Hey, Fam! 
 

Did you know that a place can also be a character in a novel? I'm talking about the setting, the location, the big city or small town or island or foreign land or heck, even outer space--all of it can come to life and be more than just a backdrop. It can become a character itself.
 

I love rooting my stories in actual places that have their own unique vibe. For me, being able to build a scene around the sounds, smells, and feel of a location helps to bring the story to life. So, I was very intentional about where the action of A Deviant Beginning takes place. 
 

This week, I'm going to be talking about location and answering two questions about A Deviant Beginning:

I'll do the easy question first. When are we? Now. A Deviant Beginning takes place now, in the modern day. As for where, however…well, we've got a couple of places. 

Let's do this in order.

St. Louis

A Deviant Beginning starts in St. Louis. Kathryn is a professor at a university there. Susan lives there as well, and that's also where Kathryn meets Sam (AKA Charge). If you're familiar at all with St. Louis, you'll recognize particular call-outs--Kathryn and Charge's first date at an Italian restaurant in the Hill neighborhood, discussing the culinary specialty that is toasted ravioli, driving over the Mississippi River to a secluded spot in Illinois. All of those things are unique to St. Louis and including them helps to elevate St. Louis to character status. We're here for all of act one in the novel.

Los Angeles

Ah, the city of angels. 

 

Act two begins in LA. I won't spoil it by telling you how we get here, but the biggest chunk of the book takes place in Los Angeles.

 

As we all know, LA's got its own vibe. The weather, the traffic, the smog, the ocean, the mountains--all of it makes the city what it is, and all of those things get mentioned in A Deviant Beginning as our characters experience them. LA is also home to the second largest Underground Deviant Network in the country, which gives us the opportunity to meet lots of deviants with a variety of different gifts. Bringing LA to life on the page and coming up with unique gifts for the people we meet was a challenge but was also a lot of fun!

After spending quite a bit of time in LA, we jump over to…

New York City

Now, fair warning--in A Deviant Beginning, our time spent here is short, but it's VERY important. The few characters we meet in NYC will become central in books two and three, and by the time we get to book three, New York City will be where we spend the majority of our time. 

 

I LOVED writing the scenes set in New York. The city is iconic and is its own, unique character. I think this snippet I wrote taps into the energy and personality that is NYC:

“It was also the people packed together on the sidewalk, the cacophony of car horns, and the sounds of voices talking, arguing, and laughing all around him. LA was fine, but the energy was different—millions of people packed into their cars inching down miles of highway. New York pulsated like the electricity through his veins. LA throbbed like a broken stoplight blinking over and over again.”

 

There's one more location in A Deviant Beginning, and it is…

A Surprise!

I'm not going to tell you where this location is, but I will tell you that it's where the climax of the novel takes place, and like all of the other cities in A Deviant Beginning, this place is a character in its own right.

 

That's it for this week! If you want to explore all of these locations in advance of the release date, become an ARC reader!

ARC readers will receive a copy of A Deviant Beginning on Friday, August 14th. You'll also receive first access to a bonus spicy scene I had to cut because I had too many (as if it's possible to have too many sex scenes!). The ARC acceptance email will also include graphics to help with social media promotion, and I'll be raffling off ten signed copies of the paperback, so a select few of you will be able to hold Kathryn in your hands!

ARC acceptance emails go out every Tuesday and Friday, so if you apply, make sure you check your email to see if you are chosen. Oh, and whitelist hello@elisabethroseland.com to make sure my emails don't get flagged as spam.

Question of the Week!

What's your favorite city, either to visit or to read about? Or maybe your favorite city is your hometown. I know mine is, but we Chicagoans tend to be a bit obnoxious about how much we stan our city, but we can't help it. Have you ever BEEN HERE? (During the summer, of course. Winter? Well, that ain't for the weak.)

 

Anyway, send me an email at hello@elisabethroseland.com and let me know all about your favorite city. Convince me to come visit!

Previous Newsletters

🕓Did you miss the newsletter spotlighting Kathryn--the very bad ass but kinda messy FMC? Click here to read about Kathryn.

⚡Want to know more about the sexy MMC who can manipulate electricity? Click here to read about Charge.

🪞Can you believe what your eyes are seeing? Not when Susan is around.

👋🏼Wish you could throw someone up against the wall with a wave of your hand? Jonathan can.

That's all for now!

Thanks for reading. Come say hi on social media, or email me at hello@elisabethroseland.com.