Travel to Norfolk, England with Kate Hardy

 The Body at Rookery Barn is set in Norfolk, England – which is where I live. Although Little Wenborough is a fictional village, I’ve used elements of various villages I know well to help me build Georgina Drake’s world. And I’ve borrowed bits of my favourite parts of Norfolk.

 

So we have cottages around a village green; these two are from Heydon, and one has the amazing kind of chimneys that I imagined for Little Wenborough Manor 

 

I rather wanted a wildflower meadow in Georgina’s garden – like the one I saw recently at Helmingham Hall (just a little bit further, in Suffolk). 

 

A fairly key scene in the book takes place near Sybbie’s greenhouse – I’ve borrowed something like the Repton-designed greenhouse from Hoveton Hall, and remember the name of Repton because it’s important in book 2!

 

Little Wenborough Manor also has a national collection of azeleas and rhododendrons – partly borrowed from Stody Hall (which has charity open days during the summer) 

 and partly from Blickling Hall. 

 

And, of course, if you have a dog… the fields round the village of Little Wenborough are perfect for daily walks. For those, I’ve borrowed the fields near my house, looking very pretty in spring. 

(Literally six minutes before I took that picture, I took this one of the sunrise!) 

 

Visitors to my part of the world always talk about the amazing skies in Norfolk, and that’s so true. The view from my back garden on a winter evening can be stunning. 

 Or a storm approaching on the beach (ha, see what I did there?) – this is Holkham. 

Or the sun setting over the sea – you don’t get that too often on the east coast, but this was taken at Hunstanton (which I’m thinking about using as a setting in the future), which is the only west-facing resort in Norfolk.

 

As well as the skies, the other thing Norfolk is famous for is churches. We have a lot more churches than any other county in England. (Wallpaintings, beautiful glass, beautiful carvings… all earmarked for future Georgina stories!) Because there’s no stone in Norfolk (apart from soft sandstone or carrstone in the north-west of the county), most of our churches are built from flint. This is St Mary’s church in Saxlingham Nethergate – which also has the oldest piece of figurative glass in Norfolk, a scene of St Edmund dating from before 1250). 

 

Norwich itself – I could talk for hours on the subject. (I’ve written several books on it, too.) But I’d be very remiss not to show you the cathedral and the castle, two of my favourite places in the world… 

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed your trip to Norfolk – both the fictional world of Little Wenborough, and the beautiful county in real life.

About the Author

Kate Hardy lives in Norwich with her husband, two grown-up children, two spaniels and too many books to count. 

She’s won three Romantic Novelists’ Association awards for her romantic fiction – and is thoroughly enjoying her new life of crime! When she’s not writing or researching, she’ll be out at a gig or the theatre, at ballet class, doing cross-stitch, taking photographs of the sunrise while persuading the spaniels to stay still for one second, fossicking around on a beach or in archives, or exploring ancient buildings. 

She loves learning new things, which is why you’ll always discover something different in a Kate Hardy book…

Kate Hardy on the web:

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The Body at Rookery Barn: A totally gripping cozy mystery (A Georgina Drake Mystery Book 1)

 

Outside, Rookery Barn glows in the mid-morning sunshine while fat bees flit lazily between the forget-me-nots. Inside, a body lies dead…

Widowed Georgina Drake has no regrets about moving to beautiful, sleepy Little Wenborough in rural Norfolk. Until she opens the door to her rental property and finds the dead body of her latest guest, irritable university professor Roland Garnett. And on top of that she’s suddenly hearing a woman’s voice through her hearing aids.

Completely shaken by the discovery, Georgina can hardly believe it when the police conclude that Professor Garnett was poisoned, with a dinner delivered by Georgina herself. Is she about to be accused of murder? Georgina needs to pull herself together, try to ignore the distracting voice, and clear her name!

Asking around, it seems Roland Garnett offended half the village during his three-week stay and made unwelcome advances to the rest. But who was provoked enough to poison him? Georgina’s best lead is the deadly oleander found in Roland’s system. Her gardener, Young Tom, had access to the plant, but before she can talk to him Tom becomes the killer’s next victim.

As the crimes mount up, so do the clues, but does Georgina have what it takes to follow them to their conclusion? Even when her amateur sleuthing puts her next in the killer’s sights…?

An addictive and completely gripping cosy crime novel. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Faith Martin and Midsomer Murders.

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