Ah Kerstin, thanks for explaining, it seemed as if we were discussing two completely different kind of 'small towns' and I think we were. Location can really make a difference. Interesting though, when I have sent our mutual friend in Germany (Antje) pictures of the area where I live now she would comment how they look so much like the rolling hills there. She sent me pictures and it's true, they looked so much alike! The difference I saw between Germany and the USA rural areas is that in her pictures you had this beautiful country side with no houses and then concentrations of houses huddled in close together. Is this what you mean by villages? It looked quite charming actually. Where as here, the houses are not concentrated together, they are spread out with lots of land in between. You can't even see someone's garden unless their house happens to sit real close to the road, you're more likely to just see a spec of color as you're driving by if they have flowers planted, let alone be able to tell what lights are on.
And I want to clarify something, when I say that my home here is beautiful and wonderful and peaceful and all things I find good, I mean just that. I do not mean that the people are perfect and that elsewhere they are not. I agree that at their core most people are the same. We live, love, laugh, cry etc. no matter where we live and I think for most of us we just want to find a place where we are happy. There is a difference in atmosphere here but it depends on each of us whether we would find it a good change, or not.
I'm kind of puzzled actually that this discussion of small towns always seems to turn so personal. I guess like the blogs, feelings run strong! *G*
Linda _________________ "Thou art my life, my love, my heart, the very eyes of me"
- Robert Herrick, 1591-1674
Ah Kerstin, thanks for explaining, it seemed as if we were discussing two completely different kind of 'small towns' and I think we were. Location can really make a difference. Interesting though, when I have sent our mutual friend in Germany (Antje) pictures of the area where I live now she would comment how they look so much like the rolling hills there. She sent me pictures and it's true, they looked so much alike! The difference I saw between Germany and the USA rural areas is that in her pictures you had this beautiful country side with no houses and then concentrations of houses huddled in close together. Is this what you mean by villages? It looked quite charming actually. Where as here, the houses are not concentrated together, they are spread out with lots of land in between. You can't even see someone's garden unless their house happens to sit real close to the road, you're more likely to just see a spec of color as you're driving by if they have flowers planted, let alone be able to tell what lights are on.
And I want to clarify something, when I say that my home here is beautiful and wonderful and peaceful and all things I find good, I mean just that. I do not mean that the people are perfect and that elsewhere they are not. I agree that at their core most people are the same. We live, love, laugh, cry etc. no matter where we live and I think for most of us we just want to find a place where we are happy. There is a difference in atmosphere here but it depends on each of us whether we would find it a good change, or not.
I'm kind of puzzled actually that this discussion of small towns always seems to turn so personal. I guess like the blogs, feelings run strong! *G*
Linda
Linda, your impression is spot on. There is some free space (not all that much in comparison to the free space in the US.) but there are no houses on it and no houses would be allowed there. The villages are those concentrations of houses huddled together. A house that would be surrounded by a lot of space with no immediate neighbor is extremely rare in Germany. My mother spend some of her youth in such a house which was located in a forest, but her father was the local forester and the house was owned by the state back then. This house has been turned into a great mansion and is owned by a very rich banking manager now. So normal Germans can no longer afford such luxury as living truly in a quiet environment, surrounded only by nature. I wish that was different.
Some of my favorites have already been mentioned, like Nora Roberts' Chesapeake series.
Toni Blake's Tempt Me Tonight, Letters to a Secret Lover and One Reckless Summer are all set in small towns. And all great books, IMO.
Linda Howard's Open Season is one I like quite a lot. Also has one of the funniest condom buying scenes ever.
Susan Crandall's A Kiss in Winter, Pitch Black and Seeing Red are all small town set. The latter two are more romantic suspense than straight romance though. Still good books.
Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 686 Location: Bremen, Germany
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:48 pm Post subject:
Linda in sw va wrote:
I don't think the relying on parents to drive you thing is limited to small towns though. I grew up on the outskirts of a major city in a large suburb but still had to rely on my parents to drive me around until I was 16 and got my own license. We had a bus system but I would never have taken it. My kids are so active in sports and school activities that I don't think they're missing out on anything, they seem to have so little free time as it is and they spend their weekends with their friends just like I did. They're not old enough for 'nightlife' so that doesn't matter anyway. They've grown up in the age of technology - they have cell phones, text messaging, the internet, satellite tv, etc. so in many ways stay more connected than I did. They will go away to college when they turn 18 and who knows where life will take them. I know they'll enjoy meeting new people, doing new things and seeing new places and nothing wrong with that at all. My husband's sister moved away after college to the beach and loves it there, she'd never move back. He, on the other hand, he loves it here and lucky for me brought m here and we are content. They will always have a place to come home to if they want or need it.
