County Mayo to New York City

"The sky was blue-grey, with pencils of peach light framing the tall buildings" 

Welcome to New York City

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Novels set in Bookstores

During our researches for the TripFiction site, we have come across innumerable books that are set in bookshops around the globe. A quirky compilation, one that hones in on cultural differences, with books and bookstores as the central theme. We have really enjoyed creating this small list -. and please add your favourite "novels set in bookstores" below!

Our collated novels set in bookstores can now be found on our Pinterest board here

Foodie fiction set in Zurich and Amsterdam

The Chef by Martin Suter

set in Zurich/St Moritz 

This is an interesting book that crossed our path recently, a kind of large novella. Maravan is living in Zurich, having left his homeland of Sri Lanka, though he can never quite sever himself from his roots and particularly from Great Aunt Nangay who inspired him to cook. Meeting up with Andrea, a waitress working at the renowned restaurant Chez Huwyler,  where he too worked for a time, they form a plan to provide sumptuous Ayurvedic meals for couples who need to stimulate their sex life. ("Ayurveda is a type of medicine which is many thousands of years old. It has eight disciplines. The eighth is called Vajikarana. It's all about aphrodisiacs. This includes certain food dishes").They encounter arms traders and prostitutes along the way, all set against the current political and economic events of the late 2000s, both in Europe, Switzerland and in Sri Lanka, whilst all the while trying to preserve their own moral values. And of course therein lies the rub!

We defy anyone reading this book not to salivate and if you feel motivated, there are some of Maravan's recipes included at the back. As a sampler from one of the menus they serve....

Cinnamon curry caviar chapattis

Baby snapper marinated in turmeric with molee curry sabayon

Frozen mango curry foam

Milk-fed lamb cutlets in jardaloo essence with dried apricot puree

Beech-smoked tandoori poussin on tomato, butter and pepper jelly

Kulfi with mango air

The storyline, the people and the food are all elements that combine together, like ingredients and feed the storyline. This is a definite read for those who like food and who are familiar with Zurich.

(PS: if you want to know what Chuchichäschtli is, mentioned in the text of The Chef, it is the Swiss German word for kitchen cupboard, and is horrific to pronounce correctly...)

To compliment this book - or in other words something to offset the starter as it were - we have chosen a second food-centric novel, this time set in Amsterdam, which was a great hit in 2012 - and interestingly from the same publisher, Atlantic.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

set in Amsterdam

A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Each couple has a fifteen year old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children, and as civility and friendship disintegrates, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

To our readers: what books do you recommend, where the food just wafts off the pages and where there is an evocative setting? Please let us know in the Comments Box if you were really inspired by food, place and writing...





Noir Novels: ROME

"see a location through an author's eyes"

Two noir novels set in Rome, with colour co-ordinated covers! (Are cerulean blue and 50 shades of grey the workaday colours of the noir genre, we wonder?) Dark, dark city, murder, back alleys, sinister characters - these all feature in abundance, taking you to the places in Rome that as tourists we are (happily) unlikely to encounter.






 Any Human Face by Charles Lambert is set in the bleaker backwaters of Rome, on the edges of the gay community, each chapter like a snapshot in black and white. The Leitmotiv throughout the novel is a collection of photographs of convicts, which passes from one hand to another and eventually ends up in the possession of Andrew Caruso, who runs a delapidated book shop La Piccola Libreria, in the city. Moving between the 1980s and 2008, the photographic quality of the chapters serves to highlight the intrinsic isolation of many of the colourful characters who breeze in and out of the storyline, all the while set against a lurking presence of menace. The storyline and characters sometimes have a Pasolini-like quality, which really anchors the novel in the Eternal City.

And from this book we discovered  the restaurant “L'obitorio" un classico di Trastevere which serves pizza "piu' buona di Roma” - Bruno and Alex drop in early on in the book. Has anyone been there, what did you think?


"Even today, after two years of Roman vacations, I get lost in the center of the city as soon as I leave the perpendicular line of the Corso. For someone accustomed to the perfect symmetry of Manhattan, the twisting streets of the Italian capital seem a labyrinth of squares and narrow alleys, all the same: a fountain, a column, a flaking wall, a café, a market stall, a wild dog, a motorcycle, a beggar, a group of American or Japanese tourists, another fountain" (extract from Roman Holidays, Rome Noir short story, by Enrico Franceschini).

Recognise Rome from this short description? The lovely indecipherable impenetrable city with a history going back two and a half thousand years; and this is just one of many descriptions that pepper the book of short stories Rome Noir edited by Chiara Stangalino and Maxim Jakubowski. A cocktail of 16 stories set around the capital from Stazione Termini to the Via Appia Antica, Fiumicino to the Villa Borghese. Some stories are like gossamer veils enveloping and captivating, some are downright dark, and others culminate in murderous intent. Others are visceral in their storyline, some are seamy, but there is something for everyone. Tour the city through this collection and get to know areas off the beaten tourist track and experience the stories through the eyes of its citizens.

