Peggy’s Mean Meats

This restaurant does not exist (as far as I know) but it is based on a restaurant where I worked as a hostess during college. My restaurant was Steak and Ale so the only thing I took from that was Ethan, really a busboy name Mark, and the method of keeping track of which tables were cleared and which needed to be bused.

For the logo, I did once see a restaurant logo with an aggressive hog packing heat. That’s where the idea came from to use that as inspiration for an old logo that could maybe use a revamp for a family-oriented restaurant.

Gettysburg

When I wrote Once You Cross That Line, I had a four-year-old who was obsessed with the Civil War. Since it was only a short drive from our house, we frequented Gettysburg at least a few times each year. I fell in love with the Castle at Little Round Top the moment I saw it. Having an ex the story that was a history buff (inspired by real-life history buff husband) and a history teacher made it pretty easy to incorporate into this one. My kid also almost cracked his teeth going down the steep steps, so I included that in there, too.

The front of Castle on Little Round Top.
The view from the top. To the bottom left is Devil’s Den.
My son scaling the steep spiral staircase that leads to the top of the castle.

The Say Anything Reference

I was out front one day when a man with a guitar asked if he could stand in my driveway to serenade the neighbor across the street. Just like Kristi, I missed all the red flags. The cops were not called in that instance, but I did see firsthand how horribly wrong those sorts of romantic gestures can go. Of course, I had to make Kristi’s a cluster, too.

But Are There Really That Many Gnomes Out There?

Yes, there are. But context is key. I grew up in the 90s in Baltimore County, so perhaps my ratio of garden gnomes to front yards was higher than others’. This aspect of the book – everything referencing garden gnomes – is inspired by teenage shenanigans where my friends and I would drive around borrowing garden gnomes for the night. Luckily, this was before cameras on cell phones and so I don’t have any pictures of our bountiful gnome hauls (or many pictures in general of the dumb stuff we got into as teens).