floor (senior editors calling is not a normal occurrence) I thought, “Okay. I’m intrigued. What could I come up with that might work?
Women’s fiction, romance, mystery, super wholesome. I can do this.”
Backtracking. For more than twenty years, one of my older brothers owned a house in Birmingham, Alabama on a street with a cul-de-sac. Whenever I’d visit I couldn’t help but notice the house at the end of the block, because, quite frankly, it was a mess, unlike all the other homes. Not well kept at all. Weeds instead of grass that appeared to be waist high. Cars that were at least thirty years old and probably hadn’t been driven in twenty. With cats in them. Lots of cats. Lots of cans of tuna on the ground. I started calling it The House Where the Dead People Live. Finally asked my brother if he knew who actually did live there and he said it was an elderly woman, very reclusive. The neighbors just called her Miss Virginia. I didn’t want to know details…it was more fun to make up a story.
So…Heartwarming. I had to come up with a heroine and a hero. I note this in my introduction to the book but I wanted to create a character who was physically challenged, primarily after watching the struggles through the years of good friend who has "Stargardt's disease,” which left her legally blind at age seventeen. Despite the problem she went to college, became a teacher, earned a master’s degree, and in her 50s (unable to drive) started the Waco Children’s Theater, and still works with the group. She hit her 89th birthday this past August! I’m not sure where but I read an article in a magazine discussing the injuries endured by non-combatants in the Iraq war. And I suppose, being a singer, the idea that a bomb blasting in a country thousands of miles from America could destroy one’s hearing for the rest of their life hit me hard. So I created Russ, my hero, and thought…”how ironic if I make my heroine a singer.” He’d never be able to hear her voice.
They needed a conflict and a way to meet, which is when I remembered Miss Virginia’s house. What if instead of the place being a dwelling that should probably be demolished, it was the real home of a fairly reclusive elderly lady who leaves it as a legacy to two heirs who are competing to“win” the home while struggling for their feelings for each other?
And since I think I’m just genetically incapable of not adding some kind of mystery to a novel…well…bad guys searching for something in the house was almost an obvious choice!
Then came the last (not least but possibly crazy) piece to add before I started Chapter One. Birmingham, Alabama has companies that provide hot air balloon trips. My wonderfully creative sister-in-law, Susan, always had a hankering to go up in one of the balloons. At the time I wrote “Legacy of Silence” Susan was too ill to manage anything quite so adventurous. So, in her honor, I found a way to include a hot air balloon ride (which also sounded romantic) in the story. Maybe one day I can ascend those heights and give a wave to Susan, who passed away in 2014.
In 2013 when I moved to Alabama, I bought the house across the street from “Miss Virginia.” (I’ve since moved…again.) It still looked like dead people lived there. Same cars. Same weeds. And possibly the same cats.
Legacy of Silence bit.ly/4oqaXd5
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