Road Trippin' Your Way into the Hearts of Readers!

Goooooood Morning, Seeeeekerville!!!!

Ruthy here, and I'm just gonna say there's not much I like better than a ROAD TRIP with my peeps!!!

And I'm not talkin' marshmallow chicks here, we chatted up those Peeps last week,

I'm goin' with the lovely daughters, husband and friends that I drag onto these missions to help me create the "land base" for series writing... (waving to Deb Marvin who hooked up with us last December!!)

Story setting is huge to me, but you don't have a lot of time or space to "set" a book in category romances, so setting a series of books allows me the fun of developing a town/village/lake/ranch/neighborhood that works for a bunch of stories.

"Kirkwood Lake" is a fictional body of water loosely based on Chautauqua Lake in Western New York, but when I went looking for the mountain/hill/lake combination I wanted for this new series, it didn't exist. I stopped into Rushford Lake, NY, and it was beautiful, but small for my vision.... Then Cuba Lake, a man-made lake in the far corner of Allegany County... Nope. Needed bigger, I was seeing a bigger lake with several villages dotting the shores.

When we started to circle Chautauqua Lake, I knew I had the right body of water! SO GORGEOUS!!!!

I cruised the stores and villages surrounding the lake.... and if you look at this pic, you'll see that we're actually just west of the Enchanted Mountain Region of New York.

I wanted mountains. I wanted this lake. I write fiction.

NO BRAINER, LOL!

I set up my villages on "Kirkwood Lake" and snugged the lake a little to the east of Chautauqua Lake, probably risking mayhem by putting it smack dab in the middle of an Indian Reservation. But I can get away with it because it's fiction... set amid reality.

View of Olean, NY tucked into Enchanted Mountains region of northern Appalachia. How stinkin' gorgeous is this? "Brigadoon"-pretty, right?

Rolling hills, gorgeous lake, riparian interests, farmers' rights, family discord, medical malpractice, crumbling marriages, happily ever afters, sick children, babies, lost babies, storms, a heroic horse that makes me smile every time I think of him, a sweet minister, pretty churches, holiday charm, winter's quiet, lack of faith, amazing faith, grace, forgiveness, humor, food, weddings, pretty dresses, cute jeans, guys in uniform....

Aha.

Gotcha right there, didn't I? Because how stinkin' cute are cops against a setting like this?

Or this?

This is VIDLER'S 5 & 10 in East Aurora, New York, a fun, vintage, classic nod to yesteryear!
THEY SELL NOSTALGIA!!!
WELL.

:)

SO DO I!!!!

So far we're three books into this series, three delightful stories where hero and heroine ALWAYS COME FIRST.... but multiple books let me take the reader into cafes.... church pews.... gazebos.... apple farms.... dairy farms with a glass-bottle dairy attached!!!... and we can see the good and bad of small-town living... Because everybody dies famous in a small town!

This book is available in two weeks in stores and at Amazon and CBD.com
But you can get it HERE RIGHT NOW!!!!

Setting is a mosaic, and I've always loved that art-form. It's never enough to have one farm set on a hill, but a farm with a store attached, set on a hill overlooking a gorgeous and upscale lake with lake frontage that the town WANTS BADLY TO ACCESS FOR DEVELOPMENT.... while two heirs are fighting with the other three heirs, trying to force them to sell the farm so they can take their cut and RUN...

Now my setting has become part of the plot.

I took a weekend drive and turned it into the basics of what is so far a five-book series... but we're already talking more books set in Kirkwood, more stories about the multi-cultural Campbell family and who doesn't love a cafe called "Tina Marie's"...

 With a proprietor who had a thing.... back in the day....

for the Special Forces Campbell brother who has no intention of ever coming back to town to stay... but life throws us curves when we least expect it.

And who wouldn't love a pair of Italian seamstresses who come to town in time to help make costumes for the town's year-long bicentennial celebration??? And maybe win a heart along the way?

Writing successful series in category length is developing the timing for saying the most with the least, and believe me, having a strong editor on hand helps make that happen.

Coffee's on (Helen might have an even fresher pot going, so be sure to check her out!)  We're chillaxin' with comfort food this morning, because it's been snowing (STILL!!!) in the west and I've heard we might see a little more in upstate before we wave winter bye-bye...

How about some stuffed French Toast with warm NYS maple syrup?

Sounds delightful! Let me know in the comments if you'd like your name put in the cat dish for the 15 page critique.... or the autographed copy of The Lawman's Second Chance or... both!


Love Inspired author Ruth Logan Herne is a native of upstate New York, she's been married for more years than most pre-schoolers can count, she opts to be a natural blonde and loves God, her family, chocolate, coffee, kids and dogs. You can find her waving her American flag with gusto at ruthloganherne.com, here on Seekerville hanging with people she loves, shamelessly exploiting puppies, kittens and small children for monetary gain at www.ruthysplace.com or cooking food with a great bunch of fellow writers at The Yankee Belle Cafe!