Romance Writers Weekly ~ Settings ~ #LoveChatWrite

 This week, on the Romance Writers Weekly blog hop, we're asked, "How big a role does setting play in your writing?"

In general, I'd say setting plays a really big part in my writing. The town of Oberon, for example, is so important to the Oberon stories that it's practically a character--maybe even the main character--in the series.

I'd go so far as to say my writing process begins with nailing the setting down--almost before anything else. Each story (maybe even each scene) has to be grounded in a specific place before I can move forward to actually writing it. Even if the details don't always make it onto the page, they have to be clear in my mind.

Setting is more than the way a place looks--it's not just window dressing. It's weather and politics, mind-set, and language. Which is why, when I decided to re-release the Oberon series I chose to annotate them rather than update them. In my opinion, time period also counts as setting. When the stories are set is almost as important as where they're set.

The same holds true for me as a reader. Nothing pulls me out of a story faster than inconsistencies in location. Especially if it's a location that I'm familiar with, or a time period that I'm familiar with.

Now, hop on over to Brenda Margriet's page to find out how she feels about settings. And don't forget to check out her book, No Life But This.

No Life But This

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.

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?

https://books2read.com/NoLifebutThis

It's Release Day for:

The Spirit of the Place

Oberon Book 6.0

https://books2read.com/SpiritPlace

'Tis the season to be jolly, but Jasmine Quinn is far from happy about her mother's  latest folly: her upcoming wedding to former Wall Street financier, Sam Sterling.  Jasmine doesn't like her future stepfather, or his values.  Anybody with as much money as Sam, should be spreading it around, aiding worthy causes, making it count for something.  Instead, he seems intent on using his wealth to embarrass her mother by throwing a ridiculously lavish wedding.  But there's one thing about Sam that Jasmine can't help but admire (no matter how much she'd like to) and that’s the graduate student he's hired as an intern.

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Brandon Ablemarle is also finding it hard to get into the holiday spirit.  Especially since his dream job has just become a nightmare, thanks in part to the fiery redhead with some of the goofiest ideas he's ever heard of. But what else can you expect from the daughter of a self-proclaimed psychic?   Marsha Quinn has a lot to answer for.  Not only has she encouraged her daughter's esoteric craziness, but she's also turned one of the most brilliant stock analysts Wall Street had ever seen into a nutcase as well.  One who actually appears to believe that the answers to the stock market can be found in the stars!

 

It's a clash of ideologies when Jasmine and Brandon get together.  Can the spirit of the season, and the spirit of the place help them to see beyond their differences?