Naming characters and places is a difficult task for an author. Below is a behind-the-scenes look into some of the Love in the City names.

• Some families name their children with similarities in their names: Harper, Carter, and Bayler all have the “er” at the end of their names.
• Elly’s dog, Stag, is named after my favorite whiskey: Red Stag Black Cherry by Jim Beam.
  
• Fletcher’s club, Poison, is named after the song “Poison” by Alice Cooper.
• Ellyson is usually spelled Ellison, and I’ve only seen it as a last name so I wanted to make it a first name and spell it different.
• Keith Evans shares the same first name as my dad.
• Some families keep their initials the same and Justin’s family is one of them: Janice Jameson/Justin Jameson.
• When I named Cash and Carter, I never intended on giving them nicknames until I wrote the scene in Judge’s. Paige is the only one who calls them Johnny and June after Johnny Cash and June Carter. It actually took me a while to come up with their nicknames until the light bulb finally came on.
  
• Judge’s is named after Fletcher’s maternal grandpa, Judge Winger, who is deceased. Judge Winger is named after one of my favorite movies: Stripes. Bill Murray’s character’s last name is Winger, and Judge Reinhold’s character wears a sweatshirt in the movie that says “Death Before Disco.” I love his sweatshirt!
  
• Maverick is named after Maverick from the movie Top Gun. I intended on giving Elly the nickname Goose since Maverick and her are childhood friends.
• Elly named Wilson after the volleyball from the movie Cast Away.
• Tessa’s younger brother’s name is never mentioned in the first book. His name is Treylor but he goes by Trey.
• Dionisi is pronounced just like it looks: Dee-on-i-see.
• Stephen Jennings’ name is not pronounced Steph-en. It’s Steven, like Stephen King.
• Mrs. J. is what Janice’s students used to call her back when she used to teach.
• Stark Jennings is named after James Dean’s character, Jim Stark, in Rebel Without a Cause.
• Jones Jym is spelled with a “J” only because Jones Gym reminded me of Gold’s Gym, and I didn’t want the similarity floating around in my fictitious world. Silly, I know, but hey, this is my imagination!
• Diana O’Bannion is named after Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana”, and Ben Affleck’s character in Dazed and Confused, Fred O’Bannion.
• Theodora “Teddy” Winger is named after Dr. Teddy Altman from Grey’s Anatomy.
• Batter Up was named after the victory song from A League of Their Own.
• The Levee was named after Don McLean’s “American Pie.”
• The last names of the Littles (Vail Grant and Rook Ballard) are named after Olivia Pope’s love interests in Scandal, Fitzgerald Grant and Jake Ballard. Rook Ballard’s dad, Harrison Ballard, is named after Harrison Wright also from the TV show.
• Bodacious Beth is named after my editor, Beth, and she helped pick out Beth’s roller derby name. She loved Fletcher so much in the first book, I decided to give her a part in the third.
• The bartender, Holden, is named after Holden Caulfield from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.
• Burgess Gustafson is named after Burgess Meredith’s character, Grandpa Gustafson in Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men.
• The Massey Estate was named after Massey Ferguson, a manufacturer of agriculture equipment.