Angelica Eling 9/30/26 Angelica Eling 9/30/26

What Makes a Small-Town Setting Feel Real? Representing Coastal Maine in Fiction

Waverly Cove isn't a real place. There's no exit off I-95 for it, no dot on a Maine map. But if I've done my job right, it should feel like there could be.

So what makes a fictional small town feel like an actual place instead of something arranged behind the romance?

What Are Interconnected Standalone Romance Novels? (And Why We Love Them)

You finish a romance series, go looking for the next book, and find yourself staring at three different "reading order" charts that all disagree with each other. Publication order. Chronological order. Some fan-made spreadsheet that swears by a third option entirely.

If you've ever felt confused about whether you're reading a series "right," you're not alone, and you're probably dealing with a format that's more common than most readers realize: the interconnected standalone series.

Welcome to Waverly Cove

Hi. I'm Angelica Eling, and if you're reading this, you've somehow found the blog before I've written more than one post on it. Bold move. I respect it.

I write stories about the Westfield family, a big, messy, loving clan in a fictional coastal Maine town called Waverly Cove. If you like your romance slow, your small towns nosy in a good way, and your happy endings earned instead of handed over, you're in the right place.