The Lighthouse By Alison Moore

A man takes a restorative walking holiday in Germany but finds more than he bargained for…

This novel is a walk, a wander and a realisation along the River Thine in Germany.

Every day Futh stays in a different hotel, on a walking tour  having first arrived at hotel called Hellhaus …

Hellhaus is a play on words and images. The name in German means Lighthouse, but of course it had more dubious connotations in English.

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Mari Hannah brings the landscape and coastline of Northumberland to life with all of her books but Monument to Murder is particularly apt for a walk passing the mighty ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle. Monument to Murder takes place with this castle in the background.Most of the story unfolds on Bamburgh Beach with Dunstanburgh just down the coast. The sands here are the scene for a criminal find... The windswept North East coastline is evoked in style and Jo, a character from the book even has a cottage in Low Newton where the walk ends up.
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What better book to take to Sycamore Gap than this one! The iconic Sycamore Gap – an iconic part of Hadrian’s Wall. Now notorious for a murder… The tree on the cover is the iconic tree featured in many photos, films and even Robin Hood. In the novel, it’s a barren and remote land, an unforgiving landscape where paganism is rife and old customs still hold sway. DCI Ryan and Anna investigate the scene and the subsequent mysteries whilst their relationship develops – and it’s this interaction and different ways of working that really puts a unique spin on a unique case in a unique setting!
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If ever there was a city built for book lovers, then this is it! Every year the famous Hay festival takes place. So whether you travel to the town for this or for a holiday at any other time, Barbara Erskine books take you there and back in time too! Sleeper’s Castle  – a mysterious name for a house on the border between England and Wales. Sue lives here but is heading back to Australia for a year, she lets friend Miranda live there rent free if she’ll look after it. Miranda finds the house’s creaks and groans very mysterious.....Catrin who lived in the house in 1400 is calling out to her... If you can tear yourself away from the book and the book festival, Hay Castle plays a role in the book’s landscape and is well worth a visit.
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You can’t go to Botallack mine without thinking of Poldark and taking one of the 12 Poldark novels with you. This site was of course Wheal Leisure in the TV programmes and you’ll see so much of Poldark’s landscape by venturing on this walk and appreciating how difficult it would have been to ride horses along here for miles until the next village. Ross and Demelza might well be spotted as you walk to appreciate the surroundings which seem to be frozen in time.
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A railway walk would be the perfect companion to this book as it’s set firmly in the Welsh Mountains in the present day but in a Wales that is still very much rural and untouched as it was when the railway was built. The story takes place in a rural cottage in the mountains and the mist in the story creates the most ethereal of settings “In the lower fields the sheep huddled miserably agains the stone walls, half grown lambs pressed against their mothers silently enduring the familiar climatic conditions”
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As well as a stunningly pretty National Trust property, this site offers an insight into the region’s past too. Wendy Moore’s Wedlock tells of the true story of the the Bowes family – a notable family in the North East and Mary Eleanor Bowes in particular. Her story is so beyond belief that it almost defies it. In 1760, at the age of only 11 years, Mary ‘s rich businessman father died, leaving her his sole heiress with an estimated net worth of millions and millions. When her first husband died she was expected to marry again – enter Andrew Robinson Stoney – a charming and psychopathic man.
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Whilst not strictly set at Sissinghurst, Kate Morton’s book was heavily inspired by this castle and gardens. Milderhurst Castle as it appears in the book 'The Distant Hours', has a majestic tower where a writer lives with his three daughters. He writes in his tower (exactly where real life inhabitants Rita Sackville West and her husband wrote) The tower becomes an integral part of the plot and the Kent countryside comes to live through Morton’s evocative writing. It’s an homage to this wondrous literary linked home.
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