Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

The Trail to Lost Lake House

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It’s not always easy for me to pinpoint the exact moment of inspiration for a story, or to remember what initially inspired it. More often than not I find myself with a partially-formed idea in my hands and a feeling of “Where did this come from, anyway?” But Lost Lake House is one of the exceptions—I can actually trace the little trail of influences and ideas that eventually came together in my mind to inspire the setting for the story. After recently enjoying K.M. Weiland’s fun post on 14 things that inspired her latest novel, I thought I’d do a little inspiration-backtracking of my own.

The oldest seed of an idea came from the Crooked Lake House in Averill Park, New York. I’ve never been there myself, but I’d heard various accounts of its history—according to local news articles, it began as a stagecoach stop in 1780 and was rebuilt after a fire in 1840; in its heyday it hosted famous guests such as Theodore Roosevelt and gangster Legs Diamond; and NBC broadcast live big-band concerts from it on radio during the swing era. And at some point, although I can’t trace this story now, I heard or was told that it had housed a speakeasy during Prohibition, possibly in a secret room. That idea stuck in my mind; it seemed to hold fascinating possibilities for a story. In fact, I was recently cleaning out some old notebooks and binders when I came across a scribbled note from years back suggesting the use of the Crooked Lake House speakeasy or one like it as the setting for a mystery short story. That story never happened, but the speakeasy was evidently meant to be.


Next came the fairytale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” I had actually never heard of this fairytale till a couple of years ago. During one of Rooglewood Press’s fairytale-retelling contests, someone commented on a post at Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s blog that they hoped there would be a contest featuring this fairytale further down the line. For some reason I was intrigued by the title and looked it up. Along the way I saw this beautiful illustration by Lidia Postma, or one very like it…and because of the lake setting, I think that’s when wheels started to turn in my head…

I think it was somewhere around the same time that I read A Secret Gift: How One Man’s Kindness – and a Trove of Letters – Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression by Ted Gup. The setting was Canton, Ohio, and a few times in passing the book mentioned the Meyers Lake Amusement Park, a popular attraction for Canton residents from the 1920s onward (click here to see some vintage postcards of the park). One amusing incident that stuck in my mind was the park owner’s “accidentally” letting loose the monkeys kept on an island in the lake, in what turned out to be a highly successful publicity stunt. The idea of a colorful attraction on an island in a lake lodged in my mind, and at some point it clicked with those ideas already brewing. A hidden speakeasy on an island in a lake…it dovetailed perfectly with the plot of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and made the Jazz-Age setting a perfect choice.

And finally, another location that contributed to my imagining of the setting was the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence Seaway. I’d once caught a few minutes of a travel program about the islands on TV, and was captivated by the shots of beautiful old villas and castles (yes, castles) built by wealthy summer residents during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, when the area was a popular summer resort. In a bit of serendipity, the photo of the house that ended up being part of Lost Lake House‘s cover is actually what is now known as Singer Castle on Dark Island!

Lost Lake House releases on March 16th, 2016—add it on Goodreads here!
photos: Wikimedia

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Historical Settings I’d Love to See in Books

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This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is a great one—either ten historical settings you love, or ten historical settings you’d love to see in books. I decided to go with the latter. My picks may wobble back and forth over the line between “setting” and “subject,” but it’s close enough, isn’t it? They’re not in order, just roughly categorical.

1) Westerns set in the early 20th century. A lot of Westerns nowadays seems to lean toward an 1870s or 1880s setting (which is perfectly fine), but when I began reading early Western fiction I was surprised to find a lot of it was set around the time it was written: from the turn of the 20th century up to the beginning of WWI, and even on into the early ’20s. It’s an interesting dynamic—the mingling of increasing modernity like automobiles and telephones with a still-existent frontier—and it’s a lot of fun to read.


2) Cavalry westerns. Here’s a branch of the genre that doesn’t seem to have been explored half as far as others. In film the cavalry western is a recognized subgenre, and some short-story writers have tried it, but how about some novels featuring soldiers and their families on frontier outposts?

3) Far west theater of the Civil War. I’m most familiar with the eastern campaigns of the Civil War, and enjoy reading about them, but I can’t help thinking there must be a lot of unexplored material for good stories in the events of the war in places like Texas, Missouri and Kansas—states that were divided in sympathies and also possess a frontier element to the setting.

4) More Great Depression fiction, but not just about the Dust Bowl and migrant workers. How about exploring the impact the Depression had on average middle class families from the farms and small towns of New England and the Midwest? (Bonus: what was the Depression like in other parts of the world besides America?)


