Location, location, location ~ Girly Book Blog Hop

Click here to enter the grand prize

I had such a fun time participating in the last Girly Book Blog Hop that I jumped at a chance to play again. Thanks so much to Libby Mercer for organizing another great hop. Best part for all of you? At each stop on the hop (haha - I'm a poet) each participant is giving away some sort of prize (enter below for a chance to win a $5 Amazon Gift Card). In addition to that, there is one huge grand prize that will be the ultimate reader's dream. Many of us have contributed various items to the grand prize, so be sure to click over and enter that too!

So, our posts this time are supposed to center around location. What is it about books that can transport you to another time and place? I've been to so many locations, enjoyed many places not only from our world, but places available only in the imagination. Fantasy was my favorite genre to read growing up: from the dragon-filled skies of Anne McCaffrey's Pern to the world full of talking horses/spirit guides, griffons, and other magical beings, Valdemar, created by Mercedes Lackey. I've spent many hours in these other worlds, pretending I was the characters I read about. As I got older, my reading choices have changed somewhat, but I've spent a lot of hours in New York with Mary Higgins-Clark, solving mysteries, and I've spent a significant amount of time in Bon Temps, Louisiana, falling in love with a certain vampire viking from the imagination of Charlaine Harris.  Oh, and I absolutely love traveling back to the Victorian era to fall in love with numerous men while reading the fantastic imaginings of Amanda Quick. 

While the locations in my book are certainly more mundane than places I've visited, I find that water plays a significant role in my location choices. Always & Forever takes place on the shore of a large lake in fictional Serenity, Oregon. My upcoming release, Crime & Passion, opens with a murder on the beach in a small town in Northern California. Even though I told myself I wasn't going to do another story next to the water, in the book I'm writing next at some point the characters will end up at a mansion next to a lake while hiding from the enemy. I can't seem to get away from it, and I love it! Water is the soothing balm that my soul cries for. The sound of waves crashing, a river rushing down a mountain side, the gentle patter of rain even. I love it all. 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to visit everyone's blogs, read their contributions, and enter for a chance to win some great prizes!


Visit Libby's page to enter the grand prize drawing: http://libby-mercer.blogspot.com/2013/01/enter-to-win-girly-books-blog-hop-grand.html

What are the favorite places you've ever visited in a book? Happy reading and good luck in the giveaways!
eeeChantelfff