Settings in ‘The Cards We’re Dealt’

Image by 1tamara2 from Pixabay

In my last sneak-peek post for The Cards We’re Dealt I’m talking about settings.

What do I mean by this? Well, the setting in a book means the time, place and environment where events take place. Setting affects everything in a story: it creates atmosphere, it helps develop characters and lets readers learn more about them from how they interact with the settings around them, it can aid symbolism, and it can help convey literary themes (remember those? I talked about the themes in this novel in my last blog post).

So let’s take a look at the settings in The Cards We're Dealt.

Edinburgh in the late 1990s

Image by Eduardo Vieira from Pixabay

The story begins in a city that means a lot to me. Edinburgh is where I studied for five years at university and it felt like the obvious starting point for this novel.

I opted for the story beginning in the late 1990s as my time setting because I wanted an age before mobile phones and computers took over our lives. A time when the characters in my novel could have interests that weren’t related to screens, and they’d practice them intensely: music, football, reading, anything.

The story opens in winter when the city is cold, bitter, harsh. Uninviting (especially to those not accustomed to wind howling down streets, driving stinging rain into your eyes, and battering any umbrella you may have!). It reflects the events the Turner siblings find themselves facing.

Within Edinburgh itself, there are individual settings like bars and community halls that I’ve drawn from my experiences at small gigs, comedy shows, pub quizzes and other events over the years.

I won’t say too much more about this setting as I don’t want to give anything away!

Las Vegas

Image by Kevin Schmid from Pixabay

I needed somewhere with glitz, glamour and temptation, and what better place than Las Vegas? This is a place I’ve visited more than once and it enchants me with its excess at scale at every turn. Lights, restaurants, shows, bars, fancy cars, and its seedier underside.

In Las Vegas, I wanted to portray the Turner siblings’ home as a something of a semi-peaceful refuge. A place where truces can be made and coexistence reigns. They have a swimming pool in the backyard as I don’t think there’s anything more relaxing that the sound of rippling water. Their home becomes the starting point for their collective musical journey, but it’s not without its battlegrounds.

Bill’s Music Store

Photo by Stephen Niemeier on Pexels

This setting – also in Las Vegas – deserves a section all on its own.

In my childhood, I remember going to music shops in different places in Scotland. All were small, poky places with a handful of instruments squeezed in among music books, accessories and anything else that could fit in limited space. And then I went to one somewhere in Orlando and it was enormous. I remember it being like nothing I’d seen before, with entire aisles of music books to browse through, sections of different instruments, and more.

Bill’s Music Store is a setting that has a crucial role in all three Turner siblings’ arcs, but it has the biggest impact on Sadie, for reasons I’m dying to share with you but I won’t because I don’t want to drop spoilers. However, I can say it’s a place where Sadie initially feels peace in, but then it opens up a world of possibilities for her through the connections the siblings make there.

Music is at the heart of this story, and Bill’s Music Store represents that, returning throughout the story in different ways.

Concert halls and stages

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Lastly, this generic setting repeats in The Cards We’re Dealt in various guises with the Turner siblings attending and playing different gigs in several locations, but the essence is the same.

I wanted to convey the exhilaration and nervousness that comes with performing on stage, regardless of whether it’s a ramshackle raised platform in the tiniest bar, or a more professional set-up with rows of amps behind you and an army of lights shining in your eyes. And I wanted to combine it with the often dreary backstage world behind the glamour: corridors with peeling paint, changing rooms that have seen better days, swarms of people both involved with the production and others there to leech off the stars.

‘The Cards We’re Dealt’: out 26 May 2025

I hope you enjoyed this mini-series of posts on what you’ll find between the pages of my first novel (you can read more about the characters here and the themes here). It will be released on 26 May 2025, so get the date in your diaries!

Better yet, if ebook is your preferred format, you can pre-order The Cards We’re Dealt on Amazon, Google Play, and Kobo.

Don’t forget to add it to your To-Read shelf on Goodreads here.

If you haven’t already, make sure you sign up for my updates and monthly newsletter using the form below. You can also follow me on Twitter/X (@RhiMacG), Instagram (@rhian_writes) and Goodreads. See you soon.