Steventon (Hampshire) – 
Pomona Island (Manchester) – 
Seahouses (Northumberland) – 
Porlock (Somerset) – 
Robin Hood’s Bay (North Yorkshire) – Talking Location With author JS Monroe – West Penwith, CORNWALL
TripFiction armchair travel by book – ENGLAND
27th March 2020
TripFiction armchair book travel – England.
We may all be confined to quarters for a while, but TripFiction is here to help you travel vicariously through books with a strong sense of place. The TripFiction team have been trawling through their database of thousands of books – novels, memoirs and travelogues – and hope you’ll enjoy what we’ve dug up to help you get through these difficult times.
ENGLAND
We have more than 2,000 books set in England. Check out our Great Books Map for some top 5 or 10 #LiteraryWanderlust suggestions set in some of our great English cities and regions. But get off the beaten track and hunt down a few books set in more quirky places around the country. Here are a few ideas to get you exploring with a book…
Steventon (Hampshire) – Project Darcy by Jane Odiwe
It is high summer when Ellie Bentley joins an archaeological dig at Jane Austen’s childhood home. She’s always had a talent for ‘seeing’ into the past and is not easily disturbed by her encounters with Mr Darcy’s ghost at the house where she’s staying. When Ellie travels into the past she discovers exactly what happened whilst Jane danced her way through the snowy winter of 1796 with her dashing Irish friend.
As Steventon Rectory and all its characters come to life, Ellie discovers the true love story lost in Pride and Prejudice – a tale which has its own consequences for her future destiny, changing her life beyond imagination.
Pomona Island (Manchester) – The Quiet Girls by J M Hewitt
Detective Carrie Flynn’s sister Hattie was kidnapped when they were both little girls. After the police failed to find the culprit, Carrie swore she would become a detective and solve the case herself. But the face of the man who snatched Hattie is a blank in her memory…
Twenty years later, eleven-year-old Melanie Wilson is reported missing, a quiet child who longs to fit in, just like Hattie… Carrie has to fight off memories of her lost sister to concentrate on the case, but she soon finds grainy black-and-white footage of Melanie boarding a boat and vanishing. She discovers Melanie has been taken to Pomona, a deserted island, almost inaccessible from the city. But who took little Melanie, and why?
Then the police receive a desperate cry for help from another young girl: I gave you his name, told you where to find him, but you did nothing. My blood is on your hands. Carrie traces the call to the same docks where Melanie was last seen. Now she has a second missing child to save.
But the sound of the broken voice has unlocked something in Carrie. The blurred face of her sister’s kidnapper is starting to become clearer…
Carrie is sure the lost girls are in terrible danger – and that there’s a link between her sister’s disappearance and this case. To find Melanie, Carrie must unleash the memories she’s buried for years. And if she uses her own demons to bring Melanie home, can she finally find out what happened to her sister?
Seahouses (Northumberland) – Longstone by L J Ross
Viking treasure is discovered beneath the icy waters of the North Sea and local historian Doctor Anna Taylor is called in to help catalogue the most exciting hoard in living memory. But when a shipwreck diver washes up dead, she’s soon out of her depth. Luckily, she knows just the person to call…
When DCI Ryan arrives at the picturesque fishing town of Seahouses, he’s faced with an impenetrable wall of secrets and lies. As he juggles marine archaeology and the cutthroat world of shipwreck diving, another murder blows the case wide open. To uncover the truth, Ryan must delve deeper into the hearts of those around him to find what lies beneath…
Murder and mystery are peppered with romance and humour in this fast-paced crime whodunnit set amidst the spectacular Northumbrian landscape.
Porlock (Somerset) – The Plague Charmer by Karen Maitland
1361. Porlock Weir, Exmoor. Thirteen years after the Great Pestilence, plague strikes England for the second time. Sara, a packhorse man’s wife, remembers the horror all too well and fears for safety of her children.Only a dark-haired stranger offers help, but at a price that no one will pay.
Fear gives way to hysteria in the village and, when the sickness spreads to her family, Sara finds herself locked away by neighbours she has trusted for years. And, as her husband – and then others – begin to die, the cost no longer seems so unthinkable.
Robin Hood’s Bay (North Yorkshire) – The Offing by Benjamin Myers
One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay. There he meets Dulcie, an eccentric, worldly, older woman who lives in a ramshackle cottage facing out to sea.
Staying with Dulcie, Robert’s life opens into one of rich food, sea-swimming, sunburn and poetry. The two come from different worlds, yet as the summer months pass, they form an unlikely friendship that will profoundly alter their futures.
We hope these off-the-beaten track books set in England help you escape for a little while. Let us know what other quirky places you’ve heard of around the country, and check out our database for any books set there.
The TripFiction Team
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