Maggie Thom, Multi-Award Winning Author, Speaker, Writing Coach
The Setting
,Welcome to my brand new series – The Prairie Crime Thriller Series.
I am so excited about this series. When I write a story I always have the dilemma, use a real place for the setting or make up a fictional one. I have done both.
The Caspian Wine Series is based in real places across Canada. I did up several articles about the Journey Across Canada. You can start that journey here.
The Twisted Deception Series I set on Vancouver Island, Canada.
Many of my other novels are set in fictional places – Tainted Waters, Deadly Ties, Fractured Lines…
It’s always catchy using a real place. Some people love it. Others don’t. For me it’s really about whether the setting works for my story. And do I know the area well enough.
For this new series, I went back and forth trying to decide. But then I had a brilliant idea. Okay, maybe it was just a good idea but I liked it.
I chose a real place – Connemara, Alberta. When I was a child there was a grain elevator, a small house surrounded by trees, and a lake. It was a little blip that most people wouldn’t have even noticed back then. Today there is absolutely nothing. Oh, there was a train track too, which is also gone but is now part of the Canada Trail. I have no idea why the area was called Connemara. I did find that Connemara is Irish. There is a place and a horse called Connemara in Ireland. So I’m guessing some connection to Ireland but truly have no idea why. For me it was always a landmark. A cool place. It fascinated me, although I couldn’t tell you why.
It was perfect for the setting of my new Prairie Crime Thriller Series. But there is nothing there. Perfect. That means I need to create a whole new place. So I get the best of both settings – a real place and a fictional one too.
Connemara, Alberta will be a fictional small city. It has been both fun and stressful, creating this place. There is a lot of information to keep track of, not just for this novel but for future stories that will be set here. All the books in The Prairie Crime Thriller Series will be based around this place – Connemara.
Poisoned Promises is the first book in the series.
This is the image that I am using as the setting for Connemara and on the covers of the books in The Prairie Crime Series. It is a great picture of the prairies, and a town. Perfect for my stories.
Let me introduce you to Poisoned Promises.
It’s not only illegal… it’s lethal.
Bryana has only come home to find someone to work with her disabled mother. But soon discovers she still has a burning anger for her father who abandoned them years before. It’s time he pays with his precious company, Pratner Fertilizer.
Lee hates Pratner Fertilizer. They killed his father and now, almost his uncle. Going undercover he uses the heir to get a job with the company.
Bryana believes she can use Lee to get answers and to take down her father. Only she discovers there is a whole lot more to his company than Fertilizer. Her father has been making a deadly chemical for years and has made millions off of it. How are they going to stop a man who has paid off government officials? Who knows how to play the game?
Poisoned Promises a new novel in The Prairie Crime Thriller Series.
Read the first few chapters here.
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