Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Fictional Settings or Worlds

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovelies over at The Broke and Bookish.  Each week the post a topic and everyone creates their own top list based on that specific topic.

This week’s topic is officially titled “Most Vivid Words/Settings” but I’m just making it my favorite fictional worlds or settings.  There are so many awesome book settings out there, but obviously there are some I love more than others.  Today we’ll be taking a look at some of my favorite settings although there are so many others I love out there. Here we go!

1. Bath circa Regency England (1812-1820ish) 

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

So I’m already starting my list of favorite fictional settings off with a setting that is NOT fictional.  Yes, I  am aware that Bath is a real place.  But I was not lucky enough to have experienced Bath during its Regency hay-day so it’s pretty much fictional to me. I know Austen wasn’t a fan of Bath, but I love seeing it through Catherine Morland’s eyes in Northanger Abbey.  So much bustle, glamor, fun, and excitement!  I would have loved to have been there with Catherine so I could experience the Pump Room, and all dance in the assembly rooms.  Le sigh…

2. Austenland  

Austenland and Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale

Strange how numbers 1 and 2 are connected….No not strange at all! I love Jane Austen.  I love her novels (even the uncompleted Sandition), her heroines, her heros (hubba hubba) and yes even her “villains” and rakes!  So when I read Shannon Hale’s Austenland in which she created a story set in a Jane Austen resort (where its Regency England all day, every day!) of course I automatically fell in love.  Wealthy resort creators, PLEASE PLEASE create a real live Austenland for me?! And please make it affordable for someone on a teacher’s salary.  Thank you.

3. Colby

Sarah Dessen’s Along for the Ride

I just love the idea of Colby.  Colby is this cute little fictional beach town in Along for the Ride.  It has a boardwalk with fun boutiques and it seems like everyone knows each other.  If Colby (not a place like Colby but actually Colby as described in the book) were real, I’d visit every summer.  We’d rent a house on the beach and stay for, like, the entire month of July.  Yes. I like Colby.

4. Hogwarts

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

Do I really even have to say explain why I like Hogwarts?  It’s Hogwarts! Moving staircases, sorting hats, paintings that talk and hidden passageways. Oh and magic.  Yes! I have always been intrigued by the idea of boarding schools, and Hogwarts has that coolness factor plus magic! How cool can you get? Rowling’s attention to detail when creating Hogwarts (and the other places in her books) is just out of control amazing.  I want to get sorted and actually take up residence in one of the houses. Oh and take classes with Hermione.

5. The Gallagher Girl Academy

The Gallagher Girls series Ally Carter

The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a boarding school…FOR SPIES! I know I’ve said it on this blog before but I wish The Gallagher Academy was real and it would accept 29-year-old students. The mansion has all these hidden sublevels underneath it and even has a secret entrance through a lake.  Yea.  A lake. It even has security measures that turn it from a spy school into a regular girls boarding school.  It’s pretty awesome.

6. Bayern

The Books of Bayern series by Shannon Hale

Bayern is like magical fairy tale land.  Girls have special powers that let them talk to animals and control the wind, while others control fire.  You know, just your average day in Bayern.  No biggie.  There are castles, princes, wars and magic.  I love fairy tales and would love to live in one.

7. Incarceron 

Incarceron and Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron is a prison.  It’s also alive.  It’s also in a different plane of space and time…kind of…  Incarceron actually scares the living you-know-what out of me.  It is ruthless and dirty and just plain creepy.  But Fisher was so creative in imagining it that there is no other setting like it.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go to Incarceron. I’m just find with reading about it.  It’s cool, but horribly scary too.

8. Norvelt 

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

Norvelt is a small mid-western town and it’s pretty much full of crazies! Seriously, the main character, Jack, is surrounded by kooky seniors, a dad who mows down his wife’s corn field and a weird guy who rides a tricycle.  Norvelt is just so fun in its quirkiness.

9. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Every book by Beverly Lewis 

Confession time. I really love Christian Amish Fiction.  I KNOW! I KNOW!  But I love it so much! I’m so intrigued by the Amish and their way of life.  I’d love to go see Amish country, and hope to one day.  It seems so idyllic with the rolling hills, creeks, and farms.

10. The Spence Academy

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray

Another boarding school!  This one is set in Victorian England and has some strange supernatural connections. I’ve always been interested in Victorian England, and I would have loved to be a student at Spence.  Although I could have done without the creepy happenings!

11. Europe

The Rather series by C.A. Belmond

In these books you get to see Europe and the Mediterranean from snazzy sports cars and yachts,  experience the lovely perfume fields of France, and lounge in the glamorous Monte Carlo. Ohh to be an heiress with a cute English love interest!

So, those are my ten favorite fictional settings.  What are some of yours?