I used San Francisco as the setting for my last two books. Why not? Isn’t SF everyone’s favorite city? I’m convinced, not only because I lived there before relocating twenty miles south to escape the traffic both human and vehicular, but because polls, magazine and newspaper articles, comments, essays, you name it all seem to point that way. But for anyone swayed by the lore of the City (yes, we have accorded a capital C to the place), and plans to relocate there, they had better pack more than clothes in their suitcases. My advice is to bring along a hefty satchel full of money or a bank account bulging at the seams. Case in point: I meet my friend, Pat, in the City for lunch before we attend each of the five ballets on our subscription. We always started at a particular restaurant where you must book a table at least five weeks in advance. We dropped the establishment three years ago, not because we didn’t like the food and ambiance, but because we resented paying twenty-seven dollars for a sandwich and flavored iced tea. All right, that included tax and tip, but really…Then, also, I recently read about the $7 toast. If I catch a sale, I buy two loaves of bread for that price!

In my contemporary romance The Very Thought of You, I had my hero and heroine avoid restaurants all together. The only time they shared a meal was for a picnic (he won spending a day with her in Napa, and the picnic lunch was part of the deal). The plot hinged on finding affordable apartments in the City, for my hero’s tenants, who kicked his $25,000 buyout offer right back in teeth. Now, there’s a little something called the Ellis Act that some landlords are using to find legitimate ways to get rid of tenants so they can charge new tenants four times the old rent. Little did I guess that, two years after starting my book, a one bedroom apartment in one of the new high-rises that now litter the City can be bought for a mere $995,000!The million dollar house is now a fixer-upper.

With that in mind, for my latest book, Forever Mine, I had my heroine already ensconced in a house that she had inherited ten years before from her grandmother. Plot wise, she could never afford $3500 for a one bedroom in a “good” neighborhood. You’ll have to assume that my guy Ben (swoon) is under rent control, since he’s a cop and not a tech wizard like the ones who are taking over the City and making beaucoup bucks, enough to afford the astronomical tariffs. Also, since Ben is charged with guarding our heroine (she’s the object of a serial killer) inside her house, there was no reason for them to patronize a restaurant. Fortunately, the book I’m writing now is an historical and takes place in 1818 in England. Prices were probably a little steep there, too, in the “good” neighborhoods, but somehow I’ll find a way to get around that. As for San Francisco in the 21st century, I can only cross my fingers and hope, for the best, for the average person. They will need all the luck they can get.