Being Gay in the UK
In the 1980s, when Spellshock and The Witch of Cheyne Heath series is set, homosexuality had technically been decriminalized, but the country was still oppressive toward members of the LGBT community.
Spellshock
Morel Market and Portobello Road
When I was a teenager, we lived in the next street over from Portobello Road, home of the famous street market.
Denise Ogilvy and Memphis Design
The Memphis style of design was very big and avant-garde in the 1980s, and is the perfect external representation of excess for the law of attraction malarkey of Denise Ogilvy and Portia Twill-Quimby’s abundance scam.
Spellshock-Shellshock
My original idea for the title of Book 3 of The Witch of Cheyne Heath was “spellbound,” the title of one of my favorite Siouxsie and the Banshees songs…
Sir Wilfred Stepney
The character of Johnny’s friend and onetime lover, Sir Wilfred Stepney, is based on two painters: Lucian Freud, who wasn’t gay, and David Hockney, who is.
Millicent
Though Millicent is a few years younger than Gosha, Gosha entertains hopes that she and Millicent might be friends. Unfortunately, the circumstance of their meeting sets that friendship off to a difficult start.