research returns

I don't generally research my books. I read a lot of history, fairy tales, and folklore, and then run on it.

I have recently worked on two stories where a princess is sent to the mountains to protect her. In the second of them, I really need to know something about the economics and the topography of such settlements. It's important that they are settlements in the forest, which basically engulfs them, and that in fact the herb trade is vital.

I did already know we needed rivers. Hmmm. That would mean that the way to block passage would be to block the river, not the road. . . .

But first, settlements in mountain valleys before the railroad.