Why I set my debut novel in England, and why I've never been

Let me be upfront about something: I have never set foot in England. I have never stood in a cobblestoned courtyard, never ordered a proper pub lunch, never once experienced that English drizzle that apparently makes everything look like a film set. And yet, somehow, England is where my debut novel lives.

I've been asked a few times (mostly by people who know me) why I didn't just set the book somewhere I've actually been. Somewhere I could fact-check with my own two eyes. And honestly? That's a fair question.

"There's something about England that has always felt like a place where love stories are supposed to happen."

I think the answer is that England has always existed for me as a feeling more than a place. It's rainy afternoons and dry wit and a tension that simmers under perfectly polite conversation. It's the setting of about a hundred stories I grew up loving, stories where people fell in love in ways that were inconvenient and a little embarrassing and completely inevitable.

When I started writing That English Summer, I wasn't trying to write a travel book. I was trying to write a love story about two people who have absolutely no business falling for each other, and England, to me, is the perfect backdrop for that. There's something about the landscape, even just the imagined version of it, that makes everything feel higher stakes. More romantic. More ridiculous in the best possible way.

Will I go someday? Absolutely. I have a running list of places I want to see. But in the meantime, I've done my research, leaned into the dream of it, and written the England I've always wanted to visit.

I figure if the book is good enough, maybe it'll take me there.