Share your choice of Rome set noir novels with us below in the Comments Box - novels that bring a place to life  (oh, and any suggestions for any good, out-of-the-way eateries?).

Our selected books to take to INDIA

Where to start when one suggests fiction that brings India to life? There are so many novels out there where the heat, the smells, the life and the colour of the country really lift off the pages. One novel that recently crossed our path is East of the Sun by Julia Gregson, set in the late 1920s and just so evocative of the era and country. Unmarried young women on the search for husbands travelled to India in search of eligible young men based over there - the constant stream of women heading out East was charmingly called "The Fishing Fleet". Rose, arriving in Bombay describes her first impressions: "...there was too much to take in: the dazzling sun, the stink of drains and incense, the brilliant saris and dark faces." And there is more where that came from.... And what a beautifully designed cover!



Our next choice is A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Compassionate realism and narrative are vividly captured in this masterpiece. It is 1975 and India is again in a state of flux, the location is an unnamed city by the sea (but it might well be Mumbai). A state of emergency has just been declared and, again, the lives of three characters are thrown together – a spirited widow, and two tailors from a hill station – living in a tiny apartment with an uncertain future.






The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan spans the lifetime of one woman (1896-1962), and brings us intimately into a Brahmin household, into an India we've never before seen. Married at ten, widowed at eighteen, left with two children, Sivakami must wear widow's whites, shave her head, and touch no one from dawn to dusk. She is not allowed to remarry, and in the next sixty years she ventures outside her family compound only three times.





City of Devi by Manil Suri - Armed only with a pomegranate, Sarita ventures into the empty streets of Mumbai, on the eve of its threatened nuclear annihilation. She is looking for her physicist husband Karun, who has been missing for over a fortnight. She is soon joined on her quest by Jaz - cocky, handsome, Muslim, gay, and in search of his own lover. Together they traverse the surreal landscape of a dystopia rife with absurdity, and are inexorably drawn to the patron goddess Devi ma, the supposed saviour of the city. Groundbreaking and multilayered, The City of Devi is a fearlessly provocative tale of three individuals balancing on the sharp edge of fate.


Please add any novels in the Comments Box below which you would take to India with you and are really evocative of the location. Would you add Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, or perhaps Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.... or These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach (the book behind the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel)? Help to make www.TripFiction.com a really valuable resource for both actual and armchair travellers by adding your suggestions and your spontaneous review.

Death stalks the pages in "Never Coming Home" (Italy)

Set in
USA, England, Italy

Never Coming Home by Evonne Wareham is an engrossing novel from the folks at Choc Lit publishers, this book bowls along at a cracking pace, from the USA, to England and over to Italy. A storyline that twists and turns, slowing a little in its pace as it comes to the final chapters. Is Jamie, the little girl alive or is she not?

And here at TF we absolutely love the cover - and a lot of covers cross our path, both great and not so great. Here, the heat and sun of Italy are evoked: the shadows, the shutters, the shapes all come together to highlight the dark, featureless figure of the little girl in the foreground. The cover gives a brooding sense of foreboding, a dark mystery about to unfold in the pages of this book. 

Available to buy from your local bookshop or through TripFiction by clicking on the cover.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH EVONNE WAREHAM

TF In “Never coming Home” you evoke Italy particularly well. What drew to that country as a location?

EW Thank you – I’m glad you enjoyed the portrayal of Italy. The locations of my books are important to me, as I want to take the reader to somewhere glamorous and exciting – and then have sinister things happen. I love Italy, and Florence is one of my favourite cities. When I needed to send my heroine, Kaz, to search for her ex-husband in Europe, it was a natural choice. I like to write about beautiful locations, full of sunshine, as I HATE the cold, and it is lovely to re-visit places I have stayed, even if the return visit is only in my memory and imagination! Because the locations in my books are special to me, I’ve created an armchair tour for Never Coming Home, with pictures and more information. It’s on my blog http://www.evonneonwednesday.blogspot.com 

TF It’s a fabulous plot that goes back and forth. How did the storyline evolve?

EW I’m not really sure how it worked. I knew what all the threads were and where they were going, but I’m still not certain how they knitted themselves together. I did have panic moments where I had to check that characters were not in two places at once, but it was usually OK. I had a pretty strong idea of the plot before I began writing, but things never quite go as you plan them. I do a lot with time lines and I had multiple ones to cover parts of the story that were taking place simultaneously, but in different parts of the world. 

TF We are particularly drawn to the cover which is infused with the warm “pink” that you see in Italy so often, the shadows make it feel like a really hot climate and the shadowy figure of the little girl leads one to wonder whether she is really there or not. How much input did you have in the design?

