Setting the Scene with Josephine Angelini

As part of the blog tour for Dreamless, I am bouncing around with excitement at having the lovely Josephine Angelini on the blog again! Dreamless is the second book in the Starcrossed trilogy and went on sale last week. As this trilogy is set in Nantucket, Josie was happy to tell us all about it. 

 One question I get asked all the time is why did I set the Starcrossed trilogy on Nantucket?  Most people think of two things when they think of Nantucket—a murderous white whale and a limerick about a pervert.  Greek mythology rarely comes to mind, although there is usually much giggling over what could possibly rhyme with “bucket”.

 I chose Nantucket for several reasons.  The first is that I’m familiar with it.  I grew up in Massachusetts and spent a little bit of time vacationing on the island when I was kid.  While island life is vastly different from what I experienced growing up on the mainland, I did understand the culture.  And the thick New England accents, which helps enormously. 

 The second reason is because it’s freaking be-you-tiful. 

If I’m going to pick a place to write about for three years and three books, I’m going to pick a place that I want to daydream about over and over.  So this is what’s been on my mind for the past three years.

 Which isn’t too shabby.  Another reason I chose Nantucket was for pure plot reasons.  For those of you who don’t know this yet, Starcrossed is a re-imagining of the Iliad, as seen from the perspective of a modern day Helen of Troy.  So I needed a beach for a thousand ships to land on, just as they did at Troy.  This one did nicely.

I also needed to hide Helen and surround her, so that like her namesake in the Iliad she was trapped inside something that resembled a walled city.  Nantucket is tiny and isolated.  The only way off the island is by plane of by ferry, and when a storm blows in—let’s just say that you aren’t going anywhere for a while.  So that worked out nicely.

 The final reason, and this was more of a bonus after I’d already chosen Nantucket as my setting, is because this is the public library on Nantucket.

 It was just begging me to write about it. 

Doesn't it look gorgeous? I want to visit now. 

Pop back this afternoon for my review of Dreamless.

If you want to find out more about Josephine Angelini:

Twitter: @josieangelini

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/josephineangelini

Website: http://www.josephineangelini.com/blog/