POSTCARDS FROM OUR FAVOURITE SUMMER LITERARY LOCATIONS...

Hello! As lockdown gradually eases here in the UK some lucky readers will be packing, ready to head off on summer hols. However, for many, summer will be spent in the park or garden, relying on novels to provide that dose of bright sunshine or fantastic feeling of escape. So we thought it might be fun to send a postcard from our favourite summer literary locations. And please remember to let us know where your literary travels might take you, in the comments at the end.

Fasten your seatbelts as…  

Victoria says … A summer book I like or a summer place I would like to write about? 

Well considering I have set all my published novels (to date) in Cornwall, with its beautiful coastlines, moorlands and quaint villages, my preferred summery location should probably be in Cornwall again. However, I have just emerged from lockdown so at the moment I have a longing for exotic fauna and flora, and guaranteed warm lazy summer evenings that don't require a cardigan.

Somewhere my heroine can sip strangely named cocktails, wriggle her white sand-sprinkled toes as she watches exotic birds of paradise shake their vibrant plumage during a mating display... after a packed filled day freeing captive, grateful lions back into the wild in the company of a handsome ranger. Did you spot my dilemma? Cocktails, exotic birds of paradise and conservation programs (involving lions which are more cuddly than man-eating) are hard to find. If you do know of this literary location, please let me know, but for now it seems it will just have to be a Cornish sunset. I can see it now... my heroine digs her toes into the fine golden sand of her favourite beach as cawing seagulls fly overhead and cumbersome seals sunbathe on distant razor-sharp rocks. All my heroine needs are a large cocktail and a handsome ranger... as for the cuddly lions, they might just be harder to find.

Kath says … Summer books; Christmas books - I have a confession to make. I don't segregate books like this - neither my own nor those I read. Although I have many author friends who talk about writing 'their summer 2021 book' or their next Christmas book. These titles do sell well in their designated season - perhaps I am missing a trick?

I tend not to pick up a 'summer' book simply because it's summer though. Having said that, I do like a book that has a strong sense of season and place - and if it's set in Tuscany or Provence or the Italian Lakes, then what's not to like? We can travel there vicariously through our reading - especially important this year when it is tricky to go anywhere away from home. But I won't specifically read them because they are set there or because it is summer. I'll read them because the blurb intrigues me.

Settings I love are places like the rugged west of Ireland or the Scottish Highlands. Or high Alpine villages, snow-covered in winter; a riot of flowers in summer. Or medieval hilltop villages with narrow cobbled streets and a jumble of rooftops. Or windy moorland where the weather can change in a minute from a balmy summer's day to wild, wet and murderous. 

In the best books, the setting and season become a character in its own right - not just there as a backdrop but shaping events and pushing the story inevitably towards its conclusion. Now those are the books I love to read!

Beauty of the Dolomites

Linda says … Hello. My name's Linda and I'm a lazy researcher .... which will go some way to understanding why most of my novels are contemporary and set in Devon where I live. I have written historicals but they were set in Devon too, and in places I know well for the geography and also because history in this area is well-documented and easy to find. I'm a seat-of-the-pants writer and I love the writing process but not the thought of wading through dozens and dozens of tomes - often having to resort to a dictionary for words I don't understand. I just don't have the time. So Devon it is going to be. And coastal as I can smell the sea from my back garden. 

My favourite book to write (of the nine published so far) was SUMMER AT 23 THE STRAND. Back in the day when I was a teenager wanting money for the cinema and pop records and the like, on Saturdays, I used to help my mother clean beach chalets. Each was let for a fortnight.  We never met the people who stayed in them but I used to imagine the lives they lived where they came from, and how different it would be for them down here on the South Devon coast. 

When my children were at school these chalets came up for sale. Some were bought privately and some by the council. A friend bought one and she used to let me use it on a fairly frequent basis. So, I used to eavesdrop on what people in the (council-owned) chalets either side were talking about. Or not talking . One couple didn't leave the chalet for a fortnight, they were so loved up! I often wonder where they told their respective spouses they were! Fast forward a few years (oh, okay, decades!) and I was walking past the chalets and ... I had one of those magic moments when the muse pays a visit and I couldn't get home fast enough to write it all down. SUMMER AT 23 THE STRAND is linked stories, with the thread of a gift to be left for the next occupant running through them all. I'm now nearing the end of another Devon-based novel - CHRISTMAS AT CHANNEL VIEW. Lockdown has meant I haven't been to the beach in months but that's the beauty of writing about where you know ... you just know!

Escape to Devon ...

