Hello!  Welcome to another Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour. This time I’m featuring a stop on the 16 Millimeters tour. The author, Larissa Reinhart has provided a guest post for today’s stop. Purchase links, Goodreads link, and Rafflecopter Giveaway will be below the guest post! Enjoy!

Keeping the Southern Drawl While Living in Japan

Both of my humorous mystery series are set in small-town Georgia. The Maizie Albright series was conceived in Georgia, although the first book, 15 MINUTES, was published while I lived in Japan, and the second 16 MILLIMETERS, was mostly written in Japan. My Cherry Tucker series was conceived in Japan, books two through five written in Georgia, and half of six written in Japan.

Confused? Me, too. I don’t know if I should drink green tea or sweet tea most of the time. How do I keep the Southern drawl while living in the land of the Rising Sun?

We eat Southern. Which is easy to do in Japan. Lots of chicken and pork. Corn, okra, and greens (although their greens are not the same, greens are greens). My husband brought his smoker with him so that we could have homemade BBQ. I made macaroni and cheese. I missed pimento cheese, but we brought North Georgia grits with us (and had some sent to us by the wonderful Gretchen Archer). Fried apple pie was hard to come by, but fried anything else is not.

Country music, y’all. And bluegrass. That’s where I find a great turn of phrase. I love the humor, storytelling, and poetic phrasing in country music. But I’d listen to country and bluegrass whether I was writing country or not.

I watch reality shows like Southern Charm (both Charleston and Savannah) and Welcome to Myrtle Manor (which is sadly over) where the lives of Southerners may be ridiculous and seemingly unrealistic, but at least their accents are real. And I love a good reality show. I miss that Myrtle Manor.

Of course, I peruse the magazines like Southern Writers Magazine, Southern Living, and Garden & Gun, and follow Southern blogs like The Bitter Southerner. And I love to read Southern Fiction, particularly by authors like Joshilyn Jackson and Sally Kilpatrick. Plus all my Southern mystery friends like Gretchen Archer and Tonya Kappes.

So in my Japanese home, I can steep like sweet tea in Southern comfort.

Here’s my question for y’all. In what ways would you keep your home fires burning while living overseas? What shows would you watch? What would you recommend to a Southern writer overseas?

Thank you, Ms. Reinhart, for providing such a great guest post for today! If you’re interested in visiting other stops on the tour for 16 Millimeters, please click on the banner at the end of this post. That will take you to the main tour page with links to other participants!

Purchase Links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo

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