Why I Wrote It

 

I wrote Julia because I’ve always been more frightened by the mind than by anything supernatural. A ghost can be explained away as a story. But a memory you can’t trust—one that shifts, contradicts itself, and still feels absolutely real—can dismantle a life from the inside out.

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The first idea was simple: a woman receives a letter from a childhood friend who vanished decades ago. That’s the kind of hook that makes you lean in. But what held me there was the darker question underneath it: what if the letter isn’t proof of the past returning… what if it’s proof the past never left? What if guilt can invent evidence. What if trauma can write in your handwriting.

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I wanted to set that fear somewhere grounded and familiar: a small town with coastal beauty and ordinary routines, the kind of place where everyone knows your name and your history—even when they pretend they don’t. Ravenwooda isn’t frightening because it’s cursed. It’s frightening because it’s believable. Because towns like that keep secrets the way they keep weather: quietly, constantly, without permission.

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And then there’s the chair. That small wooden chair became the heart of the book—a symbol that can’t be ignored, a child-sized truth sitting in the corner of the room. It’s simple, almost harmless, which is exactly why it works. The most disturbing objects are often the ones that shouldn’t matter at all… until they do.

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Julia is my way of exploring what happens when a person has spent their whole life surviving their own edits—rewriting the worst moment until it feels bearable—only to realise the mind doesn’t erase. It stores. It waits. And one day it decides you’re ready to remember.