Jacqui Nelson’s North of the Border with guest CJ Hunt

Who's next on my North of the Border guest blog series? Today we have CJ Hunt, author of The MacAllisters of Rivers End series!

Where does CJ get her inspiration? How is Canada part of her inspiration? Read on and see...

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I’m so excited to be sharing Rivers End—and a little slice of Canada—with all of you! I’ve been writing romance stories since I was fifteen years old, and since I grew up in a small town on Vancouver Island just off the west coast of British Columbia, in Canada (and hey, we tend to write what we know!) I created my own version of my hometown as the place my stories could take place in and called it Rivers End. This had the dual purpose of letting me spend part of my time in a small Canadian town while my body is actually living in the big city :) Plus, then none of the folks in my hometown could claim I was actually writing about them!


I knew I wanted a smaller town where people would know each other, be invested in each other’s lives, and that had a great variety of physical locations that were picturesque and gave me lots of options for backdrops. I grew up in Qualicum Beach which is a small town on Vancouver Island that has two rivers (although the town in real life isn’t between them like Rivers End is!), is right on the beach, and is less than an hour away from multiple ski mountains. It snows just often enough that people still get excited when it does, but the weather is mostly pretty mild all winter—usually hovering above 0 degrees (that’s centigrade, for you south of the border folks…) so you can still be out and about all winter. Unless you head up into the mountains, of course. Then there’s plenty of snow! Summers are warm but not usually too hot. In short – it’s an ideal place to live, with only normal size mosquitos. Trust me, if you’ve lived in other locations in Canada, this is a selling feature worth mentioning!

There are several families that have been in the area for generations including the MacAllisters, the Martinez family, the Tremayne’s and we get to know their stories – and others - as we get to know the town. The MacAllisters are the family I’ve written about the most (so far) and you can grab SILVER BELLS (The MacAllisters of Rivers End #1) for free on any eBook retailer you like and get to know Jenna, Sara and Isaac.

It’s a pretty big cast of characters (a whole town!!), which is why I’ve set up a section on my website where you can meet the residents of Rivers End. With each new story that comes out, I add more of the characters to it. It’s a fun opportunity to see what I think people look like, but WARNING: If you want to stay with just the picture you get in your own mind then you might want to stay away from this page!

Building Rivers End

While I didn’t use an actual town map of Qualicum as my inspiration, I definitely borrowed the spirit of the place, the idea of it, and details here and there to help bring my own small town to life. My parents even owned a campground/hotel called Riverside Resort when I was a kid, which was the inspiration for Big River Lodge. I loved growing up right on the edge of the river and within bike riding distance of the beach!

I sketched out a map on a piece of graph paper, and then once I had everything where I wanted it, I actually worked with an artist to bring the place to life. I wanted it to have a clear downtown core, as well as some residential areas with school and community centre and churches and retirement homes… well – you get the idea. Everything!

So I watched youtube videos on town planning, sketched up how I wanted everything to look, and then I planned out a TON of stories to make sure my town had everything it would need to support those stories. Fun fact: I have over 100 stories outlined that all are interconnected and take place in Rivers End or are connected in some way. Not so fun fact: I can only write so fast! It’s going to take me years and years to tell all the stories I want to tell. Although since I love writing, and I figure I’ve probably got a good 30-40 years of storytelling time left in me I don’t see that as a problem!

Spirit Lake 


If you read REINDEER GAMES (The MacAllisters of Rivers End #3) you’ll get introduced to another location where plenty of stories take place. Spirit Lake is a little ways up into the mountains west of Rivers End, and is actually inspired by another real place—Golden Ears Provincial Park which is where we go camping when we need to get out of the city for a bit. It’s less than an hour from where we live and I’ve done a great deal of writing when we’re camping as I find being up in the mountains near lakes and surrounded by trees to be really inspiring!

Alouette Lake is the real lake in Golden Ears Park and it’s cold and clear, and perfect for swimming in. You can check out some pictures here. It’ll cool you down on a hot day and the shoreline is often full of people enjoying the beach and the water. It was definitely the inspiration for Spirit Lake. And a cold dip on a warm day is part of summer in this part of the country. One of the coolest things about Canada is its size and diversity of natural landscape. So while this particular type of experience is typical in this little corner of the country, keep in mind that it’s just this little section of the country where that is true!

What about the Magic? 


Oh yes… there’s something very special about Rivers End, beyond just the cool people who live there and the great natural surroundings. Some women are born with a little something…extra. So some stories feature a touch of magic. You’ll notice those books look a little different – bolder, brighter… I wanted to make sure you could tell at a glance which kind of book you are getting. If you like a little dose of magic in your stories then you’ll likely enjoy these. And these ones do also tend towards the steamy side (or at least steamier than the regular Rivers End romances!) so be prepared for that :)

If you want to try out one of those, then you can get your hands on MERRY (The Witches of Rivers End #1) on any eBook platform for FREE.


If you want to try one with a touch of magic that’s short and sweet (no steamy stuff) then you can sign up for my newsletter and get access to TRICK OR TREAT which is ONLY available for folks who are part of my Rivers End Bookclub. Is the house on Witch Hill really haunted? You’ll have to come see for yourself.

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO WIN A BOXED SET OF 4 RIVERS END eBOOKS?

Sunday morning (9am pacific time, on January 26, 2019 to be precise) I’ll randomly draw a name of one person who has commented on this post, telling me about their favourite place to escape to. Could be a town, a specific building (The arcade? The barn? The library?) or a place you read about in a book that you can only visit in your mind… 

Where is your happiest place? 

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If you want to connect you can follow me on Amazon or BookBub for New Release announcements, sign up for my newsletter/bookclub for the inside scoop on all things Rivers End + romance, or explore Rivers End on the website!

I’ll be hanging out here over the weekend answering questions, so feel free to ask me anything in the comments :)

Xo CJ Hunt


~  All pictures (except for the 1st) are supplied by today’s guest with their assurance of usage rights