EW My publisher, Choc Lit, is very good about involving their authors in the cover choice. There were half a dozen possibilities, and I would have been happy with any of them, but the one that was finally chosen completely sums up the book for me. I’m grateful to Berni, the designer, for the trouble she took. And I’ve been lucky enough to have her design the cover for my second book – Out of Sight Out of Mind - which has a very different look, but is equally gorgeous.

TF How did you first come to writing?

EW I’ve been writing since I was in school and Never Coming Home is the result of a very long apprenticeship! It took me a while to find the genre that I really enjoyed writing. I love creating a balance between the love story and the thriller element and I’ve discovered a darker side to my work that I didn’t know existed. 

TF How did you decide on the names of your characters?

EW Authors will tell you that the names of characters are very important, and it’s true. I try out a lot of ideas in my head, before anything gets written down. I knew very early that Devlin would only use one name. Because of the life he has led, he has had many changes of identity and he’s simply got bored with thinking up new names. Devlin seemed to fit him. Kaz/Katarina started out as Caz, but the spell checker on my machine kept trying to change it and in the end I decided to give in – and when I did, it felt right. When you get the right name it seems to click. It may not even be a name you particularly like, but once it fits, that’s it. 

THANK YOU to Evonne for answering our questions.

Our novel selection for BERLIN

After reading Ben Elton's extraordinarily good novel "Two Brothers" set in Berlin we felt inspired to bring together several top reads which we feel will help understand how Berlin, over the course of the 20th century, came to be what it is today. The city has truly been at the heart of a roller coaster ride, experiencing 2 wars, mass destruction, terrible persecution of minorities, unrest, massive inflation, pomp and partition. And if you are about to visit the city, then these novels will echo with the footsteps of past generations: imagine what it was like walking under the Brandenburg Gate in the build-up to WW2, how full of life the decadent Berlin of the 20s was and how difficult it must have been for many folk living in the divided city until 1989. Enjoy our choices.


Two Brothers by Ben Elton - It is 1920 and this is the story of two boys who became brothers but who had different biological parents; and how the issue of birth in Germany came to mean so much in the build up to the Second World War. It is poignantly and realistically told, in modern parlance, which I thought would grate, but actually adds to the immediacy of the story. You can hear the footsteps on the streets of Berlin and feel the creep factor of oppression, torment and death. As a reader I felt I was there with the two brothers Ottsy and Paulus, and their Saturday gang made up of Silke and Dagmar. In tandem, as they grow up, the National Socialists are also growing - they were founded on the day of the birth of the boys, 24 Feburary 1920.


It is truly deserving of 5* for both atmosphere and story and setting; should I mention the two things that I thought weren't quite right? One was - a little bottle of olive oil was taken on a picnic at the Wannsee, and am not sure that would have been right for the period...I think olive oil was only used medicinally and not for culinary purposes in those days; and the other, attending a parade of the Freikorps at the Brandenburg Gate the parents, Wolfgang and Frieda have their little babies in a buggy. A commotion starts and Wolfgang commands that they remove the babies from the buggy for fear of being trampled underfoot, and raise the babies above their heads and run (nah, you wouldn't do that, you would cradle them to your chest to protect them). Forget my nit picking, though, it's a truly top read!
(Alexandrine Orff for TripFiction)


The Luminous Life of Lily Aphrodite by Beatrice Colin -  As the clock chimed the turn of the twentieth century, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite took her first breath. Born to a cabaret dancer and soon orphaned in a scandalous double murder, Lilly finds refuge at a Catholic orphanage, coming under the wing of the, at times, severe Sister August, the first in a string of lost loves.  There she meets Hanne Schmidt, a teen prostitute, and forms a bond that will last them through tumultuous love affairs, disastrous marriages, and destitution during the First World War and the subsequent economic collapse. As the century progresses, Lilly and Hanne move from the tawdry glamour of the tingle-tangle nightclubs to the shadow world of health films before Lilly finds success and stardom in the new medium of motion pictures and ultimately falls in love with a man whose fate could cost her everything she has worked for or help her discover her true self.

And our final choice to round off the the 20th century in this ever changing city is The Moment by Douglas Kennedy. Thomas Nesbitt is a divorced writer in the midst of a rueful middle age. Living a very private life in Maine, in touch only with his daughter and still trying to recover from the end of a long marriage, his solitude is disrupted one wintry morning by the arrival of a box that is postmarked Berlin. The name on the box—Dussmann—unsettles him completely, for it belongs to the woman with whom he had an intense love affair twenty-six years ago in Berlin at a time when the city was cleaved in two and personal and political allegiances were frequently haunted by the deep shadows of the Cold War.

And our final suggestion to complement any trip to the German capital is the city-Lit Berlin guide, a compilation of authors who bring the city to life through words. Another wonderful way to soak up the atmosphere...
‘Brilliant … the best way to get under the skin of a city. The perfect read for travellers and book lovers of all ages’ Kate Mosse, best-selling author of Labyrinth





There are so many novels set in Berlin - please do share with us in the Comments Box the books that you feel really evoke the feel of city both past and present. And we feature plenty more novels set in Berlin here- if we don't feature your favourite novel, let us know. 

