While writing the Wynter Wild series I would often “drive” through cities and suburbs on Google Maps to get a feel for how a place looks, even if those descriptions don’t end up in my writing. I live in suburban Melbourne, which has many suburbs with their own distinctive and very Australian flavor. So it’s fascinating to me to compare American locations with Australian, as well as with each other. I looked for houses the right size and price (using Zillow estimates for the year in question, where possible), and in the right location. This helped me enormously in visualizing my scenes. Zillow also sometimes has photos of the interiors (when they’ve recently been on the market).
I’ve used AI to recreate the houses that Wynter and her brothers have lived in, based on my research of real locations. Here they are, listed in the order they appear in the books, not the order they were lived in. (This post is an update of an earlier post where I used photos of real houses.)
Seattle house, Columbia City, Seattle WA
Harry bought a three-bedroom one-bathroom house in 2003 “when banks would lend to anyone”, after moving from Montana with the boys. Caleb sold it in 2014. Homes in this neighborhood have tripled in value in the last 8 years. In Little Sister Song, the house is described as a 1950s fixer-upper, 1300 sq feet, with a path to the front door leading from the garage driveway, and a picket fence.
Harry’s shack
In late 2010 when Caleb was assigned to the Coast Guard base in Seattle and Jesse (16) was a high school junior, Caleb threw Harry out of the house. Harry moved to this tiny house in Everett, where he lives when the series starts. He keeps his boat in the lean-to.
Rosa’s house, Richland WA
Wynter’s first foster mother lives in a large house on a new estate along the Yakima River.
Here’s the elegant entryway and the infamous staircase and interior balcony:
Wynter’s white and blue bedroom in Rosa’s house:
Debra & Brian’s house, Enumclaw WA
Wynter’s second foster home, 40 miles south of Seattle – a semi-rural property where she lived for about six months with Madeline (initially) and the two little boys.
Here’s the bedroom Wynter shares with Madeline:
Tiger Mountain nr Issaquah WA
Caleb bought a sprawling rundown farmhouse on Tiger Mountain in early 2014, around Wynter’s 16th birthday. See Part 3 for the exterior shot, the plan, and some interior images.
Here are a couple of older blog posts about this house:
Part 2: homes from the characters’ childhoods
Part 3: interior and exterior shots of the Tiger Mountain home
Sara Creasy 