Once again I can’t help thinking about how this is the weekend in June where the mystery weekend in SUSPECT would take place. Weather did really play a role in the plot.
Weather, seasons and climate do play or at least should play an important role in establishing the setting in novels. In every book that I’ve had published I’ve done a study of what’s blooming. If an author gets it wrong in an area that I’m familiar with, I’ll notice. With SUSPECT, I could rely on the Missouri Botantical Gardens website. And that reminds me that I’m going to have to start checking the weather in various parts of Italy for PORTRAIT during the first and second week of July. The internet makes this incredibly easy. In fact, I’ll be able to go to webcams for certain locations and check for haze and visibility. I’m planning on spoiling my characters, though. It rained the day before the action opens, so they’ll have blue skies and incredible visibility.
This brings to mind another little review popped up for SUSPECT this week in The Crimson Review of Children’s Literature, a blog put out by the graduate students taking a course in young adult materials at the University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information Studies.
“Nitz has created a strong female character, a distinctive setting, and well-laid clues that will have the reader frantically turning the pages to figure out whodunit.”
I’m betting that the reviewer was thinking more about my bed and breakfast, weather and climate would have definitely contributed to my setting.
Kristin Wolden Nitz 
I’ve thought about what’s blooming in my manuscripts too, but I was positive my male teenage protagonists couldn’t identify specific flowers. In one novel my main character buys a bouquet of flowers at a Michigan farmers’ market for the girl he likes. He describes the flowers, but he doesn’t name them. In another novel (the one you read) my hero hides behind a bush with pink flowers. I know it’s an oleander, but he doesn’t.
Good point, Ann! I tend to identify plants that are well-known like roses and daffodils.