Beneath the Surface

Silhouette Shadows
May 1995
ISBN 0-373-27052-6

Dreamscapes (reprint)
August 2002
ISBN 0-373-51205-8

Beneath the Surface (The Circle)

Mary Deveraux has always been able to see into the future. Too bad that the love from her past, Hugh Poitiers, has no future....

BENEATH THE SURFACE is in some ways my favorite Circle novel, and in some ways my first great disappointment. The disappointment was in part the 1995 cover, which seemed a sharp contrast in quality from the first two. And it was in part the title. I had the perfect title for this book--THE GRIM REAPER WALTZ. It works on so many levels. Both Mary and Guy are dancing around the subject of death, for one thing. And the evil, lurking in the swamp, soon gets called "The Reaper" (in part from the Blue Oyster Cult song). My friends loved the title. My editor loved the title. Marketing, however, hated the title--they didn't want death in the title of a romance novel--and so it was changed to the fairly generic BENEATH THE SURFACE.

Yeah, I'll probably be griping about this to my dying breath. But welcome to the business world, Vaughn. I was foolish not to just appreciate being able to publish this story in the first place! After all, I've got a lot of personal connections to this one. Mary and Guy both come from large families (like mine). Both, as teens, lost a sibling or cousin (like me). Both grew up Catholic, then lapsed (like me). And Hugh, in my mind, looks like an actor I long loved. It also made the best use of the Louisiana setting, which added so much to all four Circle books.

Beneath the Surface, in 1995, had my first "disappointment" cover. Hugh looked too old, Mary looked too tall, it just didn't work for me. So I love the new Dreamscapes cover (left). Mind you, the Cajun hunk on the cover does not look like my image of Hugh (who is blond, for one thing!) But it's still a great cover...!

The prologue and part of the first chapter
Reviews
Where I came up with my ideas for BENEATH THE SURFACE & other Trivia

Purchase from Author, Author!

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Reviews

"Ms. Vaughn has created a creature so vile, so evil, I read this story only during daylight hours. Still, I was scared. Dynamite story."
--Rendezvous

"Rising star Evelyn Vaughn adds another link to The Circle with BENEATH THE SURFACE (3).... Ms. Vaughn sends shivers racing up and down our spines as these two appealing lovers triumph over the forces of darkness."
--Romantic Times

"Five stars."
--Heartland Critiques

"Plot details shrink in importance before two powerful main characters created by this talented author. Romance and suspense are equally balanced and strongly written. BENEATH THE SURFACE engages the emotions, stimulates the imagination, and ultimately warms the heart with its life-affirming message."
--Gothic Journal

"...a good Sunday morning, lazy day read."
--silver-halycon, Bookcrossings.com

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Where I Got My Ideas for Beneath the Surface (and Other Trivia)

SO WHAT ELEMENTS WENT INTO THIS BOOK?

First of all, Mary was my water-witch. The element of water is the element most often associated with psychic abilities, so it made sense that she would be the most psychic of my characters. That also decided me to set much of the story on the water... I considered the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but that's nowhere near as frightening as the swamp! As mentioned at the top of the page, I echoed many elements of my own childhood in Mary and Guy: My Catholic background, my large family, and the tragic loss of two cousins (Kelly Boyce in '72 and Kimmy Roy in '74) and then my older sister Linda in 1976. I was 13 when Linda was killed, and as anyone who has suffered a similar loss in their youth can tell you, it changes how you look at life. In the case of BENEATH THE SURFACE, Mary learned to simply not think about the past, while Guy coped by deciding one could never count on having a future. I researched what kind of threats might come at Mary and Guy from the swamp--there really are legends of a Honey Island Swamp Monster, for example (like a local bigfoot), and the Cajuns really do speak of the couchemal. I liked the idea of pirates, having always been intrigued by Jean Lafitte, but he was a smuggler more than a murderous buccaneer--but the pirate gold element ended up staying. Somehow, all these ideas merged together into The Reaper. The hound dog is loosely based on a sweetheart of a dog we had a short while, in Louisiana, named Mix. Mix was hit by a car, and I reacted very much like young Mary, in the flashback, reacted to the death of Sneezy Bunny. When my older brothers read the book, they commented on it.

WHAT'S MARY'S TAROT CARD?

Queen of Cups.

SO WHAT KIND OF WITCH IS MARY?

