Valley, Sweet Valley

The famed author and satirist Mark Twain once said “write what you know.” Former Saratoga local and author Sarah “S.E.” Reichert did just that with the Sweet Valley series, her newest romance trilogy.

Reichert, a graduate of Saratoga High School, spoke at the Saratoga Branch Library on November 21 to a group of dedicated fans about her newest series which begins with “Raising Elle,” released in May 2023.

No Place Like Home

“The book is loosely based in the Valley and I think if you know your way around and you read the books, the small ranches that they live on, the small hardware store they shop at are all places that are very familiar,” said Reichert. “It was just a fun series to try to explore different character types in the same rural setting.”

The first book in the Sweet Valley series follows Elle Sullivan as she returns to Sweet Valley, Wyoming to escape an abusive husband. Reichert admits it’s not the typical way a romance novel or series starts, and that it was even difficult for her to start the Sweet Valley series in that way.

“I felt it was really important because it didn’t just show you could go through a lot of difficult and a lot of very challenging things, but that coming home to a safe place, having people you can depend on, having people who will take you back and help you out is very important,” said Reichert. “The most dangerous time for a woman to leave an abusive situation is when she’s trying to leave.”

As Elle Sullivan returns home to recover and to start her life over, she also begins to find love with her old flame Blake O’Sullivan.

“I hit you hard coming out of the gate and then I gave you a Scottish guy,” said Reichert.

“Raising Elle” is followed by “Granting Katelyn” and the third book in the series is “Composing Laney” with all three books following one of the Sullivan sisters. In each book, one of the Sullivan sisters find themselves struggling with something in their life but ultimately finding themselves and finding love.

Character Witnesses

Along with Sweet Valley being based on the North Platte Valley, Reichert said there were some characters which shared some characteristics of people she knew growing up in Saratoga.

“It was a fun series to write. I found a lot of joy in adding in bits and pieces of people I knew from town and places that I knew. I joke that ‘Composing Laney’ is the longest con in history because when I was in my junior or senior year I knew this kid named Jeremy Williams,” said Reichert. “He and I used to rag each other all the time and we were teasing each other about middle names and one of his friend’s let his middle name slip. It was George.”

Williams told Reichert—then Wickstrom—that his middle name “better not” find its way into a book someday. In “Composing Laney” she introduced a character with that name.

“Luckily he won’t read those, I’m sure,” said Reichert, jokingly.

Not every character in her series is based on someone Reichert knows and none of them are outright based on real people. Reichert said, as an author, it’s easy to be a people watcher and observe body language and ticks. The more interesting the tick, she said, the more likely it will end up in a book.

“Blake, at first, was somebody that reminded me a whole lot of somebody that I knew, almost too much. So I did change a few things. I find that in my characters there are traits that are people I know, but there’s very rarely somebody directly (represented) except for ‘Composing Laney,’” said Reichert. “Jameson Clark looks and acts a lot like a country music star we all probably know with his toes on a beach and is kind of short and balding.”

Along with there being behaviors and body language which influences the protagonists of the books, the same goes for other characters in the series. Reichert said the more antagonist characters were representative of traits she observed growing up in Wyoming which included domestic violence and harsh attitudes towards women. With the Sweet Valley series, she said, she brings some of that out as a way to discuss the issue and how to approach it.

Not Your Typical Romance

With the Sweet Valley series, Reichert now has a total of eight books to her name. She previously published a supernatural romance trilogy set in Maine called the Southtown Harbor series. She’s also published “Back to the 80s” and “Rewriting Christmas.” According to Reichert, she doesn’t consider herself a typical romance author.

“I don’t write typical romances. I shouldn’t say they’re not happy, but they tend to be a little more serious (and) a little bit more character driven. I know that a lot more romance novelists like shiny, happy people and they’re all pretty and they’re all semi-perfect and they live in a perfect world but I don’t know anybody like that,” said Reichert. “We’re all a little messy, we’re all a little weird and I find characters that are more realistic or who have been through some stuff are more interesting to follow. Not just what they go through or what they went through but how they pull themselves back up in order to survive and how they learn to find love again.”

Reichert admits there is a certain stereotype regarding romance authors that all romances are formulaic and that they “don’t really write.” It was for this reason, said Reichert, she had originally marketed her writing as women’s fiction or women’s literature. She added that there was certainly nothing wrong with those authors who follow a formula for their books. Reichert said the owner of the company which publishes her books writes that way, knowing on which page the characters will kiss and when the tension will be resolved.

“You can write that way and she’s very popular and people love to read that way because they know what to expect. It’s very comforting and then it all ties up very neatly, which we don’t get in life,” said Reichert. “I feel like I try to make them more literary. Especially my first series, (it) was very poetically written. I tried to make every sentence as beautiful as possible. It wasn’t so much about the gratification of the relationship going the right way as much as the development of the character finding love but also learning how to just function as a human being.”

For more information on Reichert and her books, visit sarahreichertuathor.com.