
What is the most inspiring, romantic, or dangerous setting you ever read or written?
That's easy! I'm not a world-traveler kind of gal. If we ever get to retire, I'd like nothing better than to have a cabin by a lake for the summer, then to drag our camper around the country for the rest of the year, seeing all there is to see in the good ol' USA. I'm just not the globe-trotting type.
So when I think of a setting that's inspiring, I think of places we've been to, the small towns we've camped near, where I felt relaxed and at-peace. My current favorite slice of heaven is up at the furthest north-eastern corner of Minnesota--specifically: Grand Marais. This is a quaint tourist town with an arty-flair, right on Lake Superior, in the shadow of the Sawtooth Mountains. The scenery is rugged and beautiful, though judging by our time spent there last summer, I can see how it would be a formidable challenge to enjoy in the overly-long winter season lasting from about October through to June! We spent the last 2 weeks of July up there last year, and on the rare days when it got above 60 degrees and it wasn't raining, we went swimming. In previous years it had been in the 90s...we hope for somewhere in-between if we can make it up there this summer.
But the camping just north of town is gorgeous, and the lakes along the Gun Flint Trail leading north are pristine and beautiful. My inspiration for For The Love Of His Life was the unhappiness I felt one year as we were driving south to head home. I wanted to stay! Wah! And I began to think how wonderful it would be to fall in love with a native, so you could stay in Grand Marais forever! And that's just what my egotistical bad boy actor, action-movie star Raul Roderick does...after he manages to convince Veronica that he's telling the truth about his feelings for her, since she accuses him of being like all actors: "You lie for a living."
I set the sequel, Only One Man Will Do, in Minneapolis, but the third book in the series, Her Last Resort, will be released later this year, and it's set once again in Grand Marais. To learn more about how much I love small town romances, please listen to Hummingbird Place blog-radio this Monday, May 26th, at 7:30pm EST, as I join in with 3 other authors to discuss small-town romances: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hummingbirdplace/2014/05/26/small-town-romances
How about you? What's your favorite setting to read or write about?
To find out what the next author on our Round Robin thinks, click here:
http://rhobinleecourtright.com