Terry says … When we were asked to pick a summery place that we would like to write about, Cornwall popped into my brain immediately. I’ve yet to visit Cornwall but am familiar with the stunning beauty of her coastlines and her charming villages. Ideally, I’d go there for a visit, a working vacation so to speak, with an eye towards absorbing the local culture and history. There’s something about Cornwall that I’ve seen in pictures that speaks to my writer spirit. Cornwall provided inspiration for Daphne Du Maurier, who penned Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and several other books while living at Menabilly, her house that was the influence behind Max De Winter’s beloved Manderley. I’d like to think that the energy of the place would influence my writing as well. One of the best perks of the writing gig is taking a research trip. Since the world is in chaos and traveling is out of the question right now, I’ll just take a vicarious vacation to Cornwall. Providence willing, I’ll come up with a story idea or three…

Happy writing.

The Cornish Coast

 Jennifer says … I’m finding it hard to think about summer reading and writing, largely because the weather Will Not Make Its Mind Up. Yesterday it was 28 degrees and we were drinking Pimms in the garden and today its lashing down with rain and my tomato plants are looking at me in poor as if I’ve abandoned them in a very scary place indeed. But I will focus. Rae asked me to talk about summer reads and so I shall. 

I’ve written a few summer romances myself, though they’re currently not available, waiting while I get round to self-publishing them. They were set in summer in Italy and Majorca, both of which are right up there with Greece and the South of France as places I love reading about.

I have to confess, though, to a yearning to write a summer book set in a completely different world — one where the romance is of a different type entirely, more fairy than frangipani. A few years ago I spent midsummer in Iceland. It was the strangest experience. The land was black and white with the merest flush of green, the sky was an incredible blue. The ground smoked and heaved. And it never got dark. The combination was a weird and magical setting for a romance.

I doubt if I’ll ever write it…

Midsummer in Iceland

Jennie says … I’m not really a summer person - I don’t do heat at all well - but I do tend to write books where the story takes place in summer and the setting is usually either south Devon or the south of France. The first can have fairly mixed weather over the summer months while the second is renowned for its better weather. Five of my fifteen books are set in or around Dartmouth during the summer, whilst the remaining nine are set in France at various locations along the Riviera. My new book though, (the 15th!) A French Affair, is set in Brittany, a department of France that generally receives a bad press for its weather!

Like Devon the weather in Brittany can be unpredictable but rumour (and climate change) has it that this northern corner of France is getting hotter and drier. The last couple of summers have definitely been hotter here with temperatures reaching the mid to high 30s.

I might not like the weather being too hot but I do find a clear blue sky and the sun shining far more inspirational than the dull grey days of later winter.

Hello sunshine!

Rae says … I am very much a seasonal reader who is drawn to book covers sporting beach towels and shimmering sunsets in summer, then dark snowy landscapes in winter. I’m a sucker for novels set against a hot American summer filled with long cool drinks by a harbour or pool. Novels like Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket series or Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann.

However, I also love a languorous Gothic summer read. Something set deep in the buzzing greenery of the English or French countryside, perhaps at a mansion or chateau that has seen better days. A group enjoying a long sensual summer where nothing much happens, but the growing sense of dread tells the reader something dangerous will tip with the weather and by the end everything will have changed for them all. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller was a favourite of last year. Would I like to write a summer novel? Perhaps one day I'll try …

Nantucket Lighthouse

We hope you enjoyed our summer literary travels and would love to hear your dream bookish locations in the comments below.

In the meantime, safe travelling!

Rae x      

SEEING THE LIGHT

As days begin to shorten, we share ways we enjoy seeing the light. We'd love to hear your thoughts too...

Rae - After enduring a rather, dismal wet summer here in north-east Scotland, the past two weeks have been wonderful, as the sun has made a welcome reappearance. The warmth has been pleasant but it’s the autumnal light that has the power to stop me in my tracks. Like most writers, my to-do-lists (plural!) grow faster than mushrooms and although I live in the countryside and am surrounded by beauty that changes on a daily basis, I rarely take time to stand and stare. However, at this time of year I yearn to do just that, reminding me of the W H Davis poem Leisure.

Autumn, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

During autumn, the golden hour, that last hour of evening sunlight, seems to hold a special softening quality that enhances the vividness of the landscape. Perhaps it’s knowing winter is just around the corner, that forces me to focus on light, before the skies become low and leaden again. One autumn evening, several years ago, I was driving from Edinburgh, through rural Perthshire, on the first leg of my three hour journey north, when Sting’s ‘Fields of Gold’ began playing on the radio. The ripe barley on either side of the motorway swayed as it glowed, and between the romantic sentiments of the song lyrics and the luminescence of the fading sunlight, I felt forced to take time out from my race home, to pull over and simply enjoy the moment. I’m thankful autumnal light possesses the strength to make me stop and stare.

