The Importance of Setting & Imagery for Stone Angels

The setting of IN THE ARMS OF STONE ANGELS is a fictitious town in Oklahoma. I picked the name Shawano after I saw that the word in Euchee meant snake or snake pit, which seemed fitting symbolism for this book. There is a Shawano, WI and Shawnee, OK, but this place was made up by me because I wanted the freedom to fictionally portray the undercurrent of bigotry that I needed to tell this story.

I lived in the Oklahoma City area and LOVED it. The people there are very warm and friendly, which is another reason why I had to make up a fantasy small town. If I had written this about a real town in OK, I would never have written this story so dark.

But I did have a specific town in mind when I pictured Shawano and took photos of this place to have in my mind while I wrote the book. I wanted to share some of these images with you and include writing excerpts for those locales.

The real town I had in mind was a charming beautiful & very real place of Guthrie, OK. I LOVE this town. The downtown square is small town Americana at its best and it's even more spectacular at Christmas time when the whole place lights up and people dress up like a Dickens novel.

But there were images not so great either. Rundown businesses, graphiti and sad houses are also there. I took these shots (& more) of Guthrie on a research trip.



On this street is the Pollard theatre that is rumored to be haunted. I really wanted to ghost hunt there one night, but never got the chance. I love this old theatre and watched great Christmas plays there.

These types of houses are in Guthrie, a very quaint place indeed. I imagined Brenna's grandmother living here in a house just like these charmers.

Excerpt from In the Arms of Stone Angels

By the time Mom and I got to Grams’s it was almost too dark to see, but the old Victorian home was easy to spot at the end of the street. It was the biggest house on the block and not quite how I remembered it. In the past few years, Grams had let the place go. The yard and flower beds were overgrown with weeds and the house needed painting. Brick steps that led to the front door needed repair, the wraparound porch railing could use paint, and the bay windows and gabled roof looked scary at night without lights on. The place was real creepy and reminded me of a slasher movie.



Very cool. I could totally shoot a video here.
“If it’s bad, we’ll find a motel until we can do a little cleaning.” She pretended to be cheery. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”


“In North Carolina. I forgot to pack it.” I crossed my arms and slumped against the car.


“Stay put. I’ll need your help with the groceries if we stay tonight,” Mom yelled over her shoulder as she headed toward the front door.


I heaved a sigh and stared up at the old Victorian after my mom left me alone on the driveway. I wasn’t afraid of the dark since cemeteries were my thing, but living in small town suburbia scared the crap out of me.

Maybe the stone angel near Heather's grave looked like this, with its chipped nose, almost looking scary.

Excerpt from In the Arms of Stone Angels

I put my ear to the ground and listened to the sounds of the cemetery in the dark. I heard the crickets in the grass and the breeze through the pine trees as I stared up at the stone angel on the next grave. Heather didn’t have her own guardian angel, but she was in good company. She had one close by.

And in the bluish haze of the moonlight, I saw that the angel’s nose was chipped and dark streaks lined her face like tears. But the angel’s eyes looked so real, I could imagine them opening and seeing me. And her spread arms and faint smile made me feel safe as the graveyard stillness closed in.


Until the night air sent me a message that I wasn't alone.


A wave of electricity swept over me, causing the hair on my arms and the back of my neck to stand on end. And static pops swirled around and through me. I knew what it meant and I turned, peering through the dark.


A door had opened to the other side. I’d felt it before.


And a gust of cold blew through my hair and made me squint. Movement near the stone angel grabbed my attention. Fingers crept out from behind the angel’s shoulder—a slow and deliberate move like the silent stealth of a tarantula—and a small hand slid down the stone arm.


Sometimes the dead had a weird sense of what was funny.


Heather Madsen peered out from behind the statue—more timid and frail than I remembered her—and dressed in the clothes she had been buried in. Her mother’s choice. Heather wouldn’t have been caught dead in that dress. So I knew her coming had to be important. In life Heather had never smiled at me, but tonight she did for the first time. And it made her look sad.


The dead never speak. I don’t know why. So I didn’t expect that to change with Heather. For whatever reason the drop-dead gorgeous brunette with fierce green eyes had come, she’d let me know in her own sweet time. Without a word, I waved a hand to say “Hi” and stretched out on the grass over her grave.


I knew I wouldn’t sleep, but I hoped that Heather would rest easier knowing she wasn’t alone…even if she only had me.

And the image below is of Libby, the girl who inspired my character. I found her on ModelMayhem, but when I went back to contact her, to see if my publisher could use her for the cover, she was no longer listed. The way she dressed in this photo inspired everything about Brenna, right down to her spirit to be different. I loved the vulnerability behind those big sunglasses too. Libby, where are you? I miss you.

Excerpt from In the Arms of Stone Angels

I wasn’t your average Abercrombie girl. I didn’t wear advertising brand names on my body.

It was a life choice. A religion.


I got my clothes from Dumpster diving and Goodwill, anything I could stitch together that would make my own statement. Today I wore a torn jean jacket over a sundress with leggings that I’d cut holes into. I had a plaid scarf draped around my neck with a cap pulled down on my head. My “screw you” toes were socked away in unlaced army boots and I hid behind a huge pair of dark aviator sunglasses, a signature accessory and only one in a weird collection I carried with me. I liked the anonymity of me seeing out when no one saw in.


The overall impact was that I looked like an aspiring bag lady. A girl’s got to have goals.


