The Importance of Setting in my Books

August 22, 2019 | By Rhys Bowen | Reply More

One of the questions we writers get asked most frequently is where we get our ideas from. I would say that the theme that links all of my books is the desire to create a sense of time and place.

I had always been a mystery reader, enjoying the books of the ladies of the Golden Age. But I found them fun puzzles. They never touched me emotionally. So it was only when I discovered Tony Hillerman that I realized what the scope of mysteries could be. He took me to a place. He gave me insights into another culture. I knew then that was what I wanted to write. Not about the Navajo, about whom I knew nothing but I wanted to create a setting so vivid that I was taking my reader there.

I was telling a friend about my childhood experiences in Wales when I realized that I did have the material for a good series. My protagonist was Constable Evans and my setting was Snowdonia in North Wales, where I had spent childhood summers. I featured the quirks of the Welsh people, the language, the culture as well as the mountain scenery. I was enjoying writing that series except that Constable Evans was beginning to annoy me because he was so polite. I wanted to write about someone who wasn’t always polite, not always wise, who didn’t know when to back off. A feisty female protagonist. But where to set her stories?

Then I went to Ellis Island. I was quite unprepared for the emotional overload I felt there. And standing looking across at the Manhattan skyline I realized that this was the ultimate locked room mystery. I knew I just had to write about it. So Molly Murphy was an Irish woman who has to flee from her home when she accidentally kills the man who was trying to rape her.

He was the landowner’s son and she realized she would get no justice. She takes a chance to come to Ellis Island, using another woman’s identity. While on the island a murder occurs and the name she is using shows up as a prime suspect. That was the driving force behind Murphy’s Law, the first book in that series, that won four major awards and started Molly off on a series that is seventeen books to date.

When Molly stepped ashore in New York I realized I had set myself a challenge of research for ever more, but it is a challenge I have enjoyed. The subsequent books have mostly been set featuring the immigrant experience in New York and I know 1900s New York so well now that I could lead you on a walking tour. Luckily much of it is still there.

So why start another series? Because my editor said they couldn’t really break me out until I wrote a big, dark stand-alone novel. That was not me! I thought who was the most unlikely protagonist I could create. What if she was royal? But penniless? And in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Her Royal Spyness was born.

We showed the proposal to my publisher who said, “No, that wasn’t what we wanted at all.” But another publisher bought it and it was an instant success. The 1930s are such a fun time to write about: a time of great contrasts. Bertie Wooster drinking champagne from a slipper, yet men standing in bread lines. Communism and Fascism. The books are funny yet have an underlying social commentary. But they are pure joy to write. I can’t wait to find out what the dreadful maid Queenie will do next, or Georgie’s mother or the queen will want from her.

You’d think with two series that I would be content and busy: but nagging at me always was the desire to write about World War II. Such a compelling time, the last time we had a clear sense of good versus evil. So many acts of bravery. So many stories to tell. And I saw so many parallels with our current world that I felt I had to write about it. When I read about a secret society of British aristocrats who were helping Hitler I knew that was what I wanted to feature in my book. IN FARLEIGH FIELD involves Bletchley Park, MI5 and a stately home. It shows ordinary people coping with the strains of war.

I followed it with another WWII book, this time set in Tuscany. It is called THE TUSCAN CHILD and has sold over half a million copies. A downed airman is aided by a local Italian woman. Many years later his daughter finds a letter that was never delivered and sets out to discover what really happened. Again setting is the most important thing in the story. I have been lucky enough to teach a writing workshop in Tuscany so it’s an area I know well and I have been able to observe the little things that bring a book to life.

I always have to know a setting first hand and then go back to observe while I am writing. I have set many books in England but also in Italy, France, and of course America. While I am there I get great ideas for a new story. While I was in Nice I spotted a beautiful building on a hill. It turned out to be built for Queen Victoria when she spent her last winters on the Riviera. I had not known that and it has become a book, due out February 2020. It is called ABOVE THE BAY OF ANGELS.

My latest book is the exception: LOVE AND DEATH AMONG THE CHEETAHS is set in Kenya. I wanted to visit but my husband’s health is iffy. So much reading and using my safari experience from other places. I think I’ve done a good job in bringing it to life!

I wonder where I might go next. It’s always an exciting challenge.

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RHYS BOWEN is the New York Times bestselling author of two historical mystery series as well as several internationally best selling stand alone historical novels. Her books are currently translated into 24 languages and she has won twenty awards. Visit her at www.rhysbowen.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor or on Instagram and Twitter.

LOVE AND DEATH AMONG THE CHEETAS

Georgie and Darcy are finally on their honeymoon in Kenya’s Happy Valley, but murder crashes the party in this all-new installment in the New York Times bestselling series.

I was so excited when Darcy announced out of the blue that we were flying to Kenya for our extended honeymoon. Now that we are here, I suspect he has actually been sent to fulfill another secret mission. I am trying very hard not to pick a fight about it, because after all, we are in paradise! Darcy finally confides that there have been robberies in London and Paris. It seems the thief was a member of the aristocracy and may have fled to Kenya. Since we are staying in the Happy Valley—the center of upper-class English life—we are well positioned to hunt for clues and ferret out possible suspects.

Now that I am a sophisticated married woman, I am doing my best to sound like one. But crikey! These aristocrats are a thoroughly loathsome sort enjoying a completely decadent lifestyle filled with wild parties and rampant infidelity. And one of the leading lights in the community, Lord Cheriton, has the nerve to make a play for me. While I am on my honeymoon! Of course, I put an end to that right off.

When he is found bloodied and lifeless along a lonely stretch of road, it appears he fell victim to a lion. But it seems that the Happy Valley community wants to close the case a bit too quickly. Darcy and I soon discover that there is much more than a simple robbery and an animal attack to contend with here in Kenya. Nearly everyone has a motive to want Lord Cheriton dead and some will go to great lengths to silence anyone who asks too many questions. The hunt is on! I just hope I can survive my honeymoon long enough to catch a killer. . . .

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