It's somewhat different in Germany, because we have a lot more public transport, even in rural and suburban areas, than the US. When I was a teenager and wanted to go somewhere, you either took the bus (which went five times a day) or your bike. And since we had one highschool that served six small and scattered villages, wanting to visit a friend could easily mean a bicycle ride of twenty minutes or more. Same for sports, music lessons, etc... You had to take your bike. If you wanted to go somewhere after dark, e.g. a birthday party, it usually meant relying on parents. If you wanted to go to the cinema, theatre or whatever or wanted to go shopping in places which did not cater to the 60+ demographic, you had to go to the city. Which meant taking the bus (five times a day only) or having a parent drive you to the tram line terminus. You could also take your bike into the city, but that was exhausting and also not very safe.
And like Kerstin said, Germany is a lot more densely populated than the US, so you usually get fairly dense clusters of houses interspersed with farm- or woodland. It depends on where you are, e.g. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the North East has the lowest population density in all of Germany and Ostfriesland in the North West isn't much better. There are isolated houses, usually farmhouses, but in general people live closer together. Avoiding nosy neighbours is difficult. I actually have a fairly big garden (and one of the big advantages of rural and suburban living is that you can grow your own vegetables), but newer houses usually have tiny gardens. Noise can be a problem, as is smell. And since I'm single and work partly at home, e.g. I don't come and go at a set time, I don't quite fit preconceptions. I've had one guy assume I don't work at all. Though I didn't mean to say that my neighbours are bad, most of them are okay and I just ignore the jerks. And if you need help, you'll generally find someone who will help you. But it can get a bit cliquey and stuffy at times.
Regarding isolated houses and villages, when I worked at the rural university, my commute led through farmland with fairly low population densities. There was a stretch of road which went through mainly farm and woodland with a few houses along the road set several hundred meters apart. Two of those houses - next to each other even, though there were maybe 300 meters between them - were brothels. I have never been able to figure out why an area where hardly anybody lived needed two brothels, next to each other even.
Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 686 Location: Bremen, Germany
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 10:01 pm Post subject:
Kerstin wrote:
I come from a middle town myself (an university city with plenty of activities for young people)
The smaller university towns usually have more to offer with regards to cultural, shopping and dining opportunities compared to towns of the same size without universities. Towns like Vechta, where I taught at the university, or Greifswald, where every second person is a student and the university is the biggest employer since the nuclear power station was closed down, or Göttingen are much nicer places than university-less towns of the same size in the area.
Hi, Susan! We live in the same area in DC and shop in the same Borders. Two years ago I became a totally committed urbanite and sold my car -- have been walking and using Metro ever since. Nice bonus -- 35 unneeded pounds fell off and thighs have no more flab. Susan, introduce yourself to the new manager Lindsey In the FH store. She's a ball of fire, very responsive and I got her to read Outlander. She loved it and it was her first romance...
Diana and Susan, I live a few blocks from that Borders in FH and shop there all the time. What does Lindsey look like? I like the staff there - I remember how wonderful one of the girls was when she obliged me by going through the unopened boxes at the back (pre-shelving) for Nalini Singh's newest release a few months back (I think it was Angels' Blood) at past 8pm in the evening on a Sunday, just so I could use my discount coupon to get it (as it was expiring the next day)!
Back to small town books - I love them. Maybe it's the "grass is greener" mentality as I live in DC. LaVyrle Spencer's already been mentioned (I am a great fan of hers). Pamela Morsi is another author who does this well. I love Wild Oats. I prefer my small town books as historicals though.
Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:40 am Post subject: Re: Small Towns/City Lights
Linda in sw va wrote:
By saying I prefer our rural small town to living in that area is not to imply anything 'bad' about it, it's just a personal thing and honestly I wake up days and still feel it's a miracle that I get to live here.
Linda
Gorgeous photos, Linda. They look like the view from my daughter's house (they live a few miles outside of Roanoke).
I grew up on a farm outside a small university town back in the 1940s. My oldest son deliberately decided to go back, live with my mother, and get his degree there. I asked him if he really wanted to be in a place where, no matter what you did, a second cousin would see you doing it. He said, "Yes," so that was that.
You couldn't get me out of the urban county of Arlington with a crowbar
Toni Blake's Tempt Me Tonight, Letters to a Secret Lover and One Reckless Summer are all set in small towns. And all great books, IMO.
Linda Howard's Open Season is one I like quite a lot. Also has one of the funniest condom buying scenes ever.
