Of course it had to be in Baltimore

Emily Carmichael lived in Baltimore and I spent the first forty years of my life living in Baltimore's suburbs, so she and I easily agreed on the location of my fifth (and her first) novel, Good Fridays. The city of Baltimore is as much a character as any person in this book. I wanted the reader to experience this unique place that is home to the Baltimore Orioles, serious rivals of the New York Yankees, for whom Emily's second husband was a star pitcher in the 1950s and 1960s. In the early part of the twentieth century, Baltimore's downtown shopping district along Howard Street boasted several major department stores that remained popular and profitable for decades, eventually opening chains of stores in suburban shopping centers and malls. Baltimore's thriving retail market, which would introduce Emily to the only career she had, offered a rare opportunity for a young woman without a college education to work her way up to management status. Yes, Emily's story had to be in Baltimore.