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Tasmania and the Snotty Trevally

Bay of Fires by Poppy Gee, set in Tasmania

Our review can now be found on the new TripFiction website, here

When in Rome.....

"Even today, after two years of Roman vacations, I get lost in the center of the city as soon as I leave the perpendicular line of the Corso.  For someone accustomed to the perfect symmetry of Manhattan, the twisting streets of the Italian capital seem a labyrinth of squares and narrow alleys, all the same: a fountain, a column, a flaking wall, a café, a market stall, a wild dog, a motorcycle, a beggar, a group of American or Japanese tourists, another fountain" (extract from Roman Holidays, a Rome Noir short story, by Enrico Franceschini).

Recognise Rome from this short description? The lovely indecipherable impenetrable city with a history going back two and a half thousand years; and this is just one of many descriptions that pepper the book of short stories "Rome Noir" edited by Chiara Stangalino and Maxim Jakubowski. A cocktail of 16 stories set around the capital from Stazione Termini to the Via Appia Antica, Fiumicino to the Villa Borghese. Some stories are like gossamer veils enveloping and captivating, some are downright dark, and others culminate in murderous intent. Others are visceral in their storyline, some are seamy, but there is something for everyone. Tour the city through this collection and get to know areas off the beaten tourist track and experience the stories through the eyes of its citizens.

Off for a Chinotto*. Cheers

Want a couple more books novels to transport you to Rome? Then we suggest these two little gems:

Saving Rome by Megan Williams: Amid the bustle of Rome, the Vespas and the Fiats, the cigarettes and teetering high heals, Megan K Williams, a Rome-based writer and correspondent, captures the essence of this bustling city. This is an insider's eye on the love, mystery and unholy chaos of Rome. In nine funny and insightful stories, Williams delves into the lives of women searching for meaning (and survival) in an ancient metropolis.


It's 2005. The Italian secret service has received news that a group of Muslim immigrants based in the Viale Marconi neighbourhood of Rome is planning a terrorist attack. Christian Mazzari, a young Sicilian who speaks perfect Arabic, goes undercover to infiltrate the group and to learn who its leaders are. Breathtaking set pieces, episodes rich in pathos, brilliant dialogue and mordant folk proverbs combine as the novel moves towards an unforgettable and surprising finale that will have readers turning back to the first page to begin the ride all over again.



* Chinotto [kiˈnɔtto] is a type of carbonated soft drink produced from the juice of the fruit of the myrtle-leaved orange tree (Citrus myrtifolia).

We have a selection of novels for review on the TripFiction site. Click on the logo above to see our current offers and let us know which one you would like to review! And of course, if you have a particular recommendation for a book to read in Rome, then let all our readers know in the Comments Box below.

Night Nurse and Freo Doctor in Fremantle and Perth



5 Peppermint Grove by Michelle Jackson set in Fremantle and Perth

Our review plus author interview can now be found on the new TripFiction website here

Novel set in Florence - Stottie or focaccia? + Author Interview

A novel that brings two stories from different epochs together, set in modern day Florence.


Titian's Venus of Urbino

From the Piazza della Signoria just enjoy the stunning view...."The sky is a strong azure blue: I can't believe what a perfect day it is. If you glance upwards and away from the crowds, the magnificence of the place is astounding. Wonders of architectural brilliance jostle from the sky line, and the campanile reaches high above us like a spear, away from the crowded foot of the Palazzo to the spacious heavens above, as if pleading to be plucked from the onslaught of visitors below" (extract from Urban Venus).

Click on the cover
to purchase

Transport yourself to Florence, with this short novel that interweavess the touristy, modern day city with the city of the 1540s, the era of Titian. You also have the opportunity to drop in on Bologna.

Lydia Irvine has come to Florence on her year abroad from Newcastle Uni and she is learning the Italian way of life, as she absorbs the flavours, smells and sights of the modern city. And the reader, too, will feel that the city just lifts of the pages of this delightful novel. There are quite a few Italian turns-of-phrase without translation, and rather than leaving the reader floundering as to their meaning, it just adds to the Italian feel (and leaves you believing you can really speak Italian!)

The book is peppered with interesting facts. For the true Italian, you will learn that there are absolutely no milky coffees beyond breakfast; pull some strings and get a ticket to check out the hidden passageway between the Palazzo Vecchio and the Palazzo Pitti, via the Uffizi and a network of corridors across the city (all lined with works of art not generally seen by the public). Mmmmm, share Pandoro and Bombolone for breakfast.... and finally here's a bit of historical fact gleaned from the book: it was the French who brought syphilis to Bologna in 1495, apparently! And don't forget if you need an emergency ambulance you need to dial 118 (you might need to know this one day!).

