MY ARDEN FAMILY NOVELS

by Joelle Steele

I am often asked about the appearance in my novels of all the characters with the name Arden. This is entirely by design. When I wrote my first Arden family novel in 1978, I built a family tree for my character. It turned out to be fun. As I wrote more novels years later, I again included other Ardens along with their descendants, the Brahams and the Montenegros, among others.

Building a tree from my imagination was very helpful in writing my stories. I added more and more "people" to the fictitious Arden family tree over the years, putting the tree into my genealogy software in 1994. Since then the tree has grown to more than 400 members, and it dates all the way back to 10th century France and Belgium.

In my novels, ghost-hunter Michael Grainger in "Shades" doesn't know it, but he is a descendant of the Arden family of Redthorn Hall. In "Delusions," Amanda Woods is a descendant of the Arden family through her great-great-grandmother. Emily Renard in "Reflections" is also an Arden descendent through her great-great-great-grandmother. In "Spider in the Attic," Irene Arden is a descendent through her father's side of the family. In "The Man in the Drawer," Vail Arden is a descendant, as are her cousins, Arden Brahms in "Death by Orchid" and her sister Frederica "Rica" Brahms in "Buried in the Peat." In the book I'm working on as of May 2024, "Devil's Garden," botanist Mariah King is the daughter of a slave, and granddaughter of a slave owner named Louis Ardenne.

After I complete "Devil's Garden," I have six other novels in progress, that have Arden family members in starring roles.