South Carolina Settings—Novel Atmospheres

While I’m not a native Southerner, I’ve called South Carolina home for decades, living in the Lowcountry for 13 years and the Upstate for 15 years. It’s no surprise that I’ve capitalized on these atmosphere-rich regions as settings for two of my published novels. Two of my works in progress also feature these appealing locales. With Neighbors Like These, a third Marley Clark mystery, returns to Dear Island, while my new humorous mystery series is set on a cheese-goat farm near Clemson.

But don’t bother consulting a map to pinpoint where my heroines and heroes hang their hats. There is no Dear Island—the private barrier island terrorized by a pun-loving murderer in Dear Killer. Nor is there a town of Shelby, home to fictional Blue Ridge University, the troubled campus threatened by home-grown terrorists in Dead Hunt. The private island and the college town are inventions. Here’s why.

I write mysteries, suspense and thrillers. Ergo bad things happen. People die. Killers elude authorities. Developers are sometimes greedy. Public officials may lie or cheat. Deputies are occasionally crooked. University administrators may be clueless. Suffice it to say that unsavory, if not downright despicable, antagonists flourish in my novels.

I need a cast of smart, unscrupulous characters to weave my mysteries and challenge my heroines and heroes. What I don’t need is a lawsuit. Also I don’t want to irk residents of a real community. I’m loath to suggest there might be bad apples among the law enforcement officers in an actual county. And I’m not about to poke fun at administrators serving an accredited university. That’s why I’ve given make-believe names to the institutions, companies, towns and counties populated with such characters.

Yet I still try to faithfully capture each region’s beauty and majesty as well as what can become frightening elements if my protagonists are alone, lost, or being pursued by ruthless villains. I hope this balance works.

Using fictional locations with the local region’s flavor also gives me handy latitude. Since my fictional Dear Island is a composite of several barrier islands, I could play with the geographic puzzle pieces—golf courses, canals, marinas, marshland, and beaches—and anchor them anywhere I wished within the island’s confines. That means they’re ideally situated to serve my plot. I did take care, however, to offer readers a variety of touchstones—references to neighboring Beaufort, Hilton Head and Parris Island—to ground them within the Lowcountry.  

In Dead Hunt my imaginary university’s students reside in Leeds County, another invention. Yet I made certain the campus was a comfortable drive from Greenville, Clemson University, and the Jocassee Gorges mountain wilderness, which serves as an enchanting and scary backdrop for my heroine and hero when terrorists are gunning for them in the dead of night.

I love to set my books in places where I can close my eyes and recall exact moments in time. Paddling a kayak in the calm of an ocean inlet and hearing the cries of seagulls and smelling the acrid aroma of the marsh. Hiking a mountain trail and listening to the gurgle of a rushing stream and inhaling the scent of crushed pine needles in the shadowy twilight of the dense forest.

While my place names may be make believe, my South Carolina settings are as real as my most vivid memories allow.