Author’s Guest Post
Setting Books in a Different Country
I say a “different” country and not a “foreign” country because England and Scotland don’t feel foreign to me. Different because In Britain they drive on the other side of the road, have pounds and pence, and call me “luv”. But it feels familiar because I have read so many books set in Britain. I took British history all the way through elementary and high school. And, of course, English Literature classes were truly English. When I see Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and the Tower of London, I feel a sense of belonging that I’m sure comes all that reading in the English Canon.
It helps to have had a mother, grandmother and many aunts whose heritage was decidedly English. We had the English silver tea service, English cups and saucers, English roast and Yorkshire pudding, and relatives in England who expected the family to continue English customs.
We read The Night Before Christmas with its “Happy Christmas to all” at the end instead of “Merry Christmas to all”. We read Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, until the country that was described in those books seemed as familiar as the country outside our house.
I expect that was colonizing the mind and part of the British propensity to spread their culture wherever they landed. The downside is that children educated in this way might see their own country as second class. We might not appreciate the beauty and the politics of our own country, or perhaps not given weight to the artists and musicians produced by our own culture.
The upside is that I feel at home in Britain. Even though my accent makes it clear I am not British, I have the background of most of the people I meet in Britain. We read the same books, were brought up with the same nursery rhymes, and saw the same pantomimes at Christmas.
And, of course, I read British mysteries and love them. I love the humour and the rational approach to solving mysteries. I love the flavour that the authors take from the countryside where they set the stories and I try, in my own books, to bring that humour, rationale and the flavour into each book I write.
In Perils in Yorkshire, I bring the distinct culture of York and the Yorkshire Dales onto the pages. Some of the characters are part of the Yorkshire setting and have the dialect, and point of view that reflects their heritage.
Perils in Yorkshire (British Book Tour Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Publisher : Camel Press (October 12, 2021)
Paperback : 294 pages
ISBN-10 : 160381387X
ISBN-13 : 978-1603813877
Digital ASIN : B094PXJT8W
Claire Barclays tourists are exploring the cobbled streets of York. Her American ladies from Tucson, the couple from Bristol, and the couple from London appear fascinated by Claire’s explanations of the unique architecture. All except Philip, a younger, single man who disappears—again. Claire spots him entering the chocolate Factory and races down the stairs, suspecting Phillip has headed for the kitchens and trips over the body of a security guard. She doesn’t see any connection between the body and tourists until Mark, her loving partner, and a detective inspector with the Major Crimes Investigation Team tells her Philip is an undercover Scotland Yard detective and on a job. Claire removes the group from the city of York quickly and drives them north to the Yorkshire Moors, a vast land of almost bleak wilderness and the setting of many mystery novels. She stops for a picnic at the famous Ralph’s Cross where moorland, green with springtime heather, stretches for miles. Her bucolic plans are interrupted when her American ladies report the sudden death of Philip in the surrounding bog. Mark tells her Philip was on the trail of a drug distribution team. But will Claire be able to keep these ladies who are intelligent, determined, and expert mystery readers out of a messy situation with a murderer? Claire has high hopes that she will be able to do so without endangering them all.
About Emma Dakin
Emma Dakin lives in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. She has over thirty trade-published books of mystery and adventure for teens and middle-grade children and non-fiction for teens and adults. Her memoir Always Pack a Candle: A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin has received wide recognition. But she keeps returning to her favorite genre, cozy mysteries. Her love of the British countryside and villages and her addiction to reading cozy mysteries keep her writing about characters who live and work in those villages. She enjoys those characters and trusts you will as well.
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Facebook http://tiny.cc/ilk3az
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