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

by William Henry Davies

Gill - Recently Linda wrote a blog about summer and Christmas books, and I realised that one of my

The bonfire - a different kind of light

favourite times of year is actually spring. Then I thought, no, but I like winter, too. And autumn, when the colours are changing and the nights are drawing in, is just brilliant. It’s a time when there isless light outside, but the quality of it changes. It’s also the time of Hallowe’en and Bonfire Night, both of which use the light of flames which I love. I don’t know if it’s because my sister and I both have birthdays are in November, but autumn has always been a happy time for me - a ‘light’ time, even though the light is different.

 Jennie - We all need ‘Light’ in its many guises in our lives. For me this painting (artist unknown picture courtesy of pixabay) sums up the light in the South of France. One of the things I found difficult (there weren’t many I grant you!) about living down there was that the changing seasons didn’t really register. The clocks went back at the end of summer and the temperature dropped, but the sun still shone on a daily basis and there was rarely any autumnal foliage to remind one that winter was on its way. The year round light down there has enticed painters for centuries.

Whereas this photo is more reminiscent of this time of year where I live now in Brittany. 

Our skies are cloudier and darker as summer changes into autumn, falling leaves change colour, and the autumnal mists arrive. As September days pass and October arrives, we become accustomed to living with shorter days and longer nights.

This particular September has seen the 15th anniversary of  9/11 an event that shook the world and turned off the light for so many. Sadly since then there have been more atrocities turning the world these days into a scary place.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Linda - Most of us are full of good intentions – lose weight, drink less wine, see friends and family more, write every day. And then life gets in the way. We go to a dark place (that metaphorical tunnel) through, say, illness – our own or a loved one’s. Or marriages/relationships break down – again, our own or that of someone very close to us. We find that there are pieces to be picked up, and there are loved ones who need more of our time, or our money, or both. Our shoulders become damp from all the crying done on them, and we are – in the main – glad that we are there for them. So, the diet goes, replaced by soul-food doughnuts. We need that glass of wine at the end of a particularly sad/busy/worrying day. We’ve had to cancel lunch/dinner with family/friends yet again as it transpires we only have the twenty-four hours in every day that everyone else has. And the writing?

Well, there’s always tomorrow, isn’t there? As writers we can’t help logging little snippets in our memories – an image, a few words, a feeling – so we can drag them all out again one day and commit them to paper. And we must be very thankful that we are writers and that we have that facility. And do you know what? Tunnels – real and metaphorical – don’t go on for ever. There is always that little chink of light that beckons us eventually, gives us hope, beckons us on.

Jennifer - It's funny how light always comes in at the end, isn't it? It's at the end of the tunnel. It's the sun breaking through after a storm. It's the celestial light of the Last Judgement in a myriad church windows. Even the motto of my football team is 'Out of darkness comes light'. (Let's hope that last bit is true - it ain't looking good right now!)

As a writer I've never consciously articulated the way that the pattern of emerging into the light underlies almost every story I've ever written. It's partly because they're romance and so they must, by definition, have a happy ending. But even the non-romantic stories I write tend to have positive endings, even when they aren't altogether happy ones. Stories must reach a resolution and in my stories the resolution, whatever it is, has some kind of positive.

I take no pleasure into chasing my characters into darkness and pain. But I take great joy out of bringing them out again, and leaving them standing, at last, in the light.

Neil - As a landscape photographer, finding the right light is everything. It’s the reason I rise at unreasonable hours or trample the countryside when most are thinking of bed, as the ‘golden’ hour

for our work takes place around sunrise and sunset. During the day in summertime, the sun is too high and bright making it difficult to create the right shot. However, with the onset of autumn, as the sun drops lower in the sky, the light softens - a gift for photographers. At this time of year, landscape photographers often continue to take photographs throughout the day and many will claim autumn as their favourite season of the year.

Also, when choosing a location for a shoot, it’s important to balance light with shade, so that the overall piece has the correct sense of proportion. I imagine it must be similar for writers? As a photographer, light also dictates what settings I use, ...shutter speed, exposure and aperture. As the long, dark days of winter make it harder for me to indulge my passion for photography, I like to make the most of the autumnal light.  Hope you enjoy one of my recent shots…