A reader (Bryan) asked a question concerning the Cozy Up series. He wondered if the “Little Sister” nickname that U.S. Marshal Gayle Goodspeed call’s Beau was somehow related to True Grit. The question surprised me, and I asked why he believed it to have originated from there.
Bryan said that he’s twice read the Charles Portis book and he’s also watched the John Wayne movie as many times.
In True Grit, Rooster Cogburn is a U.S. Marshal hired by Mattie, a fourteen-year-old girl, to find her father’s murderer. Cogburn refers to the girl as “little sister.”
That was an odd coincidence, I will admit, but it wasn’t where the nickname originated.
Vampires, Vampires, Everywhere
In Cozy Up to Blood, I paid homage to my favorite vampire movies. My favorite of all time is The Lost Boys. There is no greater bloodsucker flick.
The setting for Cozy Up to Blood was a vampire movie festival. If you’ve read the book, you’ll quickly guess that that the Evenfall movies are based upon the Twilight films.
I hid vampire movie references throughout Cozy Up to Blood and provided a link to a hidden page on my website so readers could find them all.
One of my favorite secrets was hiding the entire soundtrack to The Lost Boys within the book. Here is a list of where you can find all the songs:
1. “Good Times” (Chapter 14)
2. “Lost in the Shadows” (Chapter 16)
3. “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” (blatantly played on the radio in Chapter 9)
4. “Laying Down the Law” (Chapter 7)
5. “Cry Little Sister” (Chapter 34)
6. “Power Play” (Chapter 2)
7. “I Still Believe” (Chapter 20)
8. “To the Shock of Miss Louise” (Chapter 13)
9. “People are Strange” (Chapter 1)
As you can see, the fifth song on the album was “Cry Little Sister.” It’s a super cool tune but a tough one to slip into the story. In fact, it was so tough that I waited until the final chapter to get it in.
U.S. Marshal Gayle Goodspeed (who is introduced to Beau and the reader in this chapter) tells him “Don’t cry, little sister.” It was going to be a harmless insult but when Goodspeed appeared in the next book it seemed a wonderful convention—a smaller, older woman calling a muscular man, “Little sister.”
It tweaked Beau and he was sure that she was playing a mind game with him (she was). It continued into the next book as well.
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Read Cozy Up to Blood today.
