This story was of course inspired by ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (1891) written by Oscar Wilde. If you noticed, Adrian McGroy came from the name Dorian Gray. It was like some sort of a metafiction. At the time when I began writing this story, the dark TV series ‘Penny Dreadful’ was airing so I dare say that that series inspired the writing of this book too. But then, I went to dark places as I wrote it…

I originally intended to write the whole story in the first person point of view but I suddenly changed my direction. It is fun to write in 1st person p.o.v but only when I intend to limit the readers’ knowledge of other characters’ p.o.v. Along the way, came Devon, a complex character where if I stick to only Adrian’s p.o.v, Devon’s melancholy can easily be missed. But that’s only because my skills are limited. I’m sure as I write more, I can overcome that difficulty. Devon wasn’t part of the plan in the beginning of the story, though. I wanted Adrian to make the Klaus brothers kill each other for him in the beginning. But I was in desperate need of a plot twist bigger than just that. So after racking my brain for a year in a massive writer block, the idea of Devon as the painting came to light. I hope that really surprised the readers hehe.

I have done research on real cases involving serial killers, psychopaths, cannibalism, and sexual disorders in the process of writing this story. I needed to understand their way of thinking. It wasn’t easy reading those. Especially when the victims were children or small animals. Now that this story is completed, I’d like to put that all behind me. I empathise too much sometimes so I am afraid I would be influenced by their thoughts. So I distracted myself by reading cute, fluffy typical love stories with definite happy endings written by other writers. 😝

Adrian was a challenging character to write because I wanted him to be evil but I also wanted him to be relatable. I wanted him to be hated but I also wanted him to be sympathised. Nonetheless, to me, Adrian deserved this ending for all the crimes that he had committed. I did not want to glorify his deeds. Such deeds deserved punishments. The only one qualified enough to punish him would be the devil! My favourite characters; William and Trance from ‘The Devil’s Lover’ made appearances in this story. I missed them so much but I don’t wanna write a sequel because I’m not really a fan of sequels so I brought them into my other stories from time to time. 🤭

Oh. Please note that Adrian made an appearance in my other story, ‘Papa’ and he was of course, subtly mentioned in ‘The Devil’s Lover’. However, though Adrian didn’t make an appearance in this one, I would recommend you to read ‘White over Red’. That was my latest work and it is completed. It was one of my proudest works by far.

That’s all for now. Thank you so much for reading this book! See you in my other works, I hope.

Love,
K

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