I wanted to write a story about going home. For me, going home has always been a good thing. My family only gets to travel back to Canada once a year now and it’s something we all look forward to. We love to see all of our relatives, spending time together just hanging out or taking in the usual sights like the zoo, park, and our favorite restaurants. Our trips always go by way too fast and we’re always so sad when it’s time to leave again—basically the exact opposite of Tessa’s feelings about going home to Cutter’s Creek.
Writing The Hometown Hoax, I had to completely turn the tables. Tessa Cutter would do anything not to return home after finally escaping her small town life. She was more than happy to leave it all behind and move to Manhattan to follow her dreams of becoming a world-class author. Even though she loves her family, they can be overbearing and meddlesome and she’ll do whatever she can to not get trapped in town again—even if it means ignoring the hunky new guy in town Logan. If only ignoring Logan were easy. But it’s damn near impossible when he’s a guest on her family’s camping trip and they’re stuck bunking together for a week!
I had so much fun writing this book. While I’ve lived in both big cities and small towns, I’ve never lived in a small town for long. They just aren’t for me. So in that way I could easily relate to Tessa. But the rest of it—the family issues, the town people who know everything, the familiarity of a place that dredges up old memories you’d rather leave behind—all of it is different than what I experience whenever I go home.
And I LOVED creating the town of Cutter’s Creek and the various people who live there. The kinds of people you know in a small town are the same as the ones in a big city, in my experience. The only difference is they’re a lot more concentrated in a small town, which equated to more fun for me! The town’s people gave me so many great ways to create conflict, tension and build the backstory for Tessa.
Whether you’re more comfortable in the big city or a small town, I think you’ll relate to Tessa and Logan’s story and have just as much fun reading it as I had writing it!
~Heather Thurmeier
Learn more about The Hometown Hoax
About Author
Leave a Reply