I am delighted to welcome fellow Choc Lit author Kirsty Ferry to my blog to talk about the setting of her latest novel Bea’s Magical Summer Garden. Over to you Kirsty …
My new book, Bea’s Magical Summer Garden, features – well – a magical summer garden. I have taken some liberties with the location of the Garden and removed it plant by plant from Dilston Physic Garden, near Corbridge in Northumberland, to an unspecified location near Edinburgh in Scotland. I probably wouldn’t have located it near Edinburgh if I’d thought ahead, but I needed to do that because it is part of the Schubert the Cat series of books, which began with Every Witch Way.
Every Witch Way follows the adventures of Nessa, who lives in Edinburgh when she heads off on a Halloween road trip across Scotland to find out more about a legendary witch. I blithely gave Nessa four brothers, and when I realised each brother needed a book, the location stuck – because Schubert is an incredibly meddlesome cat and needs to be within easy access of each of his ‘uncles’ to help them find love. And I will forever be grateful to Joanne from Portobello Books, who helped me work out where pirates might have been executed on the Sands of Leith for It Started with a Pirate!
We first meet Bea, the owner of the Garden, in the fifth book, It Started with a Wedding – her cousin Fae is the heroine of that one; and, if you’ve read It Started with a Wedding, you’ll know why Bea’s Garden was a perfect setting for a lot of the action.
So the ‘real’ Magical Garden is quite a bit further south, but if you are ever in the area, I completely recommend you go. The place is an amazing mishmash of eclectic, scientific and spiritual; each plant, for example, has a sign in front of it telling you the folklore and magic side of things and the scientific health and wellbeing information. Dilston was created by Professor Elaine Perry, who is a prominent UK neuroscientist and is one of the most interesting and lovely people I have ever met. The first time I set foot in Dilston, I knew it had to appear in a book someday.
The wider estate that Bea’s Magical Summer Garden is set on, Glentavish Estate, is completely out of my imagination. The hidden gates that separate Glentavish House from Bea’s Garden owe a lot to ideas that sparked when I first read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett as a child, and maybe look more like something from Wallington in Northumberland, only with a higher wall!
Wallington in Northumberland
The Temple to the Four Winds that is alluded to in the book was inspired by the one at Castle Howard – only it is much, much smaller. When you read the book, you’ll get the idea why that had to be so!
The Temple to the Four Winds at Castle Howard.
I could genuinely draw you a map of how the ‘estate’ looks in my mind, but then it might spoil it for your imagination. I do hope you’ll read the book, though, and see it the way I see it. Because then I’ll know I’ve done a decent job writing it…and the locations might make sense when they are all plopped down in Schubert’s world.
This is the website for the real Magical Garden if you want to check it out: Dilston Physic Garden.
About the book
What’s not to love about Bea’s Garden?
Its higgledy-piggledy layout, fascinating plants and occasional resident black cat makes it the most charming place to visit on a sunny afternoon. Plus Bea has bees – and her Honey Festival is sure to create a buzz.
But not everyone thinks Bea’s Garden is the bee’s knees.
The Man at the Big House next door has been a thorn in Bea’s side for the longest time, with his unnecessarily snippy letters about her beautiful climbing plants ruining his ‘clean lines’. Could he and his poisonous project manager Carla pose problems for her Festival? Or can Bea rely on the Man’s cousin – and her newest annual pass holder – Marcus Rainton to fight her corner?
With bee best friends, big black cats, a secret garden gate and a surprising identity reveal, Bea’s Garden is surely in line for its most magical summer yet!
Buying Links can be found here: Kirsty Ferry (choc-lit.com)
About the author:
Kirsty Ferry is from the North East of England and lives there with her husband and son. She won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition in 2009 and has had articles and short stories published in various magazines. Her work also appears in several anthologies, incorporating such diverse themes as vampires, crime, angels and more.
Kirsty loves writing ghostly mysteries and interweaving fact and fiction. The research is almost as much fun as writing the book itself, and if she can add a wonderful setting and a dollop of history, that’s even better.
Her day job involves sharing a building with an eclectic collection of ghosts, which can often prove rather interesting.
You can follow Kirsty and find out more about her work here: Facebook | Twitter | website | blog
Thank you so much for stopping by my blog, Kirsty, and for sharing this insight into the setting of Bea’s Magical Summer Garden. xx
