(And is that related to where you live or have lived?)
I spent most of my school years living in small towns. The first had a population of around 5,000 people. I knew everyone at my small primary school. There were only two classrooms when I started, so I knew or knew of all the families in the area with school-aged children.
I enjoyed living in that small town, but there were disadvantages. The high school wasn’t great, so it was probably good that we moved before I reached high school age. Our next home was in an even smaller town, population around 1,500. There was one primary school, and we were all bussed to the next two (population around 10,000) for high school.
I’ve also lived in cities. I lived in Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, for nine years. I lived in London, England, for ten years. Living in a big city has advantages—more facilities, better jobs— but it also has disadvantages—more traffic, more crime, more expensive.
I’ve also lived (and am still living) in a mid-sized city (population around 100,000). Well, that’s big for new Zealand, but mid-sized for the rest of the world.
I’ve lived in tiny towns and big cities. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.
And it’s the same with books. I enjoy small-town series where the characters are linked, and there are common characters across all the stories. I’ve enjoyed stories where the setting is almost another character. But small-town stories can get a little predictable, because there are usually only a limited number of occupations that make sense in a small town.
Big city settings open up a lot more opportunities in terms of careers and therefore characters and plots. I also like novels where the characters have unique careers, and these are usually set in big cities (e.g. Elizabeth Camden and Washington, DC, and Roseanna M White and London). Their characters have ranged from librarians to spies, but all needed the city setting.
I don’t mind whether a novel has a big city or a small town setting.
Tammy L. Gray lives in the Dallas area with her family, and they love all things Texas, even the erratic weather patterns. She writes modern Christian romance with true-to-life characters and culturally-relevant plot lines. She believes hope and healing can be found through high quality fiction that inspires and provokes change.
Los Angeles interior designer and former foster kid Kendall Green is in high demand, both for her impeccable eye and for her uncanny ability to uncover the provenance of any piece. But for all her success, skyrocketing costs have put her California home and her business in jeopardy. Then an unexpected inheritance provides a timely solution: a grandmother she never knew has left her a group of historic properties in a tiny Colorado town on the edge of ruin.
Carol is an author of inspirational fiction. She lives in Lilburn, Georgia, a small town outside of Atlanta, with her husband, Jim, and a perky Jack Russell “Terrorist,” Zoe.
From medical secretary to court reporter to property manager to owner of a special events decorating company, Carol’s resume reads as if she doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up. But one thing that has remained constant through the years is her love for writing. She currently pens fun and fast-paced inspirational romance and romantic suspense stories. Her books have been nominated for a RITA® award and an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award.
She’s a shoo-in for a serial killer’s next target…
