The novel is set on Vancouver Island in Canada. Most of the novel takes place in a city at the center of the island called Clayton Falls, but a great deal of the narration also takes place on Green Mountain on the west coast of the island where the main character was held captive for a year. The island is quite large, but it is like a place unto itself, a place that the residents think of as almost a world of their own that is separate from the rest of Vancouver and Canada.