About Nicholas

Frequently Asked Questions: book specific

True Believer

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks comes an unforgettable love story that explores the deepest mysteries of all--those o  ...

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• Have you sold the film rights?

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  Yes. Rights have been sold for both True Believer and At First Sight.

• Is Boone Creek a real place?

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  No, Boone Creek is entirely fictitious. In my imagination, I placed it somewhere in Pamlico County, but that's as far as it went.

• Was this novel inspired by any family members?

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  No. Like The Guardian, True Believer was fictitious. Lexie Darnell, however, was modeled after my wife.

• Have you ever seen a ghost?

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  I think so. I'm sort of like Jeremy in that I'm a skeptic, but I once visited a house of a friend that may -- or may not -- have been haunted. All I know is that I regularly saw movement from the corner of my eye, but when I glanced that way, I would see nothing at all. My wife, too, had some strange experiences while we were there, as did the owners. My wife and the owners, by the way, were certain it was a ghost.

• Why did you decide to write a sequel to True Believer?

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  Three reasons: first, I wanted to give the story -- in its entirety -- the number of pages it deserved. Second, I've always wanted to write a story about 'what happens next?' In my previous novels, my characters fell in love, but I've never had the opportunity to explore what happens after the initial stage of the relationship. And third, my goal as a novelist is to surprise the reader by telling new stories in different ways, and a novel with a direct sequel was something I'd never done before.

• Where did you get the idea for the mysterious lights in the cemetery? How about the legend that Doris tells Jeremy?

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  The lights in the cemetery were modeled after the Brown Mountain Lights, mysterious lights that have appeared for decades in western North Carolina. The legend was a figment of my imagination.