Susanne Bacon’s 9th Wycliff Novel Takes You Traveling

It sometimes just takes a tiny spark that gets kindled to become a fire. What do you come up with when you think of filming locations in Western Washington, for example? Even in far-away Germany, we had heard about “Sleepless in Seattle” and about Forks in the “Twilight Saga” back in the day. Just for the fun of it, I researched a little and figured that you could actually create a trip around Western Washington from filming location to filming location, touching upon all movie genres. If you have read my last Wycliff novel, you’ll remember that at the center of its plot, there was a fictional historical movie made about the very real, historical Captain William Renton. Of course, that meant that my fictional Victorian small town of Wycliff, located somewhere between Olympia and Seattle, would be involved as well.

Now, booking a trip involves a travel agency and a hotel business. Traveling involves ruts, and pot holes, and dead ends as well as beautiful vistas, and the dreaming of more. Voilà, Wycliff novel number 9 was born. “Rutty Roads” deals with the dreams and challenges that come along your journey of life, no matter in which stage of it you are.

Another spark was a short story I wrote sometime last December for the Suburban Times’ readers. I figured that I myself wanted to know more about its protagonist, who had a dating agency but no date herself, and yearned for a second chance with somebody she once rejected. Again, “Rutty Roads” seemed to be a perfect way to create her journey.

The book starts with graduation time at Wycliff High School, and five young people with their heads full of dreams find that their lives are intertwined even though not all of them can see eye to eye. An unplanned pregnancy has Ashley Mason make a decision that she will rue and that is also a life changer for one of her former classmates. Years later, Autumn Rain, who offers themed trips around Western Washington to her customers, finds herself advised on a road she never wanted to walk. Her friend, partnership agent Lena Donovan, yearns for the one man whom she once rejected. Meanwhile, the men crossing their paths are fighting their own demons. Will two ruts ever shape a road?

Each and every chapter is dedicated to a Western Washington filming location. Take chapter 1, for example. Did you know that the ferry terminal in Steilacoom was featured in the movie “War Games”? And that Goose Island in that same movie is none other than Anderson Island? Fun facts like these are fed to the reader at the beginning of each chapter. A second plotline, in the shape of a travel journal, takes you to the place for which the chapter is titled. Its writer is an old lady who has taken this trip in order to figure for herself which path to take for the final chapter in her life, as her children ask her to move east to live with them.

At the end of my book, as always, foodies will find three recipes that I tried out on my husband – he is still alive and really likes them. Of course, in the book they are prepared by some of my novel characters.

“Rutty Roads” (289 pages, ISBN-13: 979-8397984744; $14.25) is also available as an eBook. Treat yourself to a summer read that takes you on a mind-travel!