Afterword

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"An afterword is a literary device that is often found at the end of a piece of literature. It generally covers the story of how the book came into being, or of how the idea for the book was developed."

-Wikipedia

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I first came up with the idea that would become Trusting Hearts in the early summer of 2013, after listening to the book on tape version of Inferno while on a trip to Indiana.

It was also the first time I was struck with what I can only describe as a muse; those of you who are writers will know exactly what it is that I am talking about. I was literally unable to get the idea of Trusting Hearts out of my head until I had a good portion of it written down. Ideas and lines were just snowballing in my head, and the only way to stop the avalanche was to put words to paper.

Well, after several weeks of writing and much editing, I posted Trusting Hearts in June of 2013, and at the time, I hadn't intended to continue Robert and Sienna's story beyond that. I considered my work to be done. However, after reading several reviews that had praised Trusting Hearts and had asked for me to continue, I began to give some serious consideration to the idea. Mainly surrounding the question of "how could I continue Robert and Sienna's story beyond what I have already done?"

The easiest answer was to have a serious outcome result from their torrid nights together in the cabin: Sienna's pregnancy, and the ramifications of such a consequence for both her and Robert.

Keeping close to Dante-inspired themes, I decided to make Trusting Hearts the first installment in a trilogy of Robert and Sienna stories, not unlike The Divine Comedy, with each part focusing on a different aspect of the pair's dynamic relationship.

As a result, after over a year of deliberating and penning down random thoughts and lines, I finally took up writing in earnest again, and by October of 2014, published the first part of Loving Hearts. While not as immediately popular as its predecessor - something that I attributed to a dwindling interest in Robert Langdon stories due to the simple fact that it had been over a year since Inferno was published - the few responses I did receive nevertheless gave me enough motivation to immediately begin work on Bonding Hearts as soon as I had finished writing Loving Hearts in February of 2015.

It took me roughly six months altogether to finish Bonding Hearts from the time I started writing to its completion, and I did in fact finish writing it in mid-August of 2015. I didn't immediately publish it however, because I wanted to wait for at least seven months between the end of Loving Hearts and the publication of the final installment. The reason for this being that seven months would have been just long enough for Sienna's pregnancy to come to full turn, considering the events of Loving Hearts takes place on Valentine's Day, where Sienna is already several weeks into her pregnancy. I chose the publication date for Bonding Hearts (9/27) very carefully; threes and nines feature heavily in The Divine Comedy - a good example would be the three books that comprise it and the nine circles of hell - and not only is 27 the product of three and nine, it is also three cubed.

Now for a fact about the Hearts series that most readers might not have picked up on:

Each section of the trilogy centralizes on a different type of love: Sexual, Romantic, and Familial, respectively for Trusting Hearts, Loving Hearts, and Bonding Hearts. In addition, each story ends with a quote by Dante Alighieri that when taken out of its original context, fits the tone of the story quite well. I am particularly proud of finding the quote that's at the end of Loving Hearts, because "vita nuova" literally translates to "new life," which considering the story involves a pregnancy, was quite appropriate.

In summation, it has been a long two years, filled with bouts of inspiration and long periods where I'd been stumped on what to write next. I hope that you have enjoyed reading this saga of Robert and Sienna as much as I did in creating it!

- Mad Library Scientist