A really enjoyable read, that truly brings Italy and Florence to life -  this is a novel that has more depth than the rather weak, sketchy cover might lead you to believe. If you have read it, come and leave a review at www.TripFiction.com and tell others what you think. How much did you enjoy the storyline, did it transport you to the location?

Author Interview with Sara Downing

1. Clearly this novel could be set nowhere other than in Florence. What first brought you to the city?

I first visited Florence during a holiday in Tuscany in 2001 and was instantly smitten by the city.  Bizarrely I had a sense of having been there before – even though I hadn’t – and it felt like a place I could live in quite happily, even though it was vastly different from anywhere I’ve ever lived.  I’ve been back many times since; it’s the sort of city you never tire of – the atmosphere is wonderful, scenery amazing and the cultural aspects are never-ending.  There’s so much to see and do, although very often we simply visit our favourite haunts again and again, or spend an afternoon window shopping in some of the gorgeous shops.  I love just sitting at a restaurant table in the sunshine and watching the world go by – the Italians can be very entertaining! 

2. How did you come to writing?

I’ve always wanted to write, but work and family had prevented it until fairly recently.  Then a few years ago, when my children were all at school, I suddenly found myself with the time – and a supportive husband who was happy for me to experiment with the possibility of a writing career. 

Although I’ve always ‘had a book in me’, I wasn’t sure when it actually came down to it if I’d be able to put pen to paper and be creative, something I hadn’t done in years.  And would what I produced be good enough for people to want to pay good money for?  It was all a little scary to start with; there was no guarantee that after working for a year on a project, it would actually sell.  However in the early days I was lucky enough to have some very positive feedback from a published writer and from course tutors, who gave me the confidence to believe in my writing and carry on.

EBooks, and in particular, Kindle Direct Publishing, arrived on the scene at the perfect time for me.  I published my first novel, ‘Head Over Heels’, in February 2011 and it took off very quickly on Amazon, reaching the UK Top 100 Kindle Books in its first six months.  

3. What was the inspiration behind this particular storyline?

On a writing course in the summer of 2009, one of the exercises was to choose a postcard and write about it.  I picked up a postcard of the ‘Venus of Urbino’ as I’d seen it in Florence and loved it, and quickly scribbled down three or four pages about a girl who visits the Uffizi, falls asleep in front of the painting, and dreams she is that woman.  At that stage I was well into writing ‘Head Over Heels’, but knew there and then that I had the beginnings of my next novel.  It was an exciting moment – I felt like I had been ‘presented’ with this storyline, and I couldn’t wait to get on and write it!

I took the script with me to Florence later that year, went to see the ‘Venus’ in the gallery again, and pretty soon had put together the plot for a full length novel.  I did a lot of research into Titian and his life, which wasn’t easy as, until quite recently, there has been very little written about him.  One fact I did discover was that he had an illegitimate daughter called Emilia.  As this is also my daughter’s name, it seemed like fate, and I knew I just had to write the book.  I felt there was enough mystery surrounding Titian’s life and the painting for me to create my own fictional account of what might be the untold story behind the ‘Venus’. 

4. Is there anything that you feel is a "must" see or do in Florence, from your own personal experience, for someone going there for the first time?

Oh, it has to be all the regular tourist haunts, really.  In some big cities you might advise new visitors to avoid the traditional hotspots, but in Florence these just have to be visited!  No one should miss the Uffizi, of course, or the Duomo, and every visitor should have to fight their way through the crowds across the Ponte Vecchio, stand in the middle and have their photo taken with the Arno in the background.  Then there are the Boboli gardens, and the Piazzas.  The Piazza della Signoria remains my favourite – sitting in one of the cafes or restaurants overlooking the square and the statue of David and people-watching in the sunshine. 

The Palazzo Vecchio is a must-see too.  And simply stroll around, soaking up the atmosphere.  Walk along the banks of the Arno, nip through the tiny alleys full of leather shops….. And visit a Gelateria – frighteningly expensive but the best ice cream ever!

5. From the book it is clear you like art. If you could hang one painting in your home, what would be your choice?

I do love art, and have a particular fascination with the Pre-Raphaelites.  I recently went to see the ‘Cult of Beauty’ exhibition at the V&A and have to say that any of those paintings could hang quite happily on my wall.   Millais’ ‘Ophelia’ is probably my utmost favourite, though - I love the story behind how it was painted, with Lizzie Siddal lying fully clothed in a bath.  Perhaps I love it so much because the character fascinates me – a bit like my Maria in ‘Urban Venus.’ 

6.  How important do you feel location is in a novel?  And what are your plans for future books?

A strong sense of location is as important as a good plot and believable characters, I think.  When I read something, I like to get a feel for the place it’s set in, as it’s all part of the fabric of the story. 

‘Head Over Heels’ is set in a fictional mix of the Worcestershire villages close to where I live.  Many of my friends recognised certain locations (and one, their home!) which I had ‘borrowed’ and dropped into the book.  Conjuring up a good feel for Florence was central to ‘Urban Venus’ for it to work.  Many reviewers have commented on how they’d like to visit or revisit places I mention and a few have advised reading it whilst staying there!

