Notes From the Author to the Bookclub

    Deadly Harvest takes a great deal of its substance from its setting, I believe. I wrote the book with a sheer love for the town of Salem and the area--it's one of the most unique places in our country, I believe. Salem offers a great deal; first, incredible museums, as in the Peabody-Essex and the maritime museums. There's so much history that can really be learned there, and then examined. To this day, we're still trying to understand what went on in the past! It's also wonderful in the new age bookstores, candle shops, and wiccan boutiques. The modern day wiccan movement really began with Laurie Cabot, who still runs a fantastic store. But there's the usual riff in the area you get when you're looking at a new age religion in a town that was long ago founded by Puritans. Those folks are long gone now, but many people believe that a great deal of that old puritanical way of looking upon the world may remain. Like all of our country, New England exists now in the twenty-first century, and there are people from everywhere there, with philosophies from around the world. But something of the mystical still seems to be there, in the old graveyards, in the colonial buildings--and even in the fields on a dark and misty night. It can be very--very!--dark out on the lonely stretches of road. Especially where farmers still plow vast fields--and scarecrows can be seen. That the Puritans did believe in the devil helped me form my modern day story of the past and the present colliding!