Paranormal Road Trip: Destination Sonoma County with Sharon Hamilton

Come on boys and ghouls!  It's time to hop on Route 666 for a spooktacular Paranormal Road Trip.

This week's stop is Sonoma County, California and our special guide is Sharon Hamilton author of UNDERWORLD QUEEN, the third novel in the Guardian Angel paranormal romance series.

Sonoma County with Sharon Hamilton

I live in the beautiful Wine Country of Sonoma County, California. Within 20 miles of our home are nearly 400 wineries. Such lush backgrounds (and I’ve lived here for over 45 years) make for great sites for my stories.

My Vampires of Tuscany series (Honeymoon Bite, Mortal Bite) both take place in the town of Healdsburg, which is my favorite place to take friends when they come to visit. In fact, I’m arranging a book signing for authors next February 20th at Coppola Winery I’ll be talking more about very soon.

My hero’s family, the Monteleones, have a vineyard tucked into the hills of the Dry Creek Valley. A wonderful lovemaking scene takes place among the old vines at the ending, but a luscious “first bite” takes place there as well. The little town has upscale shops and tourist bars where the henchmen of the Monteleones, the dark vamps and brothers three, the Jetts, like to hang out and pick up their FB (not spelling it out here but you can guess what I mean). I also have sex scenes over aging wine barrels and romps on concrete floors that smell of decades of spilled fermented grapes. Not only is there beauty in the area, the smells of the region fill my head with so many fantasies. I simply cannot walk into a barrel storage room and not think of these scenes.

In my Heavenly Lover book, Claire (who is a guardian angel) slips away from her human lover and stands with the angels in a store display and surprises Daniel. They sit in the square in Healdsburg and watch families with children walk by, while she’s pondering giving up Daniel so she doesn’t hold him back from the human life he was destined for. The setting of the square makes these two scenes possible. Daniel and the bad girl, Audray, have sex in the bathroom of one of the tasting rooms in Heavenly Lover. Audray’s gallery, Craven Image, is located on the square right where there is indeed a very eclectic studio displaying just the kinds of canvases my Brazilian painter-hero, Daniel, paints.

Even my Navy SEALs have Sonoma County connections. Nick comes back to help his sister sell her struggling nursery located in Bennett Valley, where Matanzas Creek Winery exists today in SEAL The Deal. Kate works in a family-owned winery in Healdsburg in SEAL Of My Heart.

I’ve traveled to Italy for research, and taken a Mediterranean cruise for story locations and ideas. Ah, but that is another story for another time!

Thank you Sharon for giving us such an intriguing tour of Sonoma County!  

To learn more about Sharon Hamilton and her books, please visit her website.  You can add her Guardian Angel series here on Goodreads.

Have you visited California?  Ever experience anything of the supernatural kind in and around Sonoma County, California?

What did you think of Sonoma County?

Last week on Paranormal Road Trip we visited Fairy, Texas with Margo Bond Collins.  Next week we'll be traveling to New Orleans with Kristen Painter.

Join us for another spine-tingling Paranormal Road Trip...
if you dare!