Miracle.
Revenge.
Romeo.
Last Chance.
Humble.
What on earth am I talking … er … typing about?
All of those words? They’re the names of real towns or cities in the U.S.A. And Summerside Press has designed an entire inspirational fiction book series around “towns and cities with great names, neat personalities, and colorful histories.”
I’d love to meet the person who came up with that idea!
As a matter of fact, the Summerside series prompted me to google “funny U.S. city names” just to see what I discovered.
How about:
Love Finds You in … Frog Eye, AL. (Not working for you?)
Love Finds You in … Slaughter Beach, DE. (A romantic suspense, maybe?)
Love Finds You in … Embarrass, MN. (A romantic comedy with all the prerequisite things going from bad to worse and the mandatory laugh track.)
Love Finds You in … Big Ugly, WV. (The ugly duckling to beautiful swan story? Beauty and the Beast?)
The list goes on and on — the one list I looked at, that is.
In the story of love, there’s always a who and a how. Now Summerside Press has made the love story all about the “where.”
In Your Words: What title would you pick for a Love Finds You book? What about your own story? How would the title go: Love Found You … (fill in the blank.)
Comments 14
The Summerside Love Finds You series is great. I’ve enjoyed several of the books and like seeing which towns are used.
Barbour Publishing has just launched a new line that uses town names, too, called Destination Romances. There are bride stories that are the historicals and wedding stories that are the contemporaries. I’m rather fond of this new line since my debut novel is part of it. A Bride Opens Shop in El Dorado, California will be released in July. =)
Keli,
I’m looking forward to reading your book in just a few months — July 2012 will be here faster than we think! And I love the fact that the Barbour line is historical romance, a favorite genre.
The funniest part is the town names are true. My older son lists Embarrass, MN, as his home town–which it is not. I collect/save interesting names of towns, and have invented a few as well. One of my favorites is Houndstooth, Ky.
Fun, Beth. Have a good day, all.
How funny is that, Dee, that your son lists Embarrass, MN as his hometown? I love his sense of humor! That raises another question: Where would you list your hometown if you could choose a town or city with a funny name? ;O)
It must be the morning–the made-up name that flashes into my mind is Coyote Haunch, MT–not too far away from real place Moose Jaw, Sask.
I’ve driven through Nowhere, AZ, Surprise, AZ and Hurricane, UT. Funny about a hurrican being in landlocked Utah. 🙂 There’s always Loveland, Colorado for a loving romance.
My true life romance would be Love Found Me in Brianhead, Utah. 🙂
Ooh, I like Loveland, CO!
Love found me in a karate studio … LOL.
Let’s see … Love Found Me … in Takoma Park, MD. Nah, nothing too exciting about that title.
I love this! Now you’ve got me googling funny U.S. city names. I found “Sweet Lips, TN.” Hahahaha! Thanks for this giggle, Beth.
🙂 ROTFL, Donna!
I love the town name What Cheer in Iowa. Or Correctionville, Iowa. Or Elephant Butte in New Mexico. (Saw that on a youth group trip years ago…yes, our teenage senses of humor took great delight…) And, of course, one of my blogger faves – Bryan Allain – lives in or near Intercourse, PA. Um, I’m guessing Summerside won’t be featuring any books there…
Random town name story: In third grade we learned the history of our city – Webster City – and discovered it used to be named Newcastle. Our class decided Newcastle was waaaay cooler than Webster City and tried to start a petition to go back to the regular name. Hmm, I think we got about 18 signatures…which, incidentally, was the number of students in our class.
I just read “Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa”…I was particularly fond of the setting… 🙂
OK, a true story to go with your true story (although yours is way-cooler): I lived in Niceville, FL (thank you, Uncle Sam.) Originally it was named “Boggy.” I’ll take Niceville any day! No petitions to rename the town back to Boggy.
Love Finds Me in Surprise.
Doesn’t this say it all, Scoti? 🙂
I just finished reading Love Finds You in Victory Heights, Washington. I was drawn to the cover of a WWII war worker, since I’m currently working on a novel of similar type. My book is set during WWII in Texarkana, Arkansas/Texas. We are, some of you may know, a city on a state line. So though the name of the city isn’t that weird (Is it?), it is at times a divided city. I love the idea of this series!