What Inspired Concealed Inheritance?

What Inspired Concealed Inheritance?

Strange Wills, Family Secrets & One Very Unexpected Bequest

Sometimes a story starts with a character. Sometimes it’s a place. And sometimes it starts with one strange question that won’t leave me alone.

For Concealed Inheritance, that question was: What if someone left you something in their will that you never expected—and definitely didn’t want?

That question eventually became the beginning of The Family Heir Looms series.

But getting there took a few twists and turns of its own.

It Started With a Television Show

The original spark came from a show I watched years ago. A young woman’s father died and left her part of his estate. The majority of it, however, went to his pregnant wife, who was about the same age as his daughter. That was complicated enough. But the daughter then found herself taking on many of the responsibilities because the young wife had no idea what to do—and didn’t seem particularly interested in figuring it out.

I don’t remember all the details of the show anymore. What I do remember is the idea it planted. Because my mind immediately started playing the what if game.

What if the pregnant woman wasn’t the father’s wife?

What if she was someone else entirely?

What if the father left instructions in his will that his daughter was somehow responsible for this woman?

Or…

What if it wasn’t really the woman he was leaving in his daughter’s care?

What if it was the baby?

Now that intrigued me.

Why would a father do that?

Who was this woman?

Why would he expect his daughter to take responsibility for her—or her unborn child?

What did he know that his daughter didn’t?

And what secrets had he taken to the grave?

One question led to another. And another. Before long, the original idea had changed completely and Concealed Inheritance had begun to take shape.

That’s one of my favourite parts of writing suspense. The inspiration may come from something I’ve seen, heard or read, but then I get to keep asking:

What if?

And usually, What if? leads me somewhere much darker.

Just How Strange Can a Will Get?

Once I started playing with the idea of an unusual inheritance, I became curious.

What kinds of strange things have people actually put in their wills?

As it turns out…

Some very strange things.

Money and property may be the things we normally associate with an inheritance, but history is filled with people who had considerably more creative ideas about what should happen after they died.

Here are a few of my favourites.

$12 Million to a Dog

When hotelier Leona Helmsley died, she left a $12-million trust for her Maltese dog, appropriately named Trouble. 

A judge later reduced the amount to $2 million.

Still, not a bad inheritance for a little white dog.

Trouble reportedly required some rather expensive care, including security.

I’m guessing dog treats weren’t a problem.

No Mustache, No Money

Englishman Henry Budd reportedly left his sons a substantial inheritance—with one unusual condition.

They couldn’t grow mustaches.

Apparently both decided the money was worth remaining clean-shaven.

It does make you wonder what Henry had against facial hair.

Take My Ashes… and Bring the Pringles

Frederic Baur helped develop the distinctive Pringles can.

He was so proud of it that he reportedly asked for some of his ashes to be buried in one.

His family honoured his request and chose an Original flavour Pringles can.

There is something rather wonderful about getting the final word on your choice of container.

Seventy Complete Strangers

Portuguese aristocrat Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara reportedly chose 70 people at random from a Lisbon telephone directory and named them as beneficiaries of his estate.

Imagine getting that phone call.

You discover you’ve inherited money from someone you’ve never met simply because they opened a phone book and landed on your name.

Jeremy Bentham’s Very Unusual Final Request

English philosopher Jeremy Bentham had an entirely different idea for what should happen to him after death.

He requested that his body be preserved.

His skeleton was dressed in his own clothes and ultimately displayed with a wax head as what he called his Auto-Icon.

It can still be seen today at University College London.

That’s certainly one way to make sure people remember you.

The Great Stork Derby

Then there was Canadian lawyer Charles Vance Millar.

He left the residue of his estate to the Toronto woman who gave birth to the greatest number of children during the ten years following his death.

Yes, really.

The resulting competition became known as the Great Stork Derby.

After years of legal wrangling, four women ultimately shared the main prize.

And I thought my imagination went in unusual directions.

And Then There Are the Conditions…

The inheritance itself isn’t always the strangest part. Sometimes it’s what a person has to do to receive it. History is full of stories about wills containing unusual conditions.

Live in a particular place.

Don’t marry a certain person.

Follow particular religious practices.

Maintain a certain lifestyle.

And, apparently, don’t grow a mustache.

Some conditions have been upheld. Others have been challenged or thrown out by courts. But from a suspense writer’s perspective, the legalities weren’t really what fascinated me. It was the possibilities.

Imagine discovering that someone had left you a fortune… but only if you did something you absolutely didn’t want to do.

Would you do it?

What if accepting the inheritance changed your entire life?

What if someone else desperately wanted what you’d inherited?

What if the person who wrote the will knew something you didn’t?

And what if uncovering the reason behind that strange inheritance put you in danger?

Now I had the idea for a story.

Creating Cotter, Alberta

Once I had the premise, I needed somewhere for it to happen. I debated setting Concealed Inheritance in a real Alberta town, but nothing quite worked the way I needed it to. So I created my own.

Cotter, Alberta is fictional.

But it isn’t completely imaginary. I based it loosely on about three Alberta towns, taking pieces from each that suited the story and combining them into somewhere new. That’s one of the advantages of creating a fictional community. I can borrow the feeling of real places—the landscape, streets, businesses, distances and atmosphere—but move things around when the story needs me to.

Cotter could become exactly the town I needed it to be.

And because I’m writing suspense, that probably isn’t particularly good news for the people who live there.

And Yes, the Blue Jeep Liberty Is Real… Sort Of

Not everything in the book came from research or strange inheritances. Sometimes I borrow things from my own life. The blue Jeep Liberty in Concealed Inheritance was inspired by my daughter’s vehicle. She loved that Jeep, and I thought it would be fun to put one in the story.

Little details like that often find their way into my novels.

A vehicle.

A personality trait.

A place I’ve visited.

Something someone says.

An unusual story I hear.

None of those things necessarily becomes exactly what it was in real life. Instead, pieces get changed, combined and reshaped until they belong to the fictional world. Which brings me back to where Concealed Inheritance began.

A television show about an inheritance.

Three Alberta towns.

My daughter’s blue Jeep.

Some research into very strange wills.

And a whole lot of… What if?

Somehow all those completely unrelated pieces came together and became a suspense novel. That’s the magic of writing for me. You never quite know which small idea is going to become the beginning of an entire story.

Now I’m Curious…

If someone left you a large inheritance with one very strange condition attached, what would you absolutely refuse to do to get the money?

And what condition might make you stop and think… Well, maybe I could live with that.