It’s impossible to know where inspiration will strike. I was reading a Susan May Warren book set in Alaska where she brings up Russia, a place she was a missionary at, and both stark landscapes got me thinking—I’ve lived in a few places—a short stint in Maine to work at Ben and Jerry’s, college in Pennsylvania, missions in the Bahamas, then I raised my children in Tennessee near where I was born, but the long stint from two to eighteen unfolded in Vermont. My dad became the wood shop teacher at Middlebury Union High School and the pastor of Grace Baptist Church, and my mom homeschooled us kids, filling our curriculum with cross country skiing, hikes with the cows, blueberry picking, as well as sledding and snowball wars in the woods and mountain behind our house. The very instant I considered the beauty and wonder of Vermont, two stories began to form.
Something that’s crystal clear to me as a fantasy and dystopian author of eight books now is the fact that setting is as unique and quirky and wonderful as the best characters. Each location has a unique personality, mannerisms, but not all offer six-foot snowdrifts to build snow castles in, or cold that freezes your wet high school hair between your front door and your car, or tough as nails Vermonters who hike, ski, bike, pickleball, sled, and play all the day long in the extreme weather. They are tough people and would soon form the cast of two incredible books.
It was easy to imagine my first Survival Romance set there on Route 125 where we stopped to watch, from a safe distance, the moose along the side of the road. This beautiful winding route twists up and over Breadloaf Mountain, where a portion of Middlebury College’s campus is nestled, and farther over the mountain, the amazing Texas Falls crashes through boulders and valleys. After a little research, I discovered that Tropical Storm Irene hit Vermont in late August 2011 and caused significant and widespread damage—flooding and mudslides across the state. Sprinkle in romance with a lot of conflict and Voila, a story was born!
Once stranded in the mountains in the middle of the night during a downpour, the hero has little choice but to carry his injured dog to the nearest home, hoping for a kind stranger. I delighted in researching hiking paths for the hero to travel while he desperately searched for anyone living in the area. I loved writing the moment he stopped beside the walking trail to Skylight Pond Trail, but not as much as I gushed over the first time he met the heroine. Pure electricity.
On the heels of this story, I’m working on a romantasy in a magical world set right behind the home I grew up in. I’ve walked almost every step in those woods. Taken the pathway to the river a mile back behind the house, where the mountain leaps steeply into the sky. I’ve ducked under the long tubes collecting sap for the sugar shack beside my home, and hidden in my special place—the smallest alcove at the foot of a tall oak and shrouded by a bank of small bushes and tall pines—a place only I know of and love. It shows up in almost every series I write, like an Easter egg waiting for readers to discover the magic like I once did as a child wandering the woods.
There’s something poetic about writing my stories in a place that Steven King and Robert Frost both lived and wrote. Like somehow by proximity, I’m tapping into a talent beyond my years and skill level. And because it’s my home before all other homes, it might be the most intimate setting description I’ve ever written.
When you read my books, you’ll notice little pieces of Vermont sprinkled in. The frost on the windows of my dystopian, or the descriptions of the forest trees and bushes outside the Dome in Awakening book two, releasing May 2026. If you ever have time to visit, be sure to take a ride on Route 125 over Breadloaf Mountain. Stop at the little Ripton shop to touch a little piece of history and culture on your way and to pick up some maple candies for a tasty treat and postcards for your friends and family.
A couple of people chuckled at the name Breadloaf Mountain, but I wouldn’t budge. A name is important. That’s the real name of the mountain. The river that winds along 125 is the Middlebury River. Simple names that represent a culture and a people who’ve tamed a wild landscape and survived to tell the story. I love the cardinal because its beautiful red flashing feathers stand out against the sparkling white of snow. I adore the bears (though many who still live there consider them to be a terrible nuisance) because of one memory from my homeschooled childhood when they came tumbling down the farmer’s fields to our back fence and rooted around in our trash. It’s home. The first place I picked up a bumblebee bouncing around on the back porch and learned the wise left bumblebees to buzz. Home is the most intimate and precious thing one person can share with another.
By reading Susan’s books and having that thought, I discovered a new way to share who I was with my readers. I’m a Vermonter through and through. Any of my southern students would tell you—she’s a fast talker, a get it done kind of woman, a no-nonsense teacher—and that comes from being a Vermonter. So I’m grateful to Susan May Warren for teaching me to go home for a good story. Vermont is going to make for an amazing backdrop to the faith-filled stories of heroes and heroines who face incredible, daunting odds and still fight for what is right.
I’m still writing my Vermont stories, so you can’t grab those yet, but you can follow me, and I’ll keep you up to date for when they come out. Until then, you can read FreeFalling my most recent release based in the rich and desperate dystopian future of Nashville, TN, where one teacher, living under the Dome in a cement city, gives everything up to save two of her students.
J. L. Burrows has a master’s degree in education and has taught English in Tennessee for nearly twenty years. She is a member of ACFW, an editor for Scrivenings Press, a columnist and reviewer for Clean Fiction Magazine, and co-leader for Charis, a local Smyrna writing group, and sponsor for her high school’s Creative Writing Club. She is seven times published with her eighth novel releasing September 2025 and her ninth releasing May 2026. When she’s not helping her high school daughter and college son, both juniors, she’s taking care of her sweet Shiapoos who require miles of tender love and care. And when the sun is set and the day is done, you’ll find her living the thrills of a hundred lifetimes with a thousand characters.
Check out J. L. Burrows’ latest book:
One hundred and eighty years in the future, the U.S. government eradicates warfare and violence.
Serenity should feel safe, but she doesn’t.
Serenity Knowles knows two things for certain. Finishing her government assigned community service as a teacher is mandatory in order to start her adult life. And stopping those in power from reconditioning two of her favorite students will ruin her chances at a future and a life.
Everything she thought she once knew to be true, suddenly is now in question after her typically peaceful girls fight in plain view of everyone at school. The Federal Bureau of Acceptance storms in and collects them both for reconditioning—chemical brain washing. With no one to help, Serenity is driven into a wild rescue and escape plan. The girls can’t be made into shadow children, brainwashed and limited to a menial future.
All that stands between the overreaching government and her girls is Serenity’s budding faith, a furry beast companion, her modified illegal AI, and a ragtag group of men and women set against the use of cutting edge technology and genetically modified bio-weapons on citizens under the Dome. If any of them get caught, they will be reconditioned. If they don’t move fast enough, the girls will be lost. If she doesn’t become a hero, any hope of a real future will be forfeit.
In her transformation from a teacher with a broken family to a radical defector leading a team of rebels, Sere discovers America’s deadliest threat—its own government.
To connect with J. L. Burrows or learn more about her books, please visit her website!
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