I’m happy to welcome back author Candace Colt. Today, Candace shares interesting information about Baga Shores, the setting for the Baga Shores Romance Series.
Here’s Candace!
Laid-back Baga Shores is a Chamber of Commerce dream. No wonder 12,845 citizens call it home. And of those, the best guess is that half are Ordinary humans. The others? Let’s say they are anything but ordinary!
Baga Shores is a quaint fictional Florida town nestled between the Intercoastal and the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
1. Old-timers embellish tales like nobody else. One story is how, back in the day, kids stood on the Gulf side beach and threw rocks across the county highway until they splashed into the Intracoastal.
2. The town’s name derived from the Tocabaga Indians, who lived along the northern part of the Tampa Bay area from approximately 900 AD to the 1500s. (This was a real tribe, by the way!)
3. Several Tocobaga sacred burial grounds surround Tampa Bay. As a result, legend has it that Baga Shores has been protected from hurricane direct hits.
4. Perhaps fairy tale witches live in tiny huts in the deep forest, but Baga Shores’ venerated witch, Mimi Tanner, lives in a three-story flamingo-pink mansion with a four-car garage and the Gulf of Mexico for a backyard. She runs a mail-order potion business and conducts classes on Zoom.
5. The proprietor of the Spellbound bookstore is a coyote-shifter adopted as a child by the town’s veterinarian, a fox-shifter.
6. The Dockside Grille is a popular local restaurant with the best grouper sandwich in the county. The owner is a reformed bad boy who happens to be a Draio wizard.
7. The Kosmos Arms (known by locals as the Kos) is a 55-plus retirement community for gifted magicals. Although outdoor tropical plants are uncommon in this part of Florida, the Kos has a dense canopy of cocoa, banana, and rubber trees and a layer of lush green fern under it. Orchids hang like fiesta lanterns in a colorful rainbow from reds to violets. The story is that the garden emerged fully formed the morning after a beloved resident—a shaman—passed on.
8. Across the Causeway from Baga Shores is Rosemont Academy, a school for magically gifted students.
9. Baga Shores is home to many enchanted animals, but perhaps the most unique is Alika, a decades-old familiar who is prescient and can talk to humans.
10. One of the part-time bartenders at the Dockside communicates with any critter that lives in water—salt water, fresh water, a fish bowl. It doesn’t matter which kind or where it lives.
Buy Links
Bewitching Andie | Charming Sabrina | Enchanting Robbi
Author Bio and Links
Candace Colt lives the good life on Florida’s west coast with her husband of 48 years. After careers in education and the medical field, she launched her second life as a writer. Since she retired, she’s published nine paranormal romance books. She chose paranormal because it’s fun to write and because even shape-shifters, elves, psychics and time travelers deserve their happily ever after.
Website | Amazon Author Page | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram
BRENDA MARIE SMITH is attracted to stories where everyday characters transcend their limitations to find their inner heroism. She lived off the grid for years in a farming collective where her sons were delivered by midwives. A lifelong community activist, Brenda has managed student co-op housing, produced concerts, and raised a small herd of boys. She and her husband live in Kyle, Texas. They have more grown kids and grandkids than they can count. 
Joanne Guidoccio 