Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Can a house renovation in the gorgeous Napa Valley let two bereaved parents learn to love again?
Learning to Speak American
What you need to know before your trail
Lola and Duncan Drummond have been married for over twenty years, but tragedy has hit this couple in the most heartbreaking way possible. The tragic death of their daughter Clarissa has understandably drawn a great wedge between the two and life is difficult, both finding it hard to move on.
Duncan decides that they both need to escape and try to mend their shaky relationship. They head to the Napa Valley in California, far from their Somerset home and to their surprise not only find they can relax a bit here but they soon fall in love with an abandoned house there.
Duncan decides to buy it as this house he believes will help fix things and for them both to have a new focus. But this focus soon becomes a new obsession, a new fixation for them. A situation they can’t escape from. Have they swapped one mental prison for another?
Travel Guide
Duncan and Darcy are hoping that this place will be the restorative and relaxing lace they need following such a tragedy. San Francisco, where they travel to, is described as “relaxed and rebellious” and as they visit the city and the MOMA museum, Lola admits that “it did seem to seep through the veil of sadness”
The Napa Valley
The valley certainly has an immediate impression on them – with the heat of the sun and the relaxed Californian way of life, not to mention the wine, this looks set to be the perfect place to restore them. The car journey into the mountain is open top, they can feel a breeze in the freshly salted air. A journey where the wine and the taste of the region will hopefully get their senses going again.
St Helena
The city at the heart of their Napa Valley stay. It’s a house on Spring Mountain which will become their new home and their new project. It’s the neighbours here who make it a home, and who welcome them. The house has been empty for a couple of year and before that it was rented so it needs more than care. The sense of community, the hot sun and the brightness of everything is in complete contrast to the damp of England as they return.
In England they live in the Somerset fictional village of Piliton. London is also somewhere they have called home for a while.
Streetview Maps
C) Napa Valley - St Helena Main Street
D) Napa Valley - Silver Mountain road
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: Learning to Speak American
Author/Guide: Colette Dartford Destination: Napa Valley Departure Time: 2000s
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