Alan asks: What inspired you to write The River?

My mother and I were talking a few years ago about tracking down people from her past--old friends. One of them had told my mother that she had a dream to travel along a mysterious river in Canada. A river where people had gone missing.

My first reaction? Was her friend crazy? Why would anyone want to travel down some river where people had disappeared?

I became hooked on this concept and a chilling story began to brew in my mind. And the search was on to find that river.

My mother told me she couldn’t remember the name of the river. So I went online. Eventually I found the one river in Canada that is ripe with strange disappearances. The South Nahanni River in Canada’s rugged Northwest Territories is one of the most spectacular sights in the world. It is fraught with exquisite beauty and hidden dangers. It is also filled with an abundance of plant and animal life―not to mention, woven with legends ‘older than dirt’, as my husband would say.

This may be the river to which my mother’s friend was referring. Or it may not. Nevertheless, the Nahanni River holds many secrets. Decades ago headless skeletons and corpses were discovered along its banks. The McLeod brothers went there in search of their fortune and were found headless in their sleeping bags. Over the years, people have gone missing, and I’ve heard it referred to as the ‘Bermuda Triangle of Canada’.

How could I NOT write a story about this river?

It called to me. And I answered.