Take Me Places!

One of the best aspects I adore about reading fiction is visiting places I have never been or may never see. So when I write, I want to transport my readers into the locales my characters inhabit or visit. That also gives me a marvelous excuse to travel!

Out of Forgotten Ashes, Book Two of my Dragon & Hawk historical Western romance series, travels from Tombstone to Tucson and San Diego of the mid-1880s. I know other writers who say they don’t need to visit a place to write about it, but it’s essential for me. I take photos and jot notes about smells, sounds, and how the very air feels. For example, there is a scene in Out of Forgotten Ashes when our hero, Evan Jones and his beloved wife Reyna sail around the southern tip of Point Loma (known as Cabrillo Point) to a beautiful beach facing the Pacific.

Young Hall, Point Loma Nazarene University (Author Photo)

I found exactly what I had in mind on the campus of Point Loma Nazarene University, below Young Hall, one of the men’s dorms.  Of course, the buildings and such were not there at the time my story takes place; this area would have been wild and uncultivated in 1886. Can you imagine the cold shock of the spray on sun-warmed skin as a wave crashes against the rocks? Can you smell the brine and hear the gulls crying overhead?

Tucson sunset (Author photo)

In contrast, Evan and Reyna live in Southern Arizona -- a land of giant cactuses, dry heat, brilliant sunsets, and occasional violent thunderstorms that seem to rip the sky asunder with jagged lightning.

I feel strongly about being where my characters will walk. I hope I've made those fictional places so realistic you’ll feel as though you were there as well.

Why I Find Country Houses So Fun to Use as Settings

Hi, lovely people. I hope you enjoyed my excerpts from Love Through Time and Weekend at Wilderhope Manor. This time I'm back because I'd like to talk about another thing the two books have in common besides ghosts – they're both set in country houses. There's a reason for that... I love 'em!

Seriously though, I'd like to dish the dirt a little bit on why I find country houses so fascinating and why they're so much to use as settings.

I spend a lot of time in country houses, or manors, or whatever you want to call them. It's what I do for fun! I'm lucky because I live in England, where we have an abundance of the places that are open to the public. I'm naturally a very nosey person (if I was being polite, I'd say inquisitive) so generally, the more rooms I can see, the better. Even if lots of rooms are open to visit, I'm still always intrigued by the doors marked 'Private.' I want to know what's behind the doors, is it still furnished, are there still elements of the past left behind... my mind works overtime.

Regardless of those things, though, the houses really do captivate me. I'm a bit of a history buff and I always find myself wondering what it would have been like to live in the houses when they were in their prime, how people would have behaved, what they would have done for entertainment. The naughty side of my imagination inevitably comes up with decidedly more mischievous ideas, like what people got up to in that four poster bed, was that carpet beater really only used for beating carpets...

Add that to the seemingly endless hiding places, dimly lit rooms and creaking floorboards and you have the potential to write lots of different stories set in exactly the same place!

I don't write historicals because I'm a wimp and too scared of getting important details wrong, but I adore using the houses in contemporary stories and allowing elements of the past to slip into my tales. And that's exactly what I've done with Love Through Time and Weekend at Wilderhope Manor. Both stories are set in country houses, which play a large part in the plot.

Love Through Time has a young woman going to work in a country house, working on conserving the books in their impressive library. But, without giving too much away, she stirs something up and ends up getting involved in the past events of the place and having ghostly encounters...

Weekend at Wilderhope Manor has a lesbian couple spending a weekend at a manor for a joint murder mystery and Halloween weekend event. They're going about their business and having fun with the events that have been laid on, but they soon find out that there's more to Wilderhope Manor than meets the eye.

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Westbury Hall is a stately home with a fascinating past, and when book conservator Emily Stone starts uncovering it, she’s startled by what she finds . . . .

Emily arrives at Westbury Hall with a job to do. She’s to clean and conserve all of the books in their impressive library, preserving them for future generations. Not long into her stay at the house, she bumps into the night guard, George. She’d expected an old, balding guy with a comb over, so the hunky chap she actually meets is a very pleasant surprise. The introductions complete, George leaves Emily in peace to get on with her job. But when a falling photograph sets off a chain reaction of ghostly events, Emily and George are thrown together in order to find out who—or what—is causing them. Their investigation uncovers a tragic past, a lost love, and a stunning secret.

Buy links: http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/love-through-time/

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When Stephanie and Jenny go to a Murder Mystery Halloween weekend at Wilderhope Manor, they’re expecting fun and games. But following creaky floorboards, spooky noises and an alarming encounter in the Manor’s grounds, the girls begin to wonder if there’s more to Wilderhope Manor than meets the eye. As they find frequent comfort in one another’s arms – and their bed – will the girls discover what’s causing the bumps in the night, or will they run scared?

Buy links: http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/weekend-at-wilderhope-manor/

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Lucy is a graduate of the University of Derby, where she studied Creative Writing. During her first year, she was dared to write an erotic story - so she did. It went down a storm and she's never looked back. Lucy has had stories published by Cleis Press, Noble Romance, Ravenous Romance, Summerhouse Publishing, Sweetmeats Press and Xcite Books. She is also the editor of Uniform Behaviour and Seducing the Myth. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Both books are on Goodreads, so if your bank balance is already groaning under the weight of all the books you're buying – please add Love Through Time and Weekend at Wilderhope Manor to your to-read list! If you follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook, too, as well as checking out my website, you'll be able to find out about any giveaways I'm running.

Thanks so much for popping by to read my posts. Don't forget to leave comments in order to be in with the chance of winning the prizes being given away as part of the event. Also, don't forget to head over to the Whipped Cream Blog where I'm talking libraries, as well as interviewing two of my characters.