Rhonda Bulmer on Family Secrets, Romance & Ghost Stories | S5 EP245: Book Banter
Rhonda Bulmer discusses The Widow & The Will, her writing journey, and the family ghost stories that inspired her paranormal mystery.
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Hello My Happy People,
With Halloween just around the corner, this week's guest, Canadian author Rhonda Bulmer, is a perfect addition to our Hauntingly Good Reads lineup. Her novel, The Widow and the Will, combines romance, family secrets, an unexpected inheritance, and a mysterious haunting. During our interview, Rhonda shared some fascinating details about her lifelong connection to ghost stories that didn't make it into the final podcast episode.
Rhonda grew up in a family where ghost stories were practically a tradition. Her mother came from a large family whose members believed their childhood home was haunted by their grandmother. Stories of unexplained sounds, rocking chairs moving on their own, and other mysterious happenings were simply part of the family's storytelling tradition.
Rhonda also remembered spending evenings at the family cottage, sitting in the tall grass with other children and exchanging ghost stories. They would become so engrossed in frightening one another that they wouldn't notice darkness falling until someone suddenly realized how spooky their surroundings had become. Then everyone would scramble to get home! I love how those childhood experiences stayed with Rhonda and eventually influenced her fiction.
One of the most interesting revelations from our extended conversation was that Rhonda wrote The Widow and the Will partly for her mother, whose love of ghost stories had been such a memorable part of her childhood. The novel features an old Victorian house overlooking the Bay of Fundy, a mysterious inheritance, long-buried family secrets, and a ghost said to wander the property.
Rhonda's fascination with old houses, the supernatural, and the rugged beauty of New Brunswick all come together in this story. She also explained that she wanted to celebrate her home province, which is sometimes treated as a place travelers simply pass through on their way elsewhere. Having left New Brunswick to study in Toronto before returning home, Rhonda understands the connection people can have to the places they call home. That personal connection adds another dimension to her novel, where the landscape becomes as important as the characters themselves.
One of my favorite things about interviewing authors is discovering how their personal experiences influence their creative work. For Rhonda, generations of family ghost stories, childhood evenings spent frightening one another, and a lifelong love of New Brunswick helped shape The Widow and the Will. Knowing those details makes her fictional haunting even more interesting, especially when you realize how much of the inspiration comes from her own family's storytelling traditions.
If you haven't heard my interview with Rhonda yet, check out S5 EP245 | Rhonda Bulmer on Finding New Love While Uncovering Old Family Secrets. Just click the purple microphone below to listen now.
And if you're looking for a little romance, family mystery, and a ghost or two this Halloween, be sure to add The Widow and the Will to your reading list!
Enjoy,
Dianne
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