Read Around the Rainbow | Do you set your books in the place you live?

ReadAroundTheRainbow

We’ve reached the Read Around the Rainbow post of the month. I didn’t write anything last month, but I’m here this month!

If you’re not familiar with the RAtR, it’s an author collaboration. We’re a group of authors who blog on the same topic on the last Friday of every month.

This month’s topic is:

Do you set your books in the place you live or have lived in?

I wrote Ofelia’s post first, and in it, I said that in most of my stories, I have things from Falkenberg (translates into Falconmountain), which is where I grew up. It’s a small city on the Swedish west coast that was first mentioned in writing in the late 1200s. So there’s a lot of history.

I never say Falkenberg though. I either make up a name or leave out a name LOL. And I do the same in Holly’s stories. In Love in an Elevator which will be out on July 23rd, Hayden is an event planner, and he’s arranging movie showings on the town square every Saturday in July.

When I was a teen, they did that in Falkenberg.

But, the reason I thought I’d write yet another post on the subject, and not just stop after Ofelia’s, is that I finished the first draft of a yet-to-be-named story that will be out in December (written to celebrate Crossword Day). And it’s the first one I’ve ever written that takes place where I live now. I live outside of a population centre in Älmhult’s county (where IKEA was founded). It’s no more than a crossroad really, so it has never occurred to me to set a story here before.

We have a preschool and a church, but that’s it, and you only have to cross the road to go from one to the other. There used to be a small grocery shop, a bank, and a post office, all in the same intersection, but that was long before we moved here. We’re talking 15-20 years back.

To be able to write the story, I made up a police station – we don’t have any cops nearby – and I made up a grocery shop since we don’t have any of those nearby either.

I doubt I’ll write more stories set here. Maybe. But it can go days without me seeing a single person, so there isn’t much human interaction going on. I love it. I think the neighbours are a bit too close – you can see four houses from ours, but they’re all summer houses, so at least the winters are calm and quiet LOL.

And last week my youngest had her last day at preschool, so now I don’t have to go down to the village anymore. My life as a true hermit can begin! Finally!