Author’s Notes
17,450 wordsFirst of all, I’d like to thank MaryC for bidding on this story during the 2018 Jixanny auction! It’s one that has been dear to my heart for ten years (at least). According to notations I made for word count, I wrote the first few scenes during Jixewrimo of 2009. But it was stuck for a long time. If not for MaryC, it might still be languishing on my hard drive.
Thank you to Bonnie for coming up with the fantastic idea for the fundraising auction! The worthy cause of Project Hope, and those bids gave me an incentive to finish Starting Over.
Thank you to my wonderful editors, Ronda, Ryl, and Trish. Each of them made great suggestions and caught mistakes, and I couldn’t get by without them!
Thank you to all of my readers, who motivate me to keep writing. Trixie friends are the greatest!
I’ve always felt that Honey had some kind of serious physical illness that frightened her parents into making the big move out to the country. Rheumatic fever seemed to have potential to be the culprit. The CDC website has a good short article about rheumatic fever here.
Grand Central Terminal is one of the more iconic landmarks associated with New York City, but in the 1960s it was going through some tough times. It was common to see homeless people sleeping on benches in the station. Thankfully, the building has been largely restored to its original grandeur.
We learned from The Secret of the Mansion and The Red Trailer Mystery that George Rainsford was known to both Matthew Wheeler and James Frayne. I’m sad that Julie Campbell never brought him back after Red Trailer, but I’m trying to make up for that!
Maddie and Matt had a conversation about Win and Katie Frayne before their trip to Sleepyside to see Manor House. You haven’t missed anything if don’t recall the incident Matt mentions. Stay tuned for more stories. That one is partially written but hasn’t been completed yet.
The Wheelers’ real estate agent is the same one who sold the Lynches their house (in my universe).
TaB is a diet cola that was more popular before Diet Coke was introduced. I think it has a unique taste but I used to drink it. It’s still around, with its own dedicated fans. Thanks to Trish for advising me of the correct spelling, with an upper-case B J.
Wimpy’s—I think there may be some conflicting ideas out there about Wimpy’s, but according to Susansuth’s Sleepyside files, it’s a replica of a dining car, not an actual rail car. Therefore I felt it was OK to take some literary license to make it feel like it could have existed in a building on Main Street.
Would you use a paring knife to start peeling a banana? I always like to cut into the stem to make it easier to peel the banana without bruising the tip...
The Wheelers’ fear of Honey being kidnapped comes from canon. The Secret of the Mansion was published in 1948, and I’ve always thought that fear was inspired by the famous Lindbergh baby kidnapping of 1932. But there were several child kidnappings during the 1950s and ’60s that would have been contemporaneous to my universe.
The Strand Bookstore is a famous longtime bookstore in NYC.
Oliver Douglas was the wealthy New Yorker who said good-bye to city life and moved out to a ramshackle farm near the fictional village of Hooterville in the popular 1960s TV sitcom, “Green Acres.”
I chose the model for the Manor House based on the illustration in Marshland Mystery. My model is Whitehall, an actual historic home in Louisville, Kentucky that is now used as a venue for wedding receptions and such. The real house has at least one wing extending back from the front facade, and the Manor House in my mind probably has two wings. Image used without permission, but I'm not making any profit from its use.
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Disclaimer: Characters from the Trixie Belden series are the property of Random House. They are used without permission, although with a great deal of affection and respect. All other material on these pages copyright 2019 by MaryN/Dianafan. House image used without permission but not for profit. Other images used with permission and manipulated by Mary N in Photoshop. Graphics copyright by Mary N 2019.