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I picked up a book recently because it’s set in New Orleans. The plot sounded okay, but really, New Orleans. As someone who used to live in the American Lowcountry, I miss the South. As an Anne Rice fan, I feel I’ve visited New Orleans many times, even though I haven’t.

I was excited to start this book, escape the desert for a while, and be lulled into a sensuous stupor by the sights, sounds, and smells of what many consider the most beautiful city in the world.

To say I’ve been disappointed is an understatement. Here’s what I’ve gotten so far: “There was something about New Orleans—something about the air itself—a certain sultriness found nowhere else, that silky touch of humidity on skin like fingertips dragged slowly over your flesh.”

Great! And that was the first line. Since that first line, nothing, nadda. The author could be writing about Wall, South Dakota, and I wouldn’t know. Where is my French Quarter? Where is the overwhelming, sweet scent of magnolia? Where are the horse-drawn buggies for tourists?

I’ll tell you where: in New Orleans. But not in this author’s book.

As a writer, setting is important. In my novels (even in my short stories), the city becomes a character. When I wrote Life without Harry, my readers rejoiced over places they recognized and couldn’t wait to visit places they did not. Same goes for Something about a Ghost, set in Phoenix. You know damn well you’re in Phoenix. You feel the dry heat and smell the spring-blooming orange blossoms. You see the purple-red sunsets, because Phoenix has a persona. Setting should have a persona.

As I mentioned, I was once lucky enough to live in the American Lowcountry. I lived in Charleston, South Carolina (aka “Heaven on Earth”), and the novel I’m writing at present takes place there. An excerpt:

“The air felt crisp, clean, light, and although most of the flowers were long dead, the air still smelled like some sweet bloomer over the usual scent of saltwater and wet sand. He clunked down the metal stairs that led to the ground floor and paused as his boat shoes met grass.

“He walked through the yard and its overabundance of dormant gardenia plants, their waxy leaves still green and lush despite the chill. The Crepe Myrtles at the end of his sidewalk were almost bare, beyond a few dark orange leaves that clung. He pulled a leaf free and held it between his fingers as he took a left and walked down Church Street toward Battery Park.

“He passed the houses where rich people lived, passed their well-kept gardens, their BMWs. He passed over brick roads, beneath the sprawling, wicked arms of Angel Oaks. He paused at Stoll’s Alley, a tiny walkway of brick, overwrought with climbing ivy—one of his usual short cuts—and kept moving until he entered Battery Park, the very tip of the Charleston peninsula.

“He stayed on the edge of the Battery. He stood on the walkway overlooking the harbor with his elbows leaned against the cold metal rail. The sky was cloudy, so the water looked dark green, tumultuous as though a storm would soon arrive. In the distance, he could see Fort Sumter and an American flag that flapped in the wind. There was a wind, a slight one that brushed softly over his face and brought with it the smell of dead fish.”

Do you smell the smells? See the sights? Feel the air? I hope so. I worked hard to take you to Charleston, even if you’ve never been there. This is setting, and for some reason, we’ve forgotten it. We’ve gotten so caught up in plot, character, conflict—but what is a story without a world, a sense of place?

This is a reminder to writers and readers alike: don’t let books get away with weak settings. Don’t be lulled by pretty people. People are but a thin pie slice of what is really happening in a story. Don’t disappoint me. I’ll find you and write about you on my blog.

In honor of Thanksgiving, I post an excerpt from my recently completed novel, “Something about a Ghost.” I’m thankful the novel is done; I’m also thankful to already be working on another. Happy reading, and HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!

“Something about a Ghost” - Excerpt by Sara Dobie Bauer

My feet are bare, and the floor feels cold. I move only to pull an orange and brown afghan off the back of the couch. I wrap my legs in the scratchy material and use my fingertips to check the melted makeup beneath my eyes, but there’s no hope. I don’t have enough fingers to clean all the black from my face, my face that still feels puffy and is probably still red.

The man returns, with two steaming mugs in his hands. Despite the makeup ghost on the front of his chest, his dress-shirt is still tucked into his gray slacks. His clothes are tailored so tightly, I’m surprised he can breathe—but of course he can. Only skinny, tall men can dress like this, and if he is anything, he is skinny and tall. He’s also just brought me chamomile tea with milk and honey. I’m so accustomed to English Breakfast, I can smell every note of this sleepy time stuff. And just as my feet are cold, so are my hands, so I wrap them around the mug and say, “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” He sits on the floor next to me but first has to kick the coffee table away to have space. “How are you feeling?”

“Mortified.”

“No reason to.” He takes a loud sip of tea.

“I don’t cry.”

“I do,” he says.

“I’m not saying it’s a weakness; I’m just saying it’s not my thing.”

“Keep it that way. You look horrible when you do it.”

I set my tea cup on the table to the right of the couch: the one with the lamp made entirely of antlers. I have to pull up the bottom of my dress to be able to straddle him and run my nails down the front of his shirt. “You’re going to have to get this dry-cleaned,” I say.

I trace the black circles where my eyes were, right between his pecs. There are smudges of brown and orange from my concealer and bronzer. There is even a tint of red at his sternum, where my open mouth sobbed against him.

I work free the first button and the second. I lean forward and kiss the skin I reveal—pale, pristine, with just a smattering of hair. His body is so warm beneath my chill, and I get even warmer when he reaches beneath the tulle of my dress and pulls my ass closer with the palms of his hands. Even sitting like this, me on top, his torso is so long, he can reach my lips without me having to bend forward at all. With his tongue in my mouth, on my father’s living room floor, I feel like a high school girl just home from prom.

He leans forward and tilts me away until he can find purchase on his knees. He lifts me enough to shift our positions so that I’m on my back in the center of the living room, and he’s next to me, his hand on my bare arm and his hot mouth on my neck. I reach up and hold onto his hair. I do love that hair—the soft, thickness of it—but tonight, there’s styling gel in the way, and I laugh a little when my fingers stick. I latch onto the back of his neck instead, and I pull his mouth up to mine. He tastes like honey.

He has to fight through layers of tulle, and I have to wrestle with a built-in slacks belt—which, in the end, he unfastens—before we can finally make love, fully clothed, on the rough tile floor. The chill of the tile against my back battles the heat of his body on top of me, and the sensation is more pleasant than painful. I might have scrapes on my back tomorrow; he will surely have bruised knees. But at the moment, all I can do is drown in the scent of him. I can lose myself in his movements between my legs, the weight of him, and oh, God, the taste of his lips, like clover in the fields near Flagstaff.

This is not me. But it’s kind of how I feel right now.

I present … to no one but myself (for now) … Something about a Ghost.

Buy hey, until I’m ready to send the manuscript to first readers, listen to the song I listened to while writing the final scene.

And remember: “If I love you, it’s not because a ghost made me do it, but because you did.”