posted on November 16, 2015 by Heather Thurmeier

Home is a State of Mind

By Heather Thurmeier

TheHometownHoax_500I’ve had many, many homes in my life. My parents got wanderlust every so often and liked to move. There were five places I called home before moving out of my parents’ house and getting married. Since then, I’ve lived with my husband in five different apartments and houses in the fifteen years we’ve been married and living in the States.

Apparently, I like to move too. LOL.

On the polar opposite side of the spectrum, my husband’s parents have lived in the same house for almost their entire married lives together. It’s the only home my husband remembers. All of his memories are attached to that house. When we go back to my in-laws’, there’s a sense of history and memories that fill the space. It’s nice. Comforting. Consistent. We know where everything is and aside from little changes around the house, nothing is ever really unfamiliar.

This is just like how Cutter’s Creek is for Tessa Cutter when she goes home in The Hometown Hoax. For her, the entire town is home. She has a memory associated with every nook and cranny of that town. Every building has a story she could tell; each person in town has shared an experience with her over the years. She can’t escape her past there, good or bad, no matter how hard she tries because her past is ingrained into the town itself.

Logan is in a completely different situation. His parents aren’t around anymore and he has no siblings, so he doesn’t have anywhere to go home to. His home is really just wherever he is. I definitely relate to him in real life.

When we go home to my parents’ house, the actual house doesn’t seep with childhood memories because I spent my childhood in lots of different places with my family. I don’t look at a piece of floor and remember spilling strawberry jam on it, and there is no wall with pencil lines and dates to show our heights over the years. Instead I look at my mum and remember sitting on her lap at the dining room table and learning about genealogy in our small-town home, I remember my dad teaching me how to make tomato rice soup in the kitchen of our big-city house, my sister Trish taking me horseback riding bareback at our cabin in the mountains, and playing hours of canasta with my sister Leslie in yet another house. The memories created in each place we’ve lived, in each place that’s been “home” for us, moves to the next place along with the boxes.

As my family is now all adults and we live in in different places with homes of our own, the place we head back to for holidays is my parents’ place. None of us grew up within its walls, but that doesn’t change the fact that it feels like home whenever we’re there together.

For me, home isn’t in one permanent place because my heart is with each of the people I love, no matter where they are. And my heart is in the home I’ve created with my husband and children. Home is a state of mind more than a location on a map, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Hometown Hoax

Leaving was hard, but staying away might be impossible.

Tessa Cutter escaped her tiny hometown and chased her artistic dreams straight to Manhattan. Now she’s home for a camping trip with her family. To keep them off her back, she makes up the perfect pretend boyfriend—successful, important, and most of all, permanently located in New York.

Logan Ridley lost everything when his Manhattan-based personal training studio shut down. Luckily, a friend got him a position as a gym teacher in the small town of Cutter’s Creek. He’s heard a lot about the infamous Tessa, but she’s even better than he imagined. Except, she seems to hate everything about the small town he’s growing to love.

The chemistry sparking between them is impossible to ignore, but falling for Logan will trap Tessa in the small town she worked so hard to escape. If they have any hope of a future together, he’ll have to convince her that everything she wants has been in Cutter’s Creek all along…

 
Heather Thurmeier

Heather Thurmeier

Heather Thurmeier is a lover of margaritas and a hater of spiders. Born and raised in the Canadian prairies, she now lives in New York where she’s become an odd Canuck-Yankee hybrid. Heather’s currently writing her next romance, which will probably be filled with sassy heroines, sexy heroes that make your heart pound, laugh out loud moments and always a happily ever after. She loves to hear from readers on social media and at heatherthurmeier.com.

http://heatherthurmeier.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Latest from our Blog

Mahoney & Squire – Military Women’s Fiction – Meet The Characters

Have you met the men and women of Mahoney & Squire, my high-stakes, high-octane military action adventure series? Let me introduce you! Captain Kathryn “Kate” Mahoney, USN Call Sign “Scarlett” Ambitious, strong-willed, patriotic, and assertive, Kate Mahoney is often derided as a “bitch” by the old school naval aviation community. She struggled through dysfunctional relationships,… Read More

Read More