When In Vermont...by Lisa Kusel
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The main character of my novel The Widow on Dwyer Court is an author named Kate Burke who is most definitely not based on me. She writes erotica and I write thrillers, among many other differences. But we do have one thing in common: We both prefer to write from primary sources. Some writers revel in creating detailed fantasy worlds from their imagination. Kate and I prefer to set our stories in the real world, supporting them with extensive research.
For Kate, this means that every erotic scene in her books is based on a real tryst between her loving husband, Matt, and a stranger. Kate doesn’t enjoy sex and Matt does (a lot), so they’ve made an unconventional bargain: He can sleep with whomever he wants, as long as he doesn’t get involved and recounts every juicy detail to Kate. She then funnels his experiences onto her bestselling pages.
While Kate’s pursuit of extreme realism is admirable, I can’t claim that every spicy or murder-y scene in The Widow on Dwyer Court is based on something that actually happened. (If they were, my life would be a lot more exciting!) What I can say is that the setting of the book is 100 percent real, even though some of the names have been changed.
My fictional Dwyer Court is in a subdivision in the town of Rayburne, based on Shelburne, an affluent suburb of Burlington, Vermont, that has a picture-perfect downtown with an old-fashioned country store.
The Burlington area is famed for its crunchiness: hippies and Phish fans and Ben and Jerry’s and farmers’ markets overflowing with local veggies. But there are also plenty of sleek, suburban yuppie types like the fellow moms Kate meets at the local market (based on the real Shelburne Market). Marveling at one of them, who’s just come from a workout, Kate thinks, “Her skin glistens with sweat but her makeup remains perfect. How do I live in this world? Are these women my friends?”
Though Kate has a conventional exterior herself, she feels more comfortable with Annie Meyers, the titular widow, who has just moved to Rayburne from Colorado. With her hairy legs, herbal potions and “Glory Bowls,” Annie is a proud member of the counterculture.
Initially, Annie finds Rayburne stifling, mocking it as “Rayburbia.” On a trip to the market, she bemoans the poor selection of organics: “Every bunch of kale looks as if they’ve been chastised by an angry nun, they are so wilted.” Later in the book, however, Annie comes to see Rayburne’s virtues: “clean air,” “healthy food” and “good friends.”
In real life, friends often meet at Shelburne’s cozy Village Wine and Coffee, right across the street from the wonderful Flying Pig Bookstore. In my book, the café becomes Kevin’s Coffee.
Rayburne parents, including Kate and Annie, send their kids to camp at Stockwell Farms, where they can meet cute animals or dig in the dirt. The real Stockwell is Shelburne Farms, a former Vanderbilt estate that has become an educational nonprofit; its inn offers one of the most beautiful places in Vermont to sip a cocktail.
Sexual athlete Matt is also a regular athlete who isn’t happy unless he can get in his daily run on one of Rayburne’s many lush green trails and paths. Those trails are real … but is Matt’s urge to run always his true reason for leaving the house? You’ll need to read the book to find out.
Locals will recognize several other actual places that pepper the book. In a flashback to Kate and Matt’s college courtship, we see them on their first date at rowdy downtown sports bar Manhattan Pizza and Pub. As Kate and Annie become friends, they attend a modern dance performance at the Flynn, Burlington’s gorgeous, historic theater with an art-deco interior.
To prepare for the heady entertainment, Annie offers Kate a little herbal refreshment—now legal in the Green Mountain State. The normally strait-laced Kate gets so high that she sees the orange neon sign of Nectar’s—a time-honored live music venue—in a whole new way. Later, unimpressed with the dancers, Annie drags Kate to a dive bar, but I won’t divulge the inspiration for that here. Suffice it to say that Burlington also has its share of less fashionable watering holes.
Like me, Kate enjoys putting Vermont places in her books. She’s currently writing the latest in her Strong Lust series, which finds hunky Macon Strong working as a cheesemaker and falling for buxom intern Lizzie on Smiling Girl Farm in Holland, Vermont. The town is real (as are its roughly 600 residents). The farm is invented, but it was inspired by the myriad real Vermont farms with whimsical names: Laughing Child Farm, Fat Sheep Farm, Wing and a Prayer Farm, Kiss the Cow Farm.
Cows aren’t the only ones being kissed at Smiling Girl Farm. Through the excerpts from Kate’s novel, I got to have a little fun with Vermont’s thriving artisan cheese culture. Because small-scale dairy farming is no longer profitable, our local farmers have diversified, creating value-added products to survive. First and foremost among those is delectable cheese.
Kate writes of Macon, “He relished his job, the sensual, almost arousing, aspects of turning cow milk into an artisan delicacy.” And that arousal doesn’t go to waste once Lizzie shows up: “From the first day she stood next to him while they pressed the curds into the molds, Macon knew he had to have her.”
I think we can all agree there’s something sensual about a nice piece of organic Vermont cheese. The Green Mountain State offers foodies plenty of raw goodies, too. With its many foraging opportunities—ramps, fiddlehead ferns, mushrooms—Vermont is practically an edible landscape in the spring and summer. Just don’t fall for the false morels, which look like the real thing and could kill you. If you want to know how those deadly shrooms enter my story, you’ll just have to read the book.
Will Kate ever outgrow her attachment to primary sources and write a spicy encounter entirely from her imagination? You’ll need to read The Widow on Dwyer Court to learn that, too. As for me, I’m just happy that I live in a beautiful setting that offers me plenty of inspiration for my stories, day in and day out.
About The Widow on Dywer Court
Perfect for fans of Kiersten Modglin’s The Arrangement, The Widow on Dwyer Court is a sexy psychological thriller that will leave you breathless.
Thirty-six-year-old stay-at-home soccer mom Kate Burke is happily married to Matt Parsons, although their marriage looks very different behind closed doors. Kate is no longer interested in having sex with her husband. So, while they still love each other madly, they make an arrangement: Matt can have one-night stands with other women on work trips, but when he returns home, he has to tell Kate about them—every juicy detail.
Because Kate has a secret life writing erotic romance novels, and Matt’s adulterous affairs are her bread and butter.
The family equilibrium is upset, however, when Annie Meyers, an eccentric young widow, moves to town with her daughter. At first Kate is smitten with this wild, witty woman, who gives her a much-needed break from the other picture-perfect suburban moms, although she’s not sure how much of her secret life she’s willing to share with her new friend. But it turns out Annie has secrets too—big ones that could destroy all their lives.
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