Both Sylvie and Mary are relatively new to the Craft, as opposed to Brigit and Cypress. But while Sylvie has learned her stuff through books (and some training from Brie), Mary's psychic abilities have been with her from birth. She's a natural. She also has always been something of a goddess worshipper, having had a great affinity to the Virgin Mary even when she was a Catholic. She's also the most public of all the four witches, boldly wearing her pentagram and putting pagan bumper stickers on her car. Part of that is because she is new to Wicca, if not to magic, and new converts to any religion tend to be terribly enthusiastic. Part of it is because she's younger than my other heroines, and thus less reticent.

SO WHERE DID YOU GET THE NAMES?

Mary was chosen because "Mer" means sea or ocean in French (water) and because of her Catholic youth--Mary Margaret is almost stereotypically Catholic, but that doesn't mean people don't use it! Deveraux I took because it sounded French, and as a nod toward Jude Deveraux, one of the first romance authors I read avidly. Now Guy's family... that's another story. I have among my things a historical romance set in 13th-century France, and the hero was Guy de Lusignan, Comte of Poitiers. That was my first completed novel, and though it never did sell, I worked on it for several years. I was a bit overwhelmed by life when I started BENEATH THE SURFACE, so I needed a hero fast, and imagined Guy as a kind of descendant to Hugh. Thus he became Guy Poitiers. His older brothers are Hugh and Ralph, also traditional Lusignan names. If you're wondering why Hugh is called "Tiboy," it's because he's a junior... but I just couldn't see my characters calling him "TiHugh," which sounds like a sneeze. However, if you ever hear someone named, oh, "TiJohn," that usually means "Little John" or "John Junior." I'm particularly intrigued by having used the name Lazare, for Hugh's ghostly cousin. I originally chose it because it sounds so French, and because I liked the idea of them shortening it to "Lazy." Only once I'd finished the book did the connection to Lazarus, and returning from the dead, occur to me!

WAS BENEATH THE SURFACE YOUR FIRST TITLE?

See the rant at the top of the page. 'Nuff said. Except that when I got my author copies of BTS, I crossed out the title on the title-page and wrote in GRIM REAPER WALTZ.

WHAT MUSIC DID YOU LISTEN TO?

I made a tape for this book, which I listened to over and over--it even had vocals on it, which I usually avoid for writing tapes. It included a nice mix of Cajun music, like "Iko Iko," "Litany of the Saints," and whatnot. It also included The Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper," not surprisingly. And it had Carol King's "Now and Forever," which I still cannot hear without thinking of Mary and Guy. Also, a good friend (who had made me a Celtic tape for BURNING TIMES) put together a collection of Xydeco music that made for great inspiration.

SO WHO IS THIS ACTOR YOU'VE LONG LOVED?

Jon-Erik Hexum as Guy The one I based Guy on? First let me clarify--I don't fall in love with actors, generally, because I don't know them. I fall in love with their characters. Also, this particular actor died when I was in my early 20's, and so had remained forever young and earnest in my mind. He's Jon-Erik Hexum, from the TV series VOYAGERS! and another one called COVER UP. I don't know if he reminds me of someone from a past life or what, but he--or the illusion he so competently created on screen--became a male ideal for me, one I've never lost. I can rarely "reuse" hero inspiration--I haven't written another Rob Stewart hero, or another Tim Daly hero. But Jon-Erik Hexum? He was the basis for Hugh in my still-not-published KNIGHT'S ENCHANTRESS. He was the basis for Sky Marshall in my short story, "Woman of Character," from A DANGEROUS MAGIC (about, aptly enough, a woman in love with a TV character). He was the basis for an as-yet unpublished novella called "Water Witch," set in the early 1800's. And he's the basis for the hero of my upcoming historical romance, FALLEN FROM GRACE. I don't know what it is about this man that works for me, but I appreciate it, and still mourn his death... from the distance that fans must, of course. I never knew him. But his work--that lingers almost 20 years later. For Mary, I had no actress in mind; just some clippings from a clothing catalog about a small and optimistic looking blonde woman.

SO HOW'D YOU MAKE THE SWAMP SO REALISTIC?

One of my brothers and his family still live in Louisiana, so we went on a swamp tour--Honey Island Swamp Tours, I think-- as part of my research, and it was excellent. I took copious notes. Also, a good friend and I went on a canoeing trip in East Texas, a place called Caddoe Lake. That, too, is immensely swamp-like. Between those two research trips, I felt more than ready to send Guy and Mary deep into the bayou.

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