OAAA 2017: Erin McCahan, THE LAKE EFFECT

April 24, 2017     erinthebooknut     Guest Post, OAAA

Introducing The Lake Effect and South Haven, Michigan

 

“The beach, Baby!  The Beach!” – Briggs Henry, The Lake Effect

My third novel, The Lake Effect, releases July 11th, and Erin here at the Book Nut – Erin who is the Book Nut, which is really the best kind of nut to be, isn’t it? – has been kind enough to let me talk about it.  It’s the story of how one girl, one old lady and a bunch of funerals upend Briggs Henry’s entire life one summer at the beach.  

Here’s the jacket flap:

 

“It’s the summer after his senior year, and confident, driven Briggs Henry is ready to leave behind his ex-girlfriend, his comically aggressive grandmother, and his workaholic parents for Lake Michigan and its miles of sandy beaches.  He’s lined up a summer job working as a personal assistant and living in a gorgeous Victorian on the shore – the kind of house Briggs plans to buy his parents once he’s a multi-millionaire.  But when he arrives, hi s boss, the eccentric Mrs. Božić, tells him to get dressed for her funeral.  Uh . . . It’s the first of many they’ll attend this summer – to awkward, hilarious, and eye-opening effect.  Add to this a new set of friends-cum-enemies-cum-friends-again, and Abigail, the mystifying girl next door on whom Briggs’s charms just won’t work, and ‘the lake effect’ is beginning to take on a whole new meaning.”

 


The book is set in South Haven, Michigan, where my husband and I have been spending a few weeks every summer for the last 15 years.  Michigan is hardly the first p
lace that springs to mind when someone says the word ‘beach,’ unless that ‘someone’ happens to be my husband or me. 

 

 

 

 

Or other people from Michigan and surrounding areas who are in on the secret.  It’s not tropical.  It’s not fancy.  If you wear anything other than T-shirts, shorts and flip flops, you’re overdressed.  The beach isn’t packed with models, and the only ‘strip’ is Phoenix Street, where the biggest late-night crowds gather outside ice cream stores.  But it is definitely our little sandy patch of paradise.

 

 

For years, I’ve wanted to set a novel in South Haven.  I also love the dynamic between teenagers and grandparents.  Loads of relationship material to mine.  I just had to figure out how to get those characters to South Haven.  Once I resolved that, The Lake Effect began to unfold.

And because South Haven is a real town – small, quaint and beautiful – in other words, perfect – I thought I might show some pics of the places where Briggs’s entire life changed.  I think mine did, too, there.  As Briggs discovers in The Lake Effect, and as I did in South Haven, there’s no better place to just sit and think about your life than the beach

 

Thanks so much to Erin McCahan for stopping by and sharing all of the wonderful photos of her trip. Look at all the pretty!

Beach! North Beach in fact. Where volleyball is played and relationships are made and broken.


 

Stop by the giveaway page and enter to win something awesome from Erin. It was so great to have her on again and make sure you check out THE LAKE EFFECT.

From our shelves to yours,

Erin

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