Guest Post, Mysteries

Guest Post: Rosalie Spielman

Please join us in giving a warm welcome to Rosalie Spielman, author of the Hometown Mysteries series! We’re so delighted for her visit today.

Setting inspirations: New Oslo, Idaho

What better place to set books about “coming home” than my old hometown?

Have you ever wondered what inspired your favorite fictional locales?

As I write this, I am with family in Idaho. They live in the Palouse region, roughly halfway between Moscow, a college town and the county seat, and a smaller town, Troy.  Moscow is my birthplace, though Troy is where my family lived when I was born. My Hometown Mysteries series is set here, in this place I have often said is the home of my heart.

I lived in Troy until I was about six, when we moved out to a farm in the countryside. (We moved again, out of state, when I was eleven.) It is obvious to anyone who lives here that my “New Oslo” is a fictionalized version of Troy. In the books, I write about the characters leaving Moscow and traveling east on Route 8 for about a half hour and they arrive in New Oslo – and that’s exactly the case with Troy.

The real Troy is bigger by about five hundred people than my fictionalized New Olso but the basic layout is true to reality. It is nestled in a valley of white pines, there is a logging yard on the right as you come into town with a park and trailhead on the left. Several of the businesses in the books are inspired by actual ones along the few blocks of Main Street. There is a historical society (complete with the Old Coots bench) next to an antiques shop, a gas station-turned-café, a hair salon, and a church. The Cheese and Thank You cheese shop was inspired by the Brush Creek Creamery in nearby Deary. New Oslo’s High Octane Café is modeled on Troy’s The Filling Station. I loved the concept of a renovated gas station and was sad to see it had recently closed.

One of the focal points of town that factors in book 2, Home is Where the Murder Is, is the Veterans Memorial. Here is Troy’s actual Military Service Memorial that holds my name, along with my father, sister, and brother.

This year I was home in time for Old Timers Day, which was the inspiration for my Pioneer Days from Home is Where the Murder Is. Old Timers Day includes a car show (where my idea for Aunt Edna and Tessa to restore old cars came from) and a parade. This year, my parents participated in their recently restored 1960 TR3. This is a perfect example of the hometown feel I aim for in my books!

One location that figures in my newest release, Home Sweet Homicide, is the old railroad trestle which the Rails to Trails path now goes over. This is accurate, though I do place it closer to town. I must admit, I’ve always wanted to toss someone off this trestle – fictionally, of course.

Tessa Treslow’s nemesis, Jessie St. John, is set to marry Tessa’s ex-boyfriend, Sheriff Joe Eriksson. Much to Tessa’s surprise, Jessie asks her to be her Maid of Honor, leaving Tessa to assume it is one final jab about Jessie getting the man that Tessa couldn’t keep. When one of Jessie’s ex-husbands is tossed from the above-mentioned trestle, Tessa takes on the investigation as part of her wedding duties.

Readers, are you ever curious as to the inspiration for the settings in books your read?

Rosalie Spielman is an award-winning author, mother, veteran, and retired military spouse. She was thrilled to discover she could make other people laugh with her writing and finds joy in giving people an escape from the real world.

She is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Military Writers Society of America, the latter awarding her work with a gold medal in 2024.

For more information, visit her website at www.Rosalie-Spielman-author.com. Rosalie strives to provide you an escape…one page at a time.

Link for Home Sweet Homicide: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F7ZMVC32

 

29 thoughts on “Guest Post: Rosalie Spielman”

      1. And I agree, though sometimes I like my imagination to do the work for me instead of the writer – or movie maker. Hogwarts was more dank in my imagination than compared to the movies, for example.

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  3. Rosalie, thank you so much for visiting with us. Congratulations on your upcoming release. Love the title! I also loved your post. Yes, I always enjoy learning the inspiration for a story’s setting. So fun! I really enjoyed learning about your setting inspiration. Thank you for sharing it with us.

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    1. Hi Jennifer! Thank you.

      A funny story when the first book came out – my father, who volunteers at the Historical Society, said a bunch of the little ladies who work there too read the book and immediately were trying to determine who the characters were based on! He had to disappoint them by saying I moved away early enough that it wasn’t any of them. lol!

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  5. Hi Rosalie: Thank you for visiting Chicks today and giving us a tour. What a lovely way to honor your hometown. Wow, the trestle picture is especially beautiful–it looks like a postcard! And thank you to your family for your service. Congratulations on the book!

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    1. Hi Cynthia,

      Thank you for having me!

      It’s a little funny – when we stopped so I could get a good picture, I realized I hadn’t described it very well, as in real life it has stairs, but in the books I have them climbing the hill to get to the top. Whoops, but who knew? Why does it have stairs anyway! lol

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  6. I love learning about new locales by reading books–even if they’re fictional. lol. Great to learn about Troy, aka New Oslo!

    Thanks so much for visiting the Chicks again, Rosalie, and congrats on the new book!

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  7. Rosalie, thanks for visiting us Chicks today! And of course huge congrats on Home Sweet Homicide. I enjoyed my visit to Troy (er, New Oslo)–such fun to see your inspiration. And I love the “Cheese and Thank You.” Awesome name.

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    1. Thank you, Lisa! Glad to be here.

      It was funny, re the cheese aspect – Korina Moss and I are friends and had our first books submitted around the same time. I don’t want to give away a plot point about the first book in case people haven’t read it, but there was a similarity that we were surprised to realize later. (We hadn’t read each others’ books so it was pure chance.)

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  9. Rosalie, thanks for the behind the scenes look at your hometown/inspiration! It may not be a bank anymore, but I love the Ye Olde Bank sign. Congrats on the new book and thanks for hanging out today with the Chicks!

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    1. Hi Vickie,

      The old bank in my stories is being made into the library, while in real life, there is a separate library already – since I was a kid, in fact. The old bank, IRL, was bought by an “organization” and made into “a meeting hall.” (The whole story is stranger than fiction.)

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  10. Troy looks beautiful, Rosalie – now I want to go there!

    All my series are inspired by real places, but I did do a fictionalized version of them in the Golden Motel Mysteries and the Cajun Country Mysteries. Was I surprised to pay a visit to the town that inspired Pelican, Louisiana and discover it didn’t look like how I remembered it and recreated it much at all!

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    1. Hi Ellen,

      Yes, memories are something else. If it weren’t for pictures I take, it would be even more different than it is in real life. (I purposely made it smaller than it is in reality.)

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