It was a pleasure to return to the world of CAVEMAN and catch more glimpses of Matt and Octavia and the whole family. I admit I have a soft spot for Merc and can’t wait to write his story, too, but first…

Gigi was quite cynical when it came to love, back when we first meet her in Caveman, and she was very focused on outside appearances. She rejected Matt Hansen for her sister Octavia based on the rumors circulating about him, and on his age – though she appreciated the fact he was said to be attractive. She also dated a guy named Quinn because he was cute and approved of their handsome neighbor Adam as her sister’s flirt, until he was proven to be a psychopath.

So in Bad Wolf we see her feel her way through the dilemma of appearance vs. the truth. Jarett is hot, but is he good? What makes a guy good? What is important in a man, in a relationship? How does our perception of someone affect that someone – how can her belief that he is good bring out the good in him?

Jarett is such a tortured boy. I just love him so much. He keeps losing the people who believe in him, who really care for him, until he settles for less and builds an altar to any form of affection and loyalty he can find around him. His promise to Mrs. Lowe, his promise to Sebastian to look after him, is his lifeline. He can’t lose this last family he found. He’s strong, but he’s also afraid, and he’s convinced that’s the best he can get.

Until Gigi comes along, of course, and shows him family is more than that, and that she’s there for him. Because happy endings are Life!

First of all, as the title indicates, as I wrote this book, at the back of my mind I had the fairytale of Red Riding Hood. I’m fascinated by fairytales, particularly the older versions meant for adults as much as for children, their symbolism and their origins.

Reading about the original tale of Red and the Wolf, I realized that probably it is less about the grandmother and the basket of goodies—and more about the girl and the man in wolf’s clothing who’s trying to get her into his bed. See, in the original tale, Red wasn’t necessarily a little girl. She was probably a girl old enough to have relations with a man, and the wild man who meets her in the cabin in the woods asks her to undress before getting into bed with him.

Hint, hint…

He also eventually eats her, which could be a symbol of taking her virginity. In other words, nailing her…

Or he ate her. Literally. Who knows? That’s the beauty of fairytales.

Second, the etymology of names had to fit in with my theme. I’m slightly obsessed with names. I can’t write a story before feeling that the character names fit, and if their etymology fits with the theme, well, even better.

So I chose all the surnames Jarett had over the course of his life to actually mean WOLF. OCD, here I come… LOL.

Fenris, the last name he goes by, is a form of Fenrir, a monstrous wolf in Norse mythology and is the son of god Loki. Randall, the family name of Jarett’s real parents, Connor, the name of his dead foster father, and Lowe, the name of his last adoptive family, all seem to originally have meant WOLF, or are some composite word containing WOLF.

What about the name Jarett? Well it apparently means brave, or a ruler of people.

And Augusta, well, that’s a title of Roman empresses, the female form of Augustus, the emperor.

Now if you’re familiar with the story of origin of Rome, the story of Remus and Romulus, the twins suckled by a she-wolf and who later went on to found Rome… It all seemed fit in my fairytale retelling – of a wolf-boy who seduced a princess, broke her, until she broke him with her love, and he was reborn as a man and a ruler by her side.

Take all the above with a grain of salt—I can’t promise that’s what the names mean, it’s just what the internet says— and Red Riding Hood is a loose fit for this story, but hey… it made my little author heart glad!

And in any case, they lived happily ever after…

I’m writing the prequel to Bad Wolf where you find out how Jarett and Gigi met, and much more about both their background and traumas. We also get a glimpse into Merc’s demons. It’s a short novella that I hope to release around the time of BAD WOLF’s release, so look out for it!