I’m planning to publish my third novel, ‘Stage Fright’, in the spring of 2013.  It’s set in the London of 2012, amid the exciting atmosphere of the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, and I hope it conveys the buzz that could be felt across the city during that summer.

Ham and Egg Terrace features in Isle of Man novel

Safe House by Chris Ewan

A murder mystery that twists and turns as deftly as the sweeping curves of Marine Drive down near Douglas. Rob Hale, sometime TT racer awakes in hospital after an accident and is clear that, at the time of the accident, he was riding his motorcycle accompanied by a woman. There is, however, no sign of the woman and no evidence she ever existed. Rebecca Lewis arrives to investigate the recent death of his sister, Laura, and at the same time also helps him to piece together the events of the accident. Slowly they bring together the bits of the jigsaw.

The action takes place all over the island, bringing fabulous locations to life, mixing folklore with beautiful descriptions. Travel from Laxey village with the largest waterwheel in the world (still claiming to hold the title);  say hello to the fairies as you pass over the humped bridge to  Ballasalla or risk bad luck...or just meander around the island with Rob and Rebecca as your guides: "following a gentle gradient through the village of Foxdale, where the terraced and whitewashed cottages lined the road before beginning to climb  around South Barrule. Dense, knotted woods flanked the hillside until we gained  ground and a view opened  up across rectangular fields and flowering gorse and purple heather. The end of the valley was dominated by the tree-lined slope of Slieau Whallian, known in Manx folklore as the Witches' Hill. In medieval times, suspected witches had been rolled down its steep incline in spiked barrels. If they were killed, their death proved their innocence. If they survived, they were executed." exerpt from Safe House.

There are plenty of references to the TT Races, a course which spans a 37-mile stretch of road full of bends, hills, bumps, and man-made objects to add the extra challenge. The racers often reach speeds of 200mph. This book captures some of the excitement of the course and the background preparations that go on year round. This novel would be the perfect choice to take with you to read if you are visiting the Isle of Man, as it really transports you to this small island nestling in the Irish Sea. Click on the cover for more information, to buy through TripFiction and available now in paperback in bookshops.

And we at TF are just off for a plate of chips, cheese and gravy, which apparently is a favoured dish on the island (see how informative a novel can be!); Ham and Egg Terrace really does exist in Laxey - the history of the name is for you to discover in the novel; and a few words of Manx we have learned from the book: traa dy liooar (time enough). Enjoy visiting this island and truly, "see a location through an author's eyes"...

Novels to take to the ski slopes

We have brought together novels and books to evoke the Alpine and snowsport feel over on Pinterest.   Click here

Courtesy Photoglob Zurich

Paper Passion for book lovers

Courtesy of IPC Media

The international design and style bible Wallpaper*, together with German publisher Gerhard Steidl, fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld and celebrated perfumer Geza Schoen, has recently launched Paper Passion, a perfume that brilliantly captures the scent of freshly printed books. It is divinely packaged and a thing of beauty.

And we have been given one bottle (valued at over £60) with which to reward a friend of TripFiction! We would like to invite you to "like" us on Facebook and "like" the Paper Passion post. And on 1st January 2013 - which marks the first anniversary of TripFiction - we will choose one person at random who has visited and "liked" our page and post up to that date. They will then be sent the perfume. This is a big thank you to all of you who have actively supported us in this, our first year.

Just click on the link below and you will  be taken straight to our Facebook page. "Like" our main page and "like" the Paper Passion post for your chance to receive this wonderful item.
 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/TripFiction/170507589708729?ref=hl

BookishWanderer received Paper Passion early January 2013.

Our top reads for 2012

Looking back over our (almost) first year of Tripfiction, one of the wonderful things we can say is that we have been introduced to glorious novels that we might never otherwise have encountered. 

Here we choose some of the books that have crossed our path this year, and that have really caught our imagination - both because they are evocative of location and offer a great storyline. These are the TripFiction top books of the year!



NO. 1. In the quiet of a New Zealand winter's night, a rescue helicopter is sent to airlift a five-year-old boy with severe internal injuries. He's fallen from the upstairs veranda of an isolated farmhouse, and his condition is critical. At first, Finn's fall looks like a horrible accident; after all, he's prone to sleepwalking. Only his frantic mother, Martha McNamara, knows how it happened. And she isn't telling. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Tragedy isn't what the McNamara family expected when they moved to New Zealand. (UK release 3rd January, 2013)
Set in Hawke's Bay and Napier, New Zealand





 
NO.2. A young woman travels from Edinburgh to Peking in the early 20th century,and writes about her experiences in diary form. She is trapped in a loveless marriage to a stiff and conventional man, and then falls in love with a Japanese warrior and pays dearly for that passion. It is then that Mary's real journey begins, as she begins to forge a new life for herself in Tokyo.
Set in Peking, China and Tokyo, Japan