I just LOVED Letters to a Secret Lover - totally sexy, loveable hero, IMO, and my heart broke for him for what he had been through. I have One Reckless Summer on order and am looking forward to reading it. Linda Howard's Open Season was a keeper for me. I wasn't sure I would like it, but she really pulled off the virginal, spinster, uptight heroine without making her a totally annoying cliche. I thought it was very well done and Daisy ended up being great and a good match for her hunky, alpha cop hero.
I don't like small town romances very much because lately they are more lectures on How Good People Live than actual romances.
Over and over again, the message is pounded in - Small Town = Good and Noble Citizens, Big City = Callous Monsters full of Evil Career Women who seduce the poor hero or stab the misguided heroine in the back.
No mentions of the disadvantages of a small town - just happy people gamboling through daisy fields. Because they're full of wonderful, quirky characters who have no other purpose in life than to help the hero/heroine out of their troubles.
Money? Here's a loan.
Child troubles? I'll babysit for free!
Man trouble? I'll introduce you to the surly mechanic who is secretly a rich former Navy Seal. He'll save you from your stalker Ex, then pay for your son's operation! All the while giving you great orgasms!
Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 4127 Location: minneapolis
Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:28 am Post subject:
Diana wrote:
Hi, Susan! We live in the same area in DC and shop in the same Borders. Two years ago I became a totally committed urbanite and sold my car -- have been walking and using Metro ever since. Nice bonus -- 35 unneeded pounds fell off and thighs have no more flab.
!
,
This is great Diana. Your post reminded me of my daughter's observation of the people in New York City when she spent a few weeks there with her friend who is in school there. She observed that very few people are overweight because they walk, walk, walk and don't drive. She added that they walk fast too.
I am a great believer that if you have to drive, park your car far away and walk..if weather and time permit. _________________ Miss Willard at first refused to get into a lifeboat, and so an exasperated officer said, "Don't waste time-let her go if she won't get in!"
Linda, your impression is spot on. There is some free space (not all that much in comparison to the free space in the US.) but there are no houses on it and no houses would be allowed there. The villages are those concentrations of houses huddled together. A house that would be surrounded by a lot of space with no immediate neighbor is extremely rare in Germany. My mother spend some of her youth in such a house which was located in a forest, but her father was the local forester and the house was owned by the state back then. This house has been turned into a great mansion and is owned by a very rich banking manager now. So normal Germans can no longer afford such luxury as living truly in a quiet environment, surrounded only by nature. I wish that was different.
Kerstin
Kerstin, on the plus side at least your beautiful countryside is protected! I've watched the suburbs near where I used to live turn from patches of green to more condos, more shopping centers, etc. I can't believe how much changes every time I go there, I don't know how they keep fitting it all in but they do and they have the people to fill them up.
Linda _________________ "Thou art my life, my love, my heart, the very eyes of me"
- Robert Herrick, 1591-1674
Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:01 pm Post subject: Re: Small Towns/City Lights
[quote="veasleyd1"]
Linda in sw va wrote:
By saying I prefer our Gorgeous photos, Linda. They look like the view from my daughter's house (they live a few miles outside of Roanoke).
I grew up on a farm outside a small university town back in the 1940s. My oldest son deliberately decided to go back, live with my mother, and get his degree there. I asked him if he really wanted to be in a place where, no matter what you did, a second cousin would see you doing it. He said, "Yes," so that was that.
You couldn't get me out of the urban county of Arlington with a crowbar
Thanks Veasley! I think for some people small town country living calls out to them just as city living does. I've never felt watched here but maybe I"m just blissfully oblivious to it! LOL Maybe if you grow up in it it's different, I didn't grow up here so I don't have any negative associations or impressions before I came.
My husband is much happier here than he is in the city, he strongly disliked the whole Washington DC, Northern VA area but I think the main thing was the traffic. He was completely unused to it and couldn't believe how long it took to get from point A to point B, how many people were rude on the road (not using turn signals, cutting you off, cursing, rushing, etc), there were always accidents or construction holding things up. He could care less about shopping or restaurants and just wanted some peace and quiet. On the other hand growing up there I was so used to it I didn't really think about it until I moved somewhere quite different. Here the biggest annoyance while driving is getting stuck behind an elderly person (usually) in a pick-up truck going 30 mph in a 55 down the country road and no passing lanes for a while and yes it can drive you nuts. lol
Linda _________________ "Thou art my life, my love, my heart, the very eyes of me"
- Robert Herrick, 1591-1674
I don't like small town romances very much because lately they are more lectures on How Good People Live than actual romances.
Over and over again, the message is pounded in - Small Town = Good and Noble Citizens, Big City = Callous Monsters full of Evil Career Women who seduce the poor hero or stab the misguided heroine in the back.
