Real Locations in the book THE BLANCHARD WITCHES OF DAIHMLER COUNTY

The Daihmler County where the Blanchard family resides is a fictional place in Alabama, but some of the landmarks around town are based on real-life places.  In THE BLANCHARD WITCHES series, the fictional town of Daihmler sits between the larger cities of Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.  If you are familiar with this region in the south then you will understand when I explain that Daihmler is an amalgamation of the Cottondale, Coaling, Brookwood area.

However, the characters in THE BLANCHARD WITCHES series do travel into Tuscaloosa and sometimes Birmingham from time to time.  Having grown up in Tuscaloosa myself, I often reimagine my childhood landmarks as locations in my books.  Especially since the Blanchards live in the general area where I grew up.  Here are some examples for those who may be familiar with the central region of Alabama.

In the first book THE BLANCHARD WITCHES OF DAIHMLER COUNTY, Yerby Park is actually based upon Tuscaloosa's Bowers Park.  When I write scenes set in Yerby Park, its Bowers Park I see in my mind.  Walking trails covered in spots by sporadic canopies of trees.  Brown painted picnic tables under wooden pavilions of the same color.  The baseball field set to the side on the sunny lawn.  Despite the fact that I place two gruesome murders there in my book, the park is actually a safe and lovely place.

A fictional restaurant called The Cobblestone is featured heavily in all THE BLANCHARD WITCHES books.  The Cobblestone sits on the bank of The Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa.  It is a direct reference to one of Tuscaloosa's most popular and long running establishments (now sadly closed) The Cypress Inn.  For my entire childhood, and most of my adult years, The Cypress Inn was where many Tuscaloosians celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, Mother's Day dinners, wedding rehearsal dinners, or just a special date night.  In the early 2000's we actually hosted my mother's retirement party there in the upstairs private dining room.  When Cypress Inn closed in 2019, it was quite a loss for those who lived or once lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  If you ask anyone who is or once was from Tuscaloosa, you can bet they are familiar with the place.  I am pleased that The Cypress Inn lives on in Blanchard fiction under the guise of The Cobblestone.

The Black Warrior River sits alongside The Cobblestone restaurant in THE BLANCHARD WITCHES series.  The Black Warrior River is a real waterway all Tuscaloosians are familiar with.  Though primarily used in Tuscaloosa as a shipping highway, many of our childhood years were spent riding these waters for fun.  In the Akron area of Alabama, I spent much of my childhood in boats pulling water skiers or tubers.  We often docked at one of the many sandbars along the shore to while away a Saturday or Sunday with coolers of food and drink.  I myself as a teen, along with a few really equally dumb friends, leapt from the Highway 69 bridge to the waters below.  It was a right of passage of sorts.  I still remember my buddies warning me to point my feet and not flail when I fell otherwise I'd shatter my legs!  And once (that's all it took) a few of my friends and I walked the trestle train bridge across the river--well, halfway.  We'd been assured by one of our friends that trains no longer ran across the bridge.  But halfway across--wouldn't you know it--a train was speeding towards us.  It was a narrow miss running to the safety of the other side.  We never attempted that stunt again.

The character Vanessa Collins (Seth's girlfriend) is a student teacher at Cottondale Elementary School in the first book.  Cottondale Elementary was my very elementary school.  Way back then we were known as the Cottondale Cougars (back before Cougar took on other connotations).  I'm not sure if they are still that now, but the building is still the very same one I spent kindergarten through 6th grade in.

  

Downtown Tuscaloosa plays a big role in a particularly exciting scene in THE BLANCHARD WITCHES OF DAIHMLER COUNTY.  The small district around the Bama Theater with its three story structures from the olden days of  Tuscaloosa city life was the perfect setting for a big supernatural battle.  

Alabama is not the only state featured in THE BLANCHARD WITCHES OF DAIHMLER COUNTY.  South Carolina...more specifically Charleston, plays a large role throughout the entire BLANCHARD WITCHES series.  The first introduction to Charleston--and more notably, Wadmalaw Island--comes in Book One when Olympia and Salem travel to the Witches Association Consort meeting.  Wadmalaw was the perfect setting for the more glamorous (and spookier) Obreiggon family residence named Oleander.  The Spanish moss hanging from gnarled oak limbs reaching across the road while the brackish murky water laps up to an island shore of reeds and tributaries or a shoreline of shells and rock.  

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Future Blanchard books, though always primarily set in Alabama, do find certain characters traveling to other cities for new adventures.  I will show you all the real locations or the inspired locations when the other books debut.