One of the more exciting parts of being an author is the travel you can (almost) justify as a research trip when deciding on the setting for a new book.

In the UK Autumn of 2023 and their Winter of 2024, after I secured a two-book contract for The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains and ‘Book Two’, I set about researching what would eventually become The Bookshop of Buried Pasts. I decided to set some of it in a version of my own village, Berrima, in the NSW Southern Highlands. It is the most intact Georgian village on mainland Australia, and so it took little imagination to convert one of its spectacular heritage sandstone buildings into a crumbling old bookshop on the page. ‘Brookbank Village’ is a fictitious amalgam of various villages in the Southern Highlands and beyond, but locals in Berrima will certainly identify with some of the landmarks I purloined for my own fictitious purposes.

However, a large part of the book is set on the other side of the world, and that is where the fun part of the research began. I visited plenty of bookshops for inspiration. But I also needed an English manor house with another lovely village nearby to be the setting for second bookshop.  I needed some West End theatre, a grungy inner-city apartment and some riverside scenery, and most importantly, beautiful gardens in the countryside. So, over two trips to the UK, one with my husband (and briefly, both daughters)  and one with my youngest daughter, I explored England.  We spent time in Cambridge, Bath, Winchester, Liverpool, parts of Cornwall and Devon and days exploring London. One winter’s day I boarded a train to Richmond, and there I stumbled upon the beautiful and historic Ham House, which was the perfect inspiration for the centuries-old manor house in this book, complete with a rambling, opulent floorplan, acres of grounds (with plenty of squirrels) and a walled garden.  Perfect for a mystery.

My very favourite place we visited, though, was the village of Clovelly in Devon, It’s a stunning little fishing village on the side of a hill that rolls down to a stone harbour and was once owned by the Queen of England. Still privately owned, and with a population of around 500 people (and the owner having to interview each tenant for suitability because they do not allow ‘weekender’ residents) the steep cobbled streets mean that until recently, donkeys pulled sleds of groceries up the hill for delivery, as the village has no vehicular access. ‘Sledge’ is still the main way to transport goods.  We stayed in the Red Lion Hotel at the bottom of the hill, where there is one small carpark for in-house guests.  On a summer evening, with a band playing on the waterfront for the very few pub clientele plus the village residents (the lack of access for cars prevents crowds) this was probably one of my favourite travel experiences of all time.  I had to find a way to write about this incredible place, so the village briefly takes centre stage in my book.

We also loved the village of Mousehole in Cornwall, where we rented an ancient, damp and tiny stone cottage.  Unfortunately, though, the crowds of tourists and cars along its narrow one-way streets made this a very different experience to Clovelly.

Here are a few pics from my travels. If you read the book, you may just recognise a few of these scenic places!

Happy reading,

Sarah x