Wishes & Dreams: The Rest of the Story

I was well into writing the story, when suddenly Julian's Djinn mentor showed up (huh)? I mean, there she was in my head, appearing out of nowhere as she popped into his penthouse. It seems that the Djinn had decided that Julian needed someone to keep an eye on him, to make sure he knew the rules they abided by, even though he was a Mage, not a Djinn, and just in general help him get through until the curse was broken. Okkkayy, so that was a thing. But then, she was so absolutely charming... adorable, really, and fun and bubbly and optimistic and caring, that she started threatening to take over the story.

And then... and THEN!!!! .... she was chatting away with Alessandra, and this conversation happened:

“What if you fall in love with a human?”

Jacinth stared at her blankly, appearing a little horrified. “A human? Why would I want to do that?”

"Well, people can’t always chose who they love,” Alessandra said reasonably. “You could just as easily fall in love with a human man as a Djinn.”

“Never.” Absolute conviction rang in the Djinn woman's voice. “There are dozens of Djinn who wish to be my mate. Hundreds. Why should I love someone who will grow old and die?”

Right at that moment, bells rang in my head. Oh, yeah. Challenge Accepted!!! I mean, come on. You can't just say something like that, and expect Fate not to get involved. So then, my mind instantly went to hooking her up with a human, and that story started taking over my head space, making it extremely difficult to focus on Wishes in a Bottle. And in fact, I finally gave up and I stopped working on that, and wrote the entire book, A Gift for Jacinth, before being able to go back and finish Wishes in a Bottle.

And by then, of course, we had Cat getting attacked by the dog in Jacinth, and she got rescued by Douglas's pal, Troy, and so I had to write their story, and then... well...

And that would be how I ended up with this: