Guest Post: Jennifer DeLucy + Giveaway! (Light Series blog tour)

I'm so excited to have the lovely Jen DeLucy on our blog! Today she'll be talking about the various places where The Light series is set to. This is part of the Light Series blog tour. Everyone, please welcome her!

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They say to start by writing what you know... and that's what I did with Seers of Light, the first book in The Light Series. Some of you might be fans of The Office on television, so you're fictionally familiar with the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania for that reason, but you'll also find Scranton and its sister city, Wilkes-Barre, partially featured in book one, because that's where I was born and raised and I thought it would be fun to throw them some props.

Scranton is an interesting place, kind of a cultural melting pot, blast from the old-school industrial past when coal mines and steam engines and iron ore were all the rage, when immigrants took to America with stars in their eyes and raised their kids to do the same. Like most folks my age from that area, I'm a 3rd generation child of immigrants, myself. My genetic line combines Portuguese with Irish, Italian and German, and I've seen the past living right along side the present in Northeast Pennsylvania. It's a place packed with so much culture that you are literally drowning in it. Italian cooking, Old Forge Style pizza, Pierogies, Catholic Churches on practically every corner, same with pubs, cemeteries and funeral homes... it's a place that has a rich, but often tragic history. The people of this part of the country knew back breaking labor, knew sacrifice beyond reason. And I imagine that the work sucked the spirit right out of a lot of my ancestors, God bless them. Imagine the history there. Imagine the potential for hauntings and remnant energy? It seemed like a perfect place to have my protagonist grow up.

The path that Lily liked to walk.. the lake trail, is based on two places that I spent a lot of time walking as a young girl. Lake Scranton is the first, and Nay Aug Park, the other. Here is a pic of the trail at Nay Aug that I took when I visited my home town this past summer:

A small, fictional country area outside of Atlanta, Georgia is the focus of the middle of the book, mainly because I felt that Lily needed to be taken out of the essence of what she knew--crowded, influenced by too many voices, people everywhere--and introduced to a smaller group, a more secluded place, a new way of thinking. The Georgian farmhouse also offered a natural, peaceful, meditative space
where she could train and think and get to know herself. No matter how I looked, I couldn't find a close enough replica of the one story, sprawling farm house that I imagined in my mind, but if any of you have read the book and can find one, let me know!

As for book two, Whisper of Light, I wanted to combine two of my greatest loves: trees and the ocean. What better, more beautiful place than the Redwood Coast? I researched for a while to decide on the exact location, but I knew that Northern California was the general geography, since that's where the visiting Sentients were from in book one. I settled on Eureka, California, after visiting a website that charmed me to death. Nicole, the lead in book two, could have her fill of inspiration via the grand pacific as well as the age old Redwoods. The Eureka area is now on my list of places that I absolutely must visit.

The Northwest Sentients live in a beach house that is quite zen... very modern and different from the old property in Seers of Light. The house doesn't overwhelm with too much color, rather, it lets the natural landscape and the colors of the ocean take the lead. This is kind of reflective of Nicole's character.

As for book three, which has not been released yet, we're revisiting Lily's Sentient group. They will spend about the first half of the book in Philadelphia, but the second half will see them crossing the globe to Ireland. I have a wonderful, wonderful real life contact there who has actually visited the specific place that I had in mind as a major player for the book. She took pics there, in fact. You can see a few of them here:

http://jenniferdelucy.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-three-on-location.html

So. There you have it! I hope you've enjoyed being on location with the Light Series! See you in the books...

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You can find Jen online here:

Website | Twitter | Blog

You can grab your own copies of her books by clicking on the links below:

Seers of Light: Amazon | Omnific Publishing
Whispers of Light: Amazon | Omnific Publishing

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We're giving away an eBook copy of BOTH Seers of Light and Whisper of Light to ONE winner!!! How awesome is that? Just fill out the form below, or if you can't see it, click HERE.

Rules:

OPEN INTERNATIONALLY!
Ends FEBRUARY 19, 2011
Must be at least 16 years old to enter