In short, I didn’t give a shit about fitting in with the masses and it showed. I’d given up the idea of fitting in long ago. The herd mentality wasn’t for me and since I made things up as I went, people staring came with the territory.

Below is the REAL Cry Baby Creek Truss. It's rumored to be haunted. I used my research as a backdrop to create a story around this creepy setting, the perfect place for a murder.

Excerpt from In the Arms of Stone Angels

I wish I had remembered the part about not telling secrets when I came across my friend White Bird under the bridge at Cry Baby Creek. A woman’s spirit cries for her dead baby and haunts that old rusted steel and wood plank footbridge. I’d seen her plenty of times, I swear to God. She never talked to me. The dead never do. She only cried and clutched the limp body of her baby to her chest.

Back then I didn’t fully understand how fragile the barrier was between my world and another existence where the dead grieved over their babies forever. I had no idea that a change was coming. Someone would alter how I saw the thin veil between my reality and the vast world beyond it.


That someone was my friend, White Bird.


When I saw him crying in the shadows of that dry creek bed, like the ghost of that woman, the sight of him sent chills over my skin. I should have paid attention to what my body was telling me back then—to stay away and leave him alone—but I didn’t.

I hope you enjoyed the extras and my trip down memory lane. Brenna & White Bird will always be in my mind and hold a special place in my heart. No one forgets writing their first YA.

Publishers Weekly Reviews IN THE ARMS OF STONE ANGELS

I'm a subscriber to Publishers Weekly. It's a heavy hitter weekly review magazine out of New York and gets a lot of scrutiny from the publishing industry. Not every book gets reviewed. Since Stone Angels had been released in April, I thought my chance to see a PW review had come and gone. I was thrilled to see the New York city magazine reviewed my debut YA and posted it this week, on July 11th. Seeing my book in this iconic review mag, along with much bigger author names, still gives me goosebumps. Below is an excerpt from that review. If you'd like to see the whole enchilada, click HERE.

"In her first YA novel, adult thriller writer Dane pens a macabre slow-burner, building tension by alternating Brenna's first-person narrative with sections in omniscient third; Brenna's peers, a deputy, and an observant doctor at White Bird's hospital all contribute insight into the mystery of Heather's death. Thoroughly eerie, the plot includes flashbacks and nightmares involving crossing over into the spirit world, while Dane's well-developed characters provide an authentic exploration of guilt, loyalty, and belonging."   ~Publishers Weekly

Rockin' the 4th!

My life’s experiences as an author often wind up in my books. While I’m writing, I let my mind wander wherever it goes to come up with settings, emotions, and dialogue. I free my mind and don’t censor myself. Chances are, if what I’ve written makes it through my own edits, it will stay. Being a writer has added to the quality of my life because I’ve become more of an observer and a listener and everything interests me.

So with the July 4th holiday coming up, I’ve been reflecting on my favorite memories of this celebration. It’s a federal holiday—typically a long weekend for most—which is reason enough to celebrate. Independence Day (commemorating our freedom from Great Britain and the adoption of our Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776) is typically celebrated with fireworks displays, parades, picnics, BBQs, baseball games, and gatherings of families.


I’ve had many fond memories of this holiday. My brothers and sisters used to wage war in the neighborhood with bottle rockets. I mean serious war, folks. We had bunkers and booby traps and body armor in the form of hooded winter jackets in the middle of the Texas summer heat. My oldest brother, Ed, once donned a hooded winter coat to protect himself from the onslaught of direct hits. He launched bottle rockets from a Coke bottle pointed wherever he aimed—like a young Rambo—but one blasted out of the bottle and turned on him. A self-inflicted wound. It spun back into his hood and sent sparks flying around his head. He looked like a human torch (except for the weird dance he performed) trying to smother the live round. He could have lost an eye, instead of the singe circle of hair that got burned off his head. This wasn’t exactly one of his stellar moments. Now that he’s a father, giving sage advice to his boys on fireworks, he has real credibility (even though it’s a story he’s never told them). Sometimes I’m amazed he’s still alive.


The memory of my brother setting his head on fire ranks near the top of my list of childhood memories for reason only a kid would understand, probably because Ed survived to laugh about it. But my favorite memory of this holiday came when I was in my 30s and vacationing in Hawaii. I lived in Alaska at the time, so spending weeks on a beach was as close to heaven as I could imagine. My husband and I didn’t know what to expect, but we’d been invited by friends to join them in an annual event they participated in on July 4th. A boat picked us up on the beach near our hotel. I’m not talking about a pier landing. We had to walk into the ocean and clamor—as gracefully as possible—from the cresting waves and into a raft. I should have taken note that arriving at the party onboard the boat, soaking wet, was a hint of things to come.


Every year, a group of close friends launches an all out war on the water between two boats. They make huge slingshots with surgical tubing and launch large water balloons, trying to score hits. Better than the old game, Battleship. The two boats run a parallel course and bombard the partygoers with mega-water-balloons. The battle was a lot of fun, but I will never forget being adrift on the ocean at sunset in paradise with warm water everywhere and the sounds of laughter filling my soul with a contentment I will always remember.


But after it grew dark, the boats anchored near shore. We had the best seats in the house as we watched the fireworks on the beach from the boats rocking on the waves. The dazzling lights reflected on the water and I couldn’t drink enough of that memory in, surrounded by friends and my husband beside me.


My favorite memory of the July 4th holiday was a little unconventional, but most good memories are. With the holiday coming up, how will you spend it? Do you have a favorite July 4th memory to share? Tell me a story.