NO.3. Harmattan (from an Arabic word meaning destructive wind ) tells the story of Haoua, a young girl growing up in a remote village in the Republic of Niger. Spirited, independent, and intelligent, Haoua has benefitted from a stable home life and a loving and attentive mother. She finds contentment in her schoolwork, her dreams of becoming a teacher and in writing assiduously to the family in Ireland who act as her aid sponsors. But for her, there are new storm clouds on the horizon. Haoua's mother's illness is much more serious and further advanced than anyone had recognised and her father's plans are turning out to be far more threatening than she could have ever imagined. Approaching her twelfth birthday, Haoua is alone and vulnerable for the very first time in her life.
Set in Niger, Africa


NO.4. Having left her job and boyfriend, thirty-year-old Sandra decides to stay in a Spanish village in order to take stock of her life and find a new direction. She befriends Karin and Fredrik, an elderly Norwegian couple, who provide her with stimulating company and take the place of the grandparents she never had. However, when she meets Julian, a former concentration-camp inmate who has just returned to Europe from Argentina, she discovers that all is not what it seems and finds herself involved in a perilous quest for the truth.
Set in Javea, Spain




NO.5. For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labour, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood - the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival.
Set in Cambodia

Please add your personal top reads for this year - evocative of location together with a great storyline - in the Comments Box below.

Build up to Christmas through fiction

"The scent of cinnamon, orange peel and ginger perfumed the air, with a strong undercurrent of coffee. Outside the rain was battering against the large windows of the eau-de-nil-painted exterior of the Cupcake Café, tucked into a little grey stone close next to an ironmonger’s and a fenced-in tree that looked chilled and bare in the freezing afternoon."
(Extract from Christmas at the Cupcake Café by Jenny Colgan)

Only a few days before the holidays start and so it's time to gather together some fiction to enhance that Christmas feel, set, of course in different locations around this lovely world of ours. We hope you enjoy our selection - a list such as this can never be definitive as there are huge numbers of Christmas-themed books out there, so if you have a particular favourite do share it with others via the Comments Box. Let's make this a list to remember.

Click on the covers for more information.

The Night before Christmas by Scarlett Bailey
Set in CUMBRIA
All Lydia's ever wanted is a perfect Christmas...So when her oldest friends invite her to spend the holidays with them, it seems like a dream come true. She's been promised log fires, roasted chestnuts, her own weight in mince pies - all in a setting that looks like something out of a Christmas card.
But her winter wonderland is ruined when she finds herself snowed in with her current boyfriend, her old flame and a hunky stranger. Well, three (wise) men is traditional at this time of year...


The Baker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy
Set in GERMANY and TEXAS
1945. Germany. Elsie Schmidt is a naive teenager who has been protected from the worst of the terror and desperation overtaking her country by a high-ranking Nazi who wishes to marry her. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep in the dead of night on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door would put all she loves in danger. Sixty years later, in El Paso, Texas, Reba Adams is trying to file a feel-good Christmas piece for the local magazine. Reba’s latest assignment has brought her to the shop of an elderly baker across town and the two stories unfold. Peppered with German Christmas customs and recipes.


Cold Comfort by Ellis Vidler
Set in VIRGINIA
Claire runs the little Christmas shop called "The Mistletoe." After being dumped by her faithless fiancé, she has abandoned her dreams of a family of her own tucked neatly inside a picket fence. Instead, she's plotting her solo course and settling for a quiet life as an independent Williamsburg shop owner. So how does she become a killer’s target? Riley enters her life, a former security consultant, and as a result of an attack on a friend of a friend, the pair find themselves fleeing, whilst battling a powerful romantic chemistry.

Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan
Set in LONDON
Issy Randall, proud owner of The Cupcake Cafe, is in love and couldn't be happier. Her new business is thriving and she is surrounded by close friends, even if her cupcake colleagues Pearl and Caroline don't seem quite as upbeat about the upcoming season of snow and merriment. But when her boyfriend Austin is scouted for a possible move to New York, Issy is forced to face up to the prospect of a long-distance romance. And when the Christmas rush at the cafe - with its increased demand for her delectable creations - begins to take its toll, Issy has to decide what she holds most dear.


Have a lovely Christmas and thank you to everyone who has supported us over 2012, our first year. We have now been up and running and growing for 11 months.

Menace and Malice in New Zealand

WHAT A FIND THIS BOOK IS! We have singled out this novel because it is superb on many fronts. A small family is confronted by an accident to one of their children in the opening chapter, and the storyline, as it goes back and forth is handled in a supremely competent way. It charts the family's move from Bedfordshire in England to New Zealand, and the story is set beautifully and evocatively within the country, a beautiful writing style and a good story.
Click on the cover for more information. You can help ordering a copy through our website (we get a small percentage which helps us to finance development of the TF site) or it is available from your local bookshop.

