Francesca is thrilled to be able to introduce her new saga series, set at the seaside.
Welcome to my new ‘Beach Hotel’ series, set on the Sussex coast in Littlehampton in the First World War.
It’s not the first time I’ve used Littlehampton as a setting in a book. My People’s Friend pocket novel, Desperately Seeking Doreen, published in 2020, was set by the sea here, though this time in 1972. I also have a contemporary novel set there, that hasn’t yet seen the light of day!
So why Littlehampton particularly, when I live in Kent? It’s quite simple really: I was brought up there.
When we moved from Worthing in 1961, the Beach Hotel still sat magnificently on the large green common, between the promenade and the grand Regency and Victorian structures of South Terrace. It had first been built in the late 1700s as the Beach Coffee House, but was replaced in the late 1880s by a large, brick Victorian edifice. It finally closed in the late 1980s and was pulled down in 1994.
I never ever stepped inside the Beach Hotel. I suppose, it seemed out of reach to me as a child and teenager. My staff characters and the interior settings inside are based partly on a 1996 interview with the people who owned it between 1951 and 1979, the 1911 census, other similar hotels, and guesswork from the outside appearance. The rest is imagination.
It was certainly fun creating the interior settings, the characters and their stories, and I hope you’ll enjoy them too.
A New Start at the Beach Hotel
Can Edie find the courage to choose her own future?
June 1914. Edie Moore is a Governess for Lord and Lady Moreland, living in comfort at the grand Downland House in Sussex. But, wanting more from life, she flees in secret to Littlehampton, the place where she spent many idyllic childhood holidays.
Desperate for work, Edie begins working as a chambermaid at the prestigious Beach Hotel, even if the menial tasks are a far cry from her previous job.
While the days are long and gruelling, Edie works hard and soon is in favour with Helen Bygrove, the manager’s wife, who sees that Edie is destined for bigger things – which leads to tension with some of the other chambermaids.
But as she navigates her new life and finds friendship with fellow maid Lili Probert, she also grows closer to charming, cheerful porter, Charlie Cobbett, and finally finds the happiness she has been searching for.
However, what none of her new friends know is that Edie is hiding a secret from her past, one that would change the way they view her, forever. When the truth comes out, will Edie be able to keep her new life and remain in the place she loves so much?
Published by Hera Books / Canelo
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Rosemary had been ill but was recovering and looking forward to the release of the third novel in her Derwent Chronicles series, Until We Can Forgive. She was busy getting started on her blog tour questions, when she was sadly taken from us. Here we recall times we’ve spent with Rosemary, and take a look at her latest novel.
Francesca: I first met Rosemary in an Adult Education class for creative writing, run by Elaine Everest, back in 2006. We’d been in various classes together since that time, as well as both attending Writers’ Holiday weeks and many Romantic Novelist Association events. Often she wrote things that were a little different, like a novel she was working on several years ago that involved chemistry classes and poisonings!
She was a well informed and cultured woman, with knowledge of foreign languages, yet never blew her own trumpet. She was great fun at social events. I recall the last RNA conference we were at, one evening, sitting around our flat’s kitchen table, playing a game which involved singing various songs, and Rosemary joining in as enthusiastically as the rest of us (I dare say a little alcohol was involved!). She will be sorely missed by me, and there’ll be a Rosemary-shaped hole in our group of friends for evermore.
Elaine: I first met Rosemary at The Write Place in 2012. I will always remember Rosemary as a well read and intelligent person. Her interests were quite diverse, as indeed was her reading. I know she loved playing bridge, going to the theatre and having some more unusual holidays. However, she also had a scatty side to her unassuming nature. She was a lovely lady that would never want to offend anyone and was also someone you couldn’t get cross with.
When we were travelling to Romantic Novelist’s Association events together, like the conferences, she was often waiting for everyone in the wrong place. We all worried about losing her when we were going anywhere as a group. I remember arranging to meet her just inside the doorway of a summer party we were both attending and I waited for sometime before I was told she was already upstairs. She was very apologetic when she realised but it was just another moment where you just thought ‘that’s Rosemary’, she didn’t have a malicious bone in her whole body.
Spring 1919: WW1 is over and a fragile peace has descended over the country. Now living in Cambridge with husband Edmond, Amy Derwent is settling into her new life as wife and mother to little Beth. But the shadow of the Great War looms large, particularly as the injuries Edmond sustained at Ypres still take their toll on him today.
Hello Judith, and welcome to the blog. First of all, could we ask what kind of research you do?
I wait by the bed. I move into her line of vision and it’s as though we’re watching one another, my mother and me; two women – trapped.
Write Minds 