The Laurel Defense Series started as an offshoot of what I’d read in the Southern Vampire Mysteries.  Obviously, that wasn’t going to work.  I started the same story three times until I finally got “I Am Lightning,”  with my own characters and my own theories about the supernatural.  The story is set near where I live, in the City of Laurel in the state of Maryland.  Why in the world would I set such a story in a suburb of Washington, DC and Baltimore?  It is not as strange as you might think.  Laurel is equidistant to both cities, smack dab in the middle of all the hullaballoo.  Laurel is old, and there is no doubt in my mind that the older supernaturals could have been living there since the turn of the 20th century.  Plus, even though Laurel is a “city,” West Laurel is actually almost rural: the perfect place to hide the headquarters of a supernatural “police station.”