The Lakes That Inspired the Trilogy

How a lifetime of memories shaped the setting of The Lake Tearas Trilogy

I've lived in Arizona's Sonoran Desert for decades and navigated boats across man-made reservoirs like Saguaro Lake, but my heart belongs to the lakes of the Midwest. The endless expanses of water stretching toward a golden horizon, where lake and sky become one. The rhythmic sound of waves rolling onto a sandy shore. Those lakes take me back to a younger, simpler time, when my future was unwritten and a lifetime of possibilities stretched out before me.

Something in me changes whenever I'm near such a lake. I feel peaceful. Renewed. Hopeful. Maybe that's why I set an entire trilogy in a fictional lakeside town. To return to those feelings I've carried with me since I was a little girl.

A Memory That Stayed With Me

I grew up the youngest in my family. My father worked hard, and between his job and the needs of my older siblings, there wasn't always much time for just the two of us.

But I remember one late afternoon on a lake when I was about ten years old and learned to waterski. Our neighbor drove the boat while my dad sat facing backward, watching me. He was my spotter, making sure I was safe as I skimmed across the water, the sun’s golden rays casting a warm glow over the lake. Wind in my hair. Water droplets spraying my face. Complete, blissful freedom.

For those precious minutes, I had his undivided attention. I felt safe. I felt seen. And I had a memory with my father that belonged to me alone, one none of my siblings shared.

I've never forgotten it.

A Little Mischief on Goguac Lake

Years later, I discovered another kind of freedom on the water.

During high school, a girlfriend and I sailed a little two-person Sunfish on Goguac Lake in Battle Creek. I loved zigzagging across the water beneath a brilliant blue sky, catching the wind in our sails.

We were teenage girls, and, well, boys were never far from our minds.

Occasionally, we'd deliberately capsize the sailboat, leaving the mast submerged and the centerboard sticking up toward the sky. Then we'd tread water nearby and wait for some handsome young men in speedboats to come rescue us.

Once they'd righted our boat and gone on their way, we'd do it all over again. And again.

That memory stayed with me, too. In fact, learning to right a sailboat became a scene in my debut novel, Finding Me.

Funny how life finds its way onto the page.

Creating a Place That Didn't Exist

Over the years, I visited the beaches of the Cape and the shores of all five Great Lakes. Each body of water held its own beauty, but Michigan's lakeside communities especially captured my imagination.

South Haven. Holland. Saugatuck. Traverse City. Charlevoix.

I loved their waterfronts, their small-town charm, and the sense that generations of families had built their lives around the water.

When I began writing Finding Me in 2009, I knew my story belonged somewhere like that.

But no single town was quite right.

So I created one.

Lake Tearas, Michigan, became a patchwork of places I'd visited, people I'd known, and memories I'd carried with me for decades. I gave it a lake, a shoreline, familiar gathering places, and families whose histories were woven into the community.

Then I gave the lake a name.

Inspired by the Irish word athmhuintearas, meaning reconciliation, I created a local legend about two feuding sisters whose tears became part of the lake's history.

Reconciliation was already the theme at the heart of my story. Now it was woven into the setting itself.

When a Setting Becomes a Character

As Finding Me grew into The Lake Tearas Trilogy, I realized the lake had become more than a backdrop. In many ways, it had become a character in its own right.

Not because it could speak or act, but because it held my characters' histories, influenced their choices, and meant something different to each person who encountered it.

For Cate McDermott, the eighteen-year-old protagonist of Finding Me, Lake Tearas is an unfamiliar town filled with people who know more about her family than she does. She arrives searching for answers and discovers a past that has been waiting for her.

For her mother, Susan, the town holds memories of love, heartbreak, and decisions she has spent years trying to leave behind.

For Doc McDermott, the family patriarch, Lake Tearas represents a lifetime of accomplishments, authority, and family history. Yet even the most familiar places can become uncomfortable when we're forced to confront the consequences of our choices.

The same lake. The same town. But three very different experiences of it.

And the water itself reflects that complexity.

On a summer afternoon, its shimmering surface can seem peaceful and inviting. But when storms roll in, the lake can become unpredictable and dangerous. Beneath its beauty lie depths we cannot see.

Much like the families who live along its shores.

The Meaning Behind the Name

When I chose the name Lake Tearas, I wanted it to mean something.

The fictional legend of two feuding sisters and their tears of reconciliation became part of the town's identity. But the idea extends far beyond the legend.

Throughout The Lake Tearas Trilogy, my characters struggle with secrets, misunderstandings, regrets, and the consequences of decisions made years earlier.

In Finding Me, Cate and Susan must confront painful truths about their family.

In Finding You, Aimee and Andrew grapple with the wounds of separation and the possibility of rebuilding what was lost.

And in Finding Ours, Brandi and Gertie face complicated legacies of love, loss, and sacrifice.

Their stories are different, but they're connected by something larger than geography.

They're connected by the possibility of reconciliation.

Not every broken relationship can be repaired. Not every hurt can be erased. And forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean everything returns to the way it once was. But healing can begin when people find the courage to confront the truth.

That's what I wanted Lake Tearas to represent.

The Water and the Unwritten Future

Looking back, I wonder whether I created Lake Tearas because I've spent so much of my life searching for the feelings I experience beside the water.

When I walk along a shoreline or dip my toes into a lake, something inside me settles. The shimmering water feels refreshing, renewing, almost cleansing.

For a moment, I'm that little girl again, waterskiing across a lake while her father watches from the boat.

Or the teenager sailing beneath an endless Michigan sky, laughing with her friend and believing that wonderful things lie somewhere beyond the horizon.

Those were days when life seemed less complicated. Before the responsibilities, difficult decisions, disappointments, and losses that inevitably accompany growing older.

I can't return to those days. None of us can.

But standing beside the water reminds me of how it felt to believe that the future was unwritten and anything was possible.

And perhaps that's what I wanted for the people who inhabit my fictional town.

Not a chance to erase their pasts, but an opportunity to make peace with them. To recognize that the mistakes and hurts of yesterday don't have to determine every tomorrow.

The lake doesn't heal my characters. They must choose whether to take those steps themselves.

But it gives them a place where change feels possible.

Lake Tearas may not exist on any map, but the memories that created it are real. So are the emotions that bring my characters to its shores.

And perhaps, somewhere within their stories, readers will recognize a place they've carried in their own hearts all along.

Want to explore Lake Tearas?

Although Lake Tearas is fictional, I've created a map of the town where the stories unfold. Join my Reader's List below to receive your complimentary map and discover the places that bring The Lake Tearas Trilogy to life.