FAIRHOPE, Ala. — For 27-year-old R. Safley, known as Rachael to her friends and family, writing her first novel was a catharsis of sorts. While waiting for one of the later novels in Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series to be completed and published, she fidgeted, unable to keep the prior book’s storyline out of her thoughts.

“It was incomplete,” Safley said. “The next book hadn’t been written, and I wanted to know what happened to these characters. I would think up different ways the series could have ended.”

She said the various scenarios continued to haunt her until the last chapter was released in 2004. It had all begun in 1982, and some of the characters from the series have since found their way into some of King’s other books.

King’s penchant for suspense and terror might have also found its way into Safley.

“There were these stories in my head,” she said. “It was a closure thing for me until (King) finished it.” So, Safley did what any normal Eastern Shore girl would do in just such a case; she rolled her own stories into a chilling tale.

Reagan’s Game is about novelist Sam Kent and his popular yet homicidal character, Reagan DuSaint. Kent appears at first to be well balanced, but as Safley draws the reader into his world set in modern-day Fairhope, the line between fiction and reality becomes increasingly blurred. As DuSaint begins to push Kent aside and seeks revenge for the latest plot twist, the novelist’s life unravels.

Safley said, “He is manifested through the author. The author takes on the main character’s characteristics.”

Like the King books that began with The Gunslinger, Kent’s “DuSaint” series is unfinished, and the fictitious author is haunted as well.

“(DuSaint) comes to life and he demands closure,” she said. “The love of his life is killed off in the last book, and he wants closure.”

Setting the story on this side of Mobile Bay is the obvious choice for someone who grew up here, but there’s much more behind Safley’s decision.

“Fairhope is a really great setting,” she said. “It’s a colorful place, and has a really great history. There are so many artsy people drawn to it because it’s colorful and vibrant. There are so many great things to look at. It’s an inspiring place.”

The New York native spent four months writing the book while she was carrying her now three-year-old daughter, Georgia. She said, “I was pregnant, so I didn’t have much else to do.”

Safley comes from literary stock. Her parents were both newspaper editors many years ago — Dan Hanson was with the Fairhope Courier, and Debbie Hanson was on the Daphne Bulletin staff. They met and fell in love on the job, she said.

A Fairhope resident since age 7, Safley attended Fairhope High School before graduating from Central Christian School at 17 and immediately joining the U.S. Army.

She later attended the University of South Alabama, the Community College on Monterey Peninsula in California and the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, where she studied Korean.

She swam for ESSA four years in a row, and also played ball at Stimpson Field on Morphy Avenue, now home to the city of Fairhope’s tennis facility. She once worked for Burger King on Greeno Road, as part of the original, opening crew during the summer of 1995.

Safley now lives in Marlow with her husband, Chris “Roscoe” Safley (a U.S. Navy veteran), and their three children, Elizabeth, Georgia and Paul.

“My husband is really impressed with my book,” she said. “He likes to brag about it. My dad is also impressed. They (the Hansons) both said it was hard to believe I really wrote it. It is kind of scary, but I’m not a scary person. It’s a campfire story.”

Safley began writing at 19, penning short stories she would pass along to her dad. She also took a couple of online creative writing courses, which helped polish her talent. Although the courses were designed for professionals needing tips, Safley initially took them for fun.

The concept of creative writing clearly sunk in. In one paragraph of her debut work, Safley wrote, “With her contemporary beauty, a completely superior outward appearance, she served her purpose as well. Her skin was a peaceful, smooth cream stretched tightly just over the surface of her tiny bone architecture … All in all, Ronnie Garret was a sharp and angular woman … The way she spoke was sharp as well, giving her personality a brutal and unfriendly edge … She was like a museum artifact, something expensive and breakable that was nice to look at, but not what you’d want in your own home for fear of upsetting her fragility.”

Of her style, she said, “My parents influenced me. I’d write something for school or something, and it would be edited about 19 times. They’d advise me to ask the questions a reporter would ask. They always taught me in any situation — if there’s a ball, ask why is it there? What does it feel like? Writers use all five senses. You describe everything based on what makes it stand out.”

Safley wrote Reagan’s Game on a Brother word processor because the combination of old and new technology gave her some comfort. She was able to immediately print what she had just written directly from a contraption that resembles a typewriter. She now uses a laptop computer for convenience.

Safley said she received 39 rejection letters over a 30-month period (which she saved) before a publisher known for giving the green light to young authors said “yes” to Reagan’s Game.

“Being a published author, the next book will be easier getting through the process,” she said. “(Finishing) was somewhat anticlimactic from a writing point of view, but actually having the first copy in my hands was satisfying. It had me floating around for a full day or so. I was actually an author — not just a writer.”

Released in January, Reagan’s Game is available through several online retailers, and it might soon be on the shelf in area bookstores.

Safley is nearly finished with her second book, but pointed out it is not a nail-biter like the first. She said, “I want to write books I can let my kids read.”

King has been quoted as saying the seven “Dark Tower” books are his magnum opus, or greatest work. Safley said, “I keep telling myself this is my Carrie.” The 1974 horror classic was King’s first published novel.