Pics, or It Didn't Happen

It's no secret that I base my novel's scenery on places I've been. While on holiday in Ohio, I took two shots for you. They're both key for Life Before, which is out in spring 2016.

Xander Fife lives in my childhood house. I haven't stepped inside since I turned 18, and it's endured many changes in color since then, but here's his house:

You can imagine a rickety wooden bench to the left of the door, right? Xander' bench includes many layers of peeling paint, but is black during his story.

And, of course, his high school. For a long time, the manuscript included a lengthy description of the camel-colored bricks that had darkened with age. Now it says nothing about the school's drab exterior, but I snapped a pic at my school while I was in Ohio. I didn't get to enter--it was August, after all--but this is the door that Xander and his best friend, Jill, enter on their very last day of high school. A tiny part of my brain expected Tucker to be sitting on the radiator just inside the doorway, waiting for his best buddies.

He wasn't. . .but just being at the school made me VERY excited to share this book with the world.