I was born in Cardiff, and I moved back here in 2018 when I started my degree at Cardiff Metropolitan University. I’ve been living here for almost 7 years, and I love every aspect of living in the city.

Cardiff isn’t my hometown, though. And I could never say that it is.

See, I was only born in Cardiff due to there being complications with my mother’s pregnancy. Neither of my parents are actually from Cardiff.

So, after a couple of weeks of surviving in an incubator at the NICU in the Heath, I was finally taken home to my parents’ hometown of Merthyr Tydfil. I lived there for the first 19 years of my life, and even now, I still consider Merthyr to be my home.

Before continuing, I should probably also mention that I have never actually visited Washington, USA. This is important because my book, Adjacent, is based there.

Adjacent is based in the fictional town of Mirrenville, which is situated just a couple of miles out from Seattle.

Now, you may be wondering why I based my book on a place that I’ve never actually been to. I’ve been asked this a couple of times by readers, and the truth is, I began writing Adjacent so long ago that I genuinely cannot remember the exact reason that I did so.

That being said, there are two reasons that make the most sense to me:

1. When I was in my teens, the “grunge” scene in Seattle in the early 1990s became somewhat of a special interest of mine. Foo Fighters was—and still is—my favourite band, and I remember going down a rabbit hole when my dad first told me that Dave Grohl was actually the drummer for “that band” that sung Smells Like Teen Spirit (“Whaaaaat?!). From there, he introduced me to Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains… I dunno, I just loved the “feel” of that era.
2. I was a big Twilight fan. HUGE. And Twilight is based in Washington, so do the math.

So, now you might be thinking—how did I create this fictional town if I’d never actually set foot in Washington state? I’m from a small town in South Wales, after all. How did I come up with the locations, scenery etc of Mirrenville?

It’s quite simple, really: I based it on my hometown.

Mirrenville = Merthyr Tydfil’s long-lost cousin from the US.

I’ll be honest with you—this wasn’t a conscious decision. But it makes total sense. At 14, I’d only ever lived in Merthyr. It was the one place I truly knew, so naturally, that’s what I drew from when creating Mirrenville.

A couple of years ago, I decided to map out Mirrenville. I wanted to calculate exactly how long it would take my characters to get from one location to another. To do this, I copied a map of Merthyr onto a blank Canva page and started placing Mirrenville’s key locations on it. To my surprise, many of them actually mirrored real-life places in Merthyr.

To do this, I essentially copy-and-pasted a map of Merthyr onto a blank Canva page and worked out where each location in Adjacent would be situated in my own hometown… and it was pretty satisfying, working out that so many of the locations in the book actually mirrored real-life locations in Merthyr.

So, if you’re a fan of Adjacent AND you’re from/familiar with Merthyr, here are a few fun comparisons:

NOTE: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD

• The stretch of the A470 leading from Abercynon roundabout into Merthyr inspired the main road into Mirrenville. This road hasn’t really been explored in the first Adjacent book… but it might in future books…
• Pentrebach House and the Premier Inn in Pentrebach? You should’ve seen my face when I realised that they were both in the perfect location when I was mapping out Mirrenville. Pentrebach House is the bar where Frank and Lucy met (just the location—not the interior) and the Premier Inn is, obviously, the motel.
• Cyfarthfa High School (Cae Mari Dwn) and Bishop Hedley High School serve as the locations for Mirrenville High and St. Mary’s High, respectively—Cyfarthfa=M. High, just because I attended Cyfarthfa myself, and Bishop Hedley=St Mary’s because it’s the only Catholic high school in Merthyr. These locations worked out well as Cyfarthfa/M. High are walking distance from town, while B.H./St Mary’s is a lot further out.
• Cyfarthfa Castle and its grounds are a *rough* inspiration for the Bird House (more size-wise than appearance-wise—Fitz doesn’t live in a castle, obviously). However, the house itself is located in Pontsticll, near the reservoir; Fitz’s house is a lot further out than every other location in Mirrenville, surrounded by forestry (and near an old church, like Old Vaynor Church).
• The most fun parallel is probably the Turtin bar and the Kirkhouse (location-wise), with the police station being the Courts, I guess? And the park that Allie takes Cam to would be directly opposite, which I think is a car wash in Merthyr.
• HOWEVER, Turtin alleyway was loosely inspired by the alleyway by the Vulcan/Old Express. Obviously that alleyway is a lot shorter/better lit than the Turtin alleyway, but I still get a little freaked out walking through there at night today (to get to the car park on the other side—if you know, you know).

There are plenty more parallels between Merthyr and Mirrenville, so let me know if you’d like me to share more. I still need to finish the map I created, so maybe I’ll post it here in the future—or even include it in one of the books, Tolkien-style.

So, there you have it. If you live in Merthyr, you can kind of say you live in Mirrenville, too.

Pretty fun, huh?

Kay Embee x