No mentions of the disadvantages of a small town - just happy people gamboling through daisy fields. Because they're full of wonderful, quirky characters who have no other purpose in life than to help the hero/heroine out of their troubles.
Money? Here's a loan.
Child troubles? I'll babysit for free!
Man trouble? I'll introduce you to the surly mechanic who is secretly a rich former Navy Seal. He'll save you from your stalker Ex, then pay for your son's operation! All the while giving you great orgasms!
JMM, do you happen to remember any authors or titles, I wouldn't mind checking them out, just out of curiosity!
Regarding what you mentioned above, everyone here is more than willing to help you out in any way they can, that's just the way it is, they will bend over backwards and expect nothing in return. Not saying it's not like that in the city too but I don't think that aspect of small town living is inaccurate. Well, except the 'rich, navy seal who gives great orgasms' aspect which is purely fantasy and in all of romance fiction no matter where it's located. Oh and the sheriff in a small town is more likely to be half bald with a paunch rather than a young hottie who just hasn't found the right woman yet.
Linda _________________ "Thou art my life, my love, my heart, the very eyes of me"
- Robert Herrick, 1591-1674
I don't like small town romances very much because lately they are more lectures on How Good People Live than actual romances.
Over and over again, the message is pounded in - Small Town = Good and Noble Citizens, Big City = Callous Monsters full of Evil Career Women who seduce the poor hero or stab the misguided heroine in the back.
No mentions of the disadvantages of a small town - just happy people gamboling through daisy fields. Because they're full of wonderful, quirky characters who have no other purpose in life than to help the hero/heroine out of their troubles.
Money? Here's a loan.
Child troubles? I'll babysit for free!
Man trouble? I'll introduce you to the surly mechanic who is secretly a rich former Navy Seal. He'll save you from your stalker Ex, then pay for your son's operation! All the while giving you great orgasms!
JMM, do you happen to remember any authors or titles, I wouldn't mind checking them out, just out of curiosity!
Regarding what you mentioned above, everyone here is more than willing to help you out in any way they can, that's just the way it is, they will bend over backwards and expect nothing in return. Not saying it's not like that in the city too but I don't think that aspect of small town living is inaccurate. Well, except the 'rich, navy seal who gives great orgasms' aspect which is purely fantasy and in all of romance fiction no matter where it's located. Oh and the sheriff in a small town is more likely to be half bald with a paunch rather than a young hottie who just hasn't found the right woman yet.
Linda
For those of you who want small town realistic romance I can recommend Katherine Gellis Seidel's "Don't forget to smile". While it shows the good sides of a close-knitted community where folks usually have their families living near-by (it is a mining town and most of the people are blue collar workers) it also show the downside: Having no great job opportunities. The heroine who moved to that town is a former second in the US American beauty pageant and has to deal with her past as child beauty pageant contestant and a difficult mother relationship. The hero, Jo comes from a mining family but works for the union now and is the first in the family to have a white collar job. He has dreams to move to Portland because he wants to have all career opportunities. His sister also wants to spread her wings and see more of the world. Tony, the heroine and a former city girl helps him with going with that dream. She on the other hand finds something in this small town she always has been looking for, a sense of quiet acceptance and emotional support of this close-knit community where everyone knows everyone and where she doesn't have to be a beauty queen.
I found the romance very realistic and well balanced and there's no small town bashing and no city bashing either. The characters come off as extremely realistic and the romance is quite real, too and much more slow moving and less heated than you are normally used to. Joe is a solid Beta hero with a heart of gold and has only slept with one woman in his life (his ex wife who's not evil but actually a good person). The heroine is divorced and went through a string of lovers after the marriage broke up so she's the more experienced and jaded one in the relationship and the one who's gun shy in regard to commitment. Though the novel has been written in the eighties it breaks with a number of usual romance stereotypes IMO. Very recommendable, especially for those who look out for a different kind of small town romance for a change.
Kerstin, that sounds like a really good one, I will have to put on my Beta hero hat (I don't wear it often, lol) to give it a try.
Xina, just saw I missed your post - aren't the turkeys a riot! I love to see them and they usually travel in groups. We used to have a fox that would come and eat the cherries from our cherry tree but now that we have the dogs running around outside he hasn't come back, I miss him. We have the deer too, of course and the other night my husband saw a bear get hit by a car. They love the orchards and we are surrounded by them, the guy behind me said one came right up under his kitchen window and wasn't afraid of his dogs outside barking their heads off.
Linda _________________ "Thou art my life, my love, my heart, the very eyes of me"
- Robert Herrick, 1591-1674
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They love the orchards and we are surrounded by them, the guy behind me said one came right up under his kitchen window and wasn't afraid of his dogs outside barking their heads off.