5) Edwardian-era fiction set in small towns and among more middle-class characters. Most authors seem drawn to the glamorous heights of Gilded Age high society, and you can’t really be surprised or blame them, but I’m always interested in the everyday life of a given time period, and it would be nice to see more good novels with that kind of setting.


6) Victorian or Edwardian novels set in the Alpine countries of Europe. We’ve had our fair share of stately English manor-houses (and even American ones) in this era—and I’m just crazy about the gorgeous mountain scenery of Alpine countries like Austria, Switzerland, and even France and Italy. Wouldn’t it make a wonderful background for a historical novel?


7) Classy mysteries set in the 1940s. Basically I wish some author could capture on the page the atmosphere that makes the ’40s one of my favorite decades of classic film—the world of fedoras and trench coats, posh apartments and elegant evening gowns, taxicabs and telegrams—without it being merely a hard-boiled spy thriller or a cheap imitation of film noir. (Attempting this myself is a writing pipe-dream of mine.)

8) Pacific theater of World War II. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the European front gets a lot more attention in fiction. I’ve read a lot of deeply interesting nonfiction about the Pacific that seems like it would make great material for stories.

9) Fiction set in the 1940s that isn’t necessarily about WWII—novels set in the post-war years, or home-front stories where the war merely forms a background. Basically I just like this decade as a setting…


10) Upstate New York. Now, this is a pretty personal pick, since I’ve lived here all my life. Though it’s an area rich in early American history, the only historical novels I’ve encountered with a real upstate setting are Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans and Kenneth Roberts’ Rabble in Arms. Plus in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the city of Troy was a thriving manufacturing city teeming with industry and a destination for European immigrants. It’s just waiting for someone to make a fascinating novel out of it.

Of course, being a writer myself,  I’ve toyed with all of these as “someday-ideas” with varying degrees of seriousness…so if a few years down the road you see a book in one of these settings under my name, you heard about it here first.

What are some historical settings you’d like to see more of?
Historical photos from Pinterest; Alps and Catskills from Wikimedia.

Soundtrack for a Story: Lost Lake House

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I honestly didn’t listen to any music to inspire my progress when I was writing Lost Lake House, because (A) I did most of my writing outdoors, (B) I pretty much zipped through the first draft without needing extra inspiration, and (C) I wasn’t all that familiar with the music of the 1920s to begin with. But after Suzannah beta-read the draft, she pointed me to a Shostakovich waltz that she said the aura of the story reminded her of, and it was perfect: the music called up the same moods and images I’d been imagining. Then I also had to do a little exploring of 1920s popular songs to correct some references in the story—and in the process I had so much fun and discovered so much great music that I created a YouTube playlist. I foresee listening to it quite a bit while I’m formatting and proofreading. So I thought I’d share some of my finds here on the blog today:
  • Tanzerische Suite by Eduard Künneke—particularly the Overture foxtrot, the Blues, the Valse Boston, and the Finale foxtrot. This is awesome; the music is Lost Lake House absolutely to a T!

  • Here’s the Shostakovich waltz I mentioned: the Waltz II from his second Jazz Suite. Then there’s also the Lyric Waltz from the same suite and the Foxtrot from his Jazz Suite #1.

  • “Wonderful One” by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra

  • “Three O’Clock in the Morning” by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra

  • “Fascinating Rhythm” by Sam Lanin and His Roseland Orchestra. For an old version with lyrics, here’s Fred and Adele Astaire with George Gershwin himself on piano (!).

  • An early version of the Charleston by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra (starting to notice a trend here?) accompanied by a little instructional film from the ’20s demonstrating how to do the dance step.

  • The Three Shades of Blue Suite by Ferde Grofé, who (surprise, surprise) worked with Paul Whiteman and did orchestral arrangements for Gershwin: “Indigo,” “Alice Blue,” and “Heliotrope.” Grofé is a composer whose music I’ve adored and included in several “writing soundtracks” before.

Like I said, much ’20s popular music was initially unfamiliar to me, and it surprised me a bit. It sounds light, perky, much of it in a cheerful major key—almost tame compared to the brassier punch of 1930s and ’40s swing. I guess one has to keep in mind its newness to hearers of the time, to whom the jazz style was much more unfamiliar. The jazzy classical pieces, however, are by far my favorite—I’ve always enjoyed that style, and poking around finding music for this playlist introduced me to a whole treasure-trove more!