The Eye of the Beholder - Romance Writers Weekly - #lovechatwrite

During the festival, flower petals are arranged in intricate patterns on the street. Residents are responsible for the strip in front of their home, so the pattern changes every few metres. Then the procession (priests, acolytes, parishioners, and the float with the religious statues on it) follows the flower carpet.

This week on the Blog Hop, we’ve been asked:

How big a role does setting play in your writing?

When I first started writing, I made a conscious decision to set my book in my hometown of Prince George. I figured I had enough to learn about writing and publishing without the added stress of an imagine location!

But setting is more than just which coffee shop a character frequents or what street they live on. The place a book is set has huge influence over the story. It dictates what the character does, how they experience the world. Do they commute to work or just walk down the block? Is there good internet or is the service patchy? Are they familiar with the place or do they need Google Maps to get around?

When I wrote No Life But This, I knew I wanted to set the story on San Miguel, Azores, the Portuguese island where my in-laws were born. To give the romance depth, I made my heroine a woman who had never left Prince George. She’d never flown on a plane, never travelled alone or with family. I paired her with a sexy tour guide, who showed her the hidden side of his beautiful island. In this book, the location was key, because I wanted to show Abigail completely out of her comfort zone. As for Santos, I wanted him to see his home with a fresh pair of eyes. One of my favourite sequences in the book is when he invites her to a religious festival in his village. I based those scenes on a festival in my in-laws’ hometown, which we visited in 2013. It is one of my most vivid memories and I had to include it.

Personally, I love reading books set in real locations. If I’ve been to the place, I love to see the characters walking where I walked. If I haven’t, it gives me a new place to add to my bucket list, LOL!

What about you? Does setting influence how you read about? Would it make you pick up (or put down) a book? Let me know in the comments, then hop over to Leslie Hachtel to learn how she treats setting.

Travel without leaving your chair! No Life But This is set on one of the gorgeous Portuguese islands of the Azores.

Abigail Garsson feels trapped in her safe, boring, conventional life. Desperate to escape, she signs up for an adventure vacation on the Portuguese island of São Miguel.

Santos Carregado enjoys introducing tourists to his tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic. At first he barely notices the unassuming Abigail. He soon finds her meek exterior hides a vibrant woman who teases his senses and ignites his passion.

Abigail is stunned to discover the handsome, confident Santos is attracted to her, but his fiery kisses and searing caresses convince her to accept a sensuous invitation.
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Will the realities of life shatter Abigail's holiday daydream? Or can the shifting sands of a short-term fling become the rock on which a life-long relationship is built?

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