Locating the Fictional City of Jefferson Run

When an author decides to set a book in a fictional city they ought to be clear about where it is. I am currently reading S.A. Cosby’s follow-up to his breakout novel All The Sinners Bleed, King of Ashes. It is a fantastic novel and the first time I’ve really been hooked in a book in a long bit. I am enjoying the story, but have become fixated on the setting.

Set in the small city near Richmond of Jefferson Run the novel is about an Atlanta finance broker that comes home after his father is injured in a car accident and finds out his brother has made enemies of the wrong people. Now that is all well and good and makes for an interesting plot. The problem is where in the hell is Jefferson Run?

The book describes it as near Richmond but doesn’t say north or south or east or west. It sets it bordering a county with the fictional university of Proser State. It is close enough that New Kent winery is a place that one of the characters hangs out. It is north of Newport News and Norfolk. It is located at the intersection of two interstates.

Putting all of this together and the rural setting of the book I want to say it is Ashland, Va. In my mind I keep picturing it in Hampton as there is a Church’s Chicken, but the book mentions being north of Newport News and Hampton is not north of Newport News.

Ashland makes since with the college and rural setting and a town that time forgot. I don’t know a single person in Virginia that ever wanted to go to Ashland and I can’t tell you what is in Ashland other than the college and that it is a sign on 95 after getting off 295. It fits all the hints and for that reason I believe it is the real Jefferson Run, Va.

I know I put too much thought into this. A fictional city is fictional. It doesn’t exist or have a real location. It just bugs me reading a book by a local author and I can’t tell where they’re writing about.