by Joelle Steele

I was prompted to blog on this topic by “Sandy” who has read all my novels and noticed the name Arden appeared in them. And there’s a good reason for that. Here it is.

Way back in 1978, I was writing my fourth novel, the first to be published. My protagonist was Mariah King, granddaughter of a slave and a plantation owner named Louis Ardenne. I had just become interested in genealogy and was looking for a way to lend some reality to Mariah’s personality. Among my solutions? Create a family tree for her.

Building a tree from my imagination turned out to be fun. I added more and more “people” to the fictitious Arden/Ardenne family tree, including the interrelated Brahms family. Since then the tree has grown to more than 400 members, and it dates all the way back to 10th century France and Belgium and some real historic figures.

In my more recent 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. Irene Arden in “Spider in the Attic” is, obviously an Arden. And in my most recent novel, “Buried in the Peat,” Frederica “Rica” Brahms is an Arden descendent through her mother’s side of the family.

The Ardens and Brahms are still going strong in two of my current works in progress, with Arden Brahms in “Death by Orchid,” and Gatewood “Gate” Arden in “The Bones of Creed Howlett.”