And - inevitably what drives us here at TripFiction - this novel really takes the reader into the New Zealand way of life, absolutely evokes the country, (love the little observations - like a Smoko is a tea break). Great descriptive prose through the eyes of the newly arrived family will surely transport readers to Hawke's Bay, this glorious part of country:... "For miles the road wound through New Zealand's native bush: subtropical rainforest complete with giant ferns, creepers and cabbage trees that looked like palms. Every bend brought another sharp-intake-of-breath view of raw-boned mountains and white waterfalls. These weren't quite English hills.They were angular and rock-strewn, like a Chinese painting; jagged peaks and drifting swathes of cloud".

And just look at this great description of Napier. We, for sure, at Tripfiction are now so tempted to visit! As a destination it hadn't come onto our radar before reading this book: "Napier was a small city - about  fifty thousand people - with a Mediterranean climate, a thriving port  and pacific beaches. That much we knew from the guidebook.  What we hadn't expected was its picture-postcard beauty. Flattened by a catastrophic earthquake in 1931 , it had risen phoenix-like  from the ashes. The result was an art-deco town with wedding-cake  buildings and a seafront boardwalk." And this for us, sums up what TripFiction is all about: it is the opportunity to explore a place through fiction, enjoy a some great prose and truly, enjoy seeing "a location through an author's eyes". Already a couple of reviews of this book are up on our site extolling its virtues.

Do talk to us via the Comments Box below. Share with other the books that have really inspired you to visit a place, or have captured a place so well that you can immediately connect. We know what we will be putting into our Top Ten reads at the turn of the year - what would your top read(s) of this year be, which is the book that has really transported you to a location?

Help! Why is a Chanel 2.55 Handbag called a 2.55 handbag?

I Heart London by Lindsey Kelk

(or, Angela's guide to London)

Image courtesy of Wikipedia




Hear ye, hear ye (the cry of the olde worlde British town cryer)....Get a glimpse of Britishness here! Author Lindsey Kelk flies her readers to London, immersing them into life in the metropolis, offering an experience that can only be enjoyed by being there. 
Descending into Heathrow, Angela, our guide and central character describes the approach, through champagne bleary eyes and this is what she sees:.... "And then it appeared. The opening titles of Eastenders* rolled out underneath me, the ribbon of river curling up and stretching out across the landscape, punctuated by large patches of green. My stomach slipped when I spotted the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye..."


The reader has landed in this, a bang on British book! Whether you long for M & S** knickers, a troll round Waitrose***, a browse in Topshop**** or the unique taste of a Penguin Bar ***** you can't get more British than this delicious story and how to plan a wedding 'Brit style'.

Based in south-west London with her parents, Angela is cajoled into organising her wedding to musician Alex, in her parents' garden, which smells  enticingly of newly mown grass (a very english smell indeed!). Will it actually go ahead? Will the caterers turn up?  Will Mark the ex appear? This book is a tour around London, a visit to some of the capital's wonderful shopping destinations and has a treasure of "names" - Marchesa for the bridesmaids; Jenny's Proenza Schouler bag for "stuff" and of course mention of the Chanel 2.55 bag (do leave a comment if you know why it is called this! Angela does but she's not telling!). And more....Magic FM and drizzle. Primrose Hill and London Zoo. Mahiki and Harvey Nicks.The Gherkin (Angela likes it!). And finally, the decision where to have the quintessential English afternoon tea? Should it be the Ritz or the Wolseley? Angela and her team are quite clear on this one but you will have to read the book to find out! This book really is a case of "seeing a place through an author's eyes" Enjoy! And click on the cover to find out more.

A Glossary of * Terms for non-Brits

* Easternders is a soap that has been on the BBC since time began - or long before salami became popular in the UK (see our last blogpost)
** M & S brings comfort shopping to most British folk (even if they don't all admit it!) - and as a true Brit you must buy your knickers and lunchtime sandwiches here (not necessarily at the same time)
*** Waitrose is an up-market supermarket and the food arm of John Lewis - the comfy-slipper department store where Middle England shops, and where "nothing is knowingly undersold" - the perfect reassurance for the perfect shopping experience
**** TopShop for that vital garment with good design and value price tag - every English woman will have one item somewhere in her wardrobe that originates from TopShop à la Kate Middleton or Kate Moss
***** Ah, Penguin Bars, a mix of crisp biscuit and chocolate covering, bars that cannot be bought individually but come in packs of 6. The typical Brit gets hooked on them, along with Mother's Milk, that is to say they make a frequent appearance on school menus (wonder what Jamie thinks of them?)

Photo courtesy of Google

So, to help out travellers to London, what might you suggest as a small, but truly English Experience for someone who wants just a touch of non-maninstream british culture? Where would you suggest afternoon tea? Which type of sandwich would you rate at M & S? Would you recommend a Penguin bar? Bourne and Hollingsworth...Beyond Retro....Liberty...