I Stole Lebanon TN

Well, Actually, I Just Removed It
By Jeff Salter

It’s nearing the year end, so I thought it fitting to highlight my two novels which released this year: The Duchess of Earl and Size Matters.
Since both share the same setting — Verdeville… in Greene County TN — I thought it was time I told y’all a bit more about the fictional town and county which I placed over the real city of Lebanon TN (and Wilson County).
After writing three novels — all set in the real location of Somerset KY (Missing Person, Hid Wounded Reb, and Called to Arms Again) — I decided it was too taxing (to me) to keep straight all the history and geography of an actual place and people. So, for my fourth novel, Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold, I scanned the map for a likely site of a completely fictional town.
I wanted my new town NEAR a major city, but not IN it. I wanted it to have plenty of trees and hills and water. Lebanon TN was in a perfect spot!
But I didn’t want to be fettered by anything associated with Wilson County or Lebanon — so I created Verdeville in Greene County. I kept the interstate and major highways, the Cumberland River, and a few other features… but everything else I laid out from scratch.
Lebanon — I mean Verdeville — was also the perfect spot for my fifth novel Scratching the Seven-Month Itch, my sixth novel Rescued By That New Guy in Town, my seventh novel The Overnighter’s Secrets, and my eighth novel The Duchess of Earl.
My ninth novel (The Ghostess and MISTER Muir) moved to Magnolia AL, a fictional town that several authors at Clean Reads Publishing created and refined, but my tenth novel (Stuck on Cloud Eight) returned to Verdeville.
My eleventh novel (in the order they were written) has not yet been published, but it is also set in Verdeville. Then the twelfth — Size Matters — is right back in Verdeville.
Along the way, four of my novellas have also been released. Pleased to Meet Me is set in the mountains of east Tennessee;  Echo Taps  is set in Somerset KY.  The other two — Don’t Bet On It and One Simple Favor — are set in Lebanon (I mean, Verdeville).

Characters

The two novels in my series Amanda Moore or Less share a LOT of characters, but the only characters shared by the other Verdeville titles (so far) are a police department corporal (Thomas James) and a man named Prima.

Well, anyway, here are my two Verdeville novels which appeared during 2016:

This is not a Regency… but SHE thinks it is. What if you woke from a traumatic experience and believed you were in 1813 England? Could you trust Dusty Earl in middle Tennessee? An affectionate tweak of Regency novels. http://tinyurl.com/jkq6j5k

Accidentally swallowing a mysterious pill from her eccentric scientist cousin, Emma Hobby shrinks to the size of those fashion dolls she collects and sells in her shop. When she resumes normal size, Emma must track down her cousin, who’s obviously in trouble (based on those crazy messages he sent). Can those sci-fi miniaturization pills help find him? How about Logan Stride, the attorney who wants to handle more of Emma than her case? Size Matters. Novel, $1.99. http://tinyurl.com/SalSizeMat

Question:

Do you prefer reading about REAL places? Or do you also enjoy stories set in fictional spots?

[JLS # 311]