A novel way to travel – Novels set in London –

London is the setting of many a great novel – it is the dank streets, the cobbled alley ways and the debtors prisons which populated Charles Dickens’s world. It’s the world of the Royal suspicion and backstabbing of the Tudor days and the beheadings at the Tower of London, the dangerous world created by a stalker near Battersea Power Station courtesy of Sarah Hilary.

However it’s also the capital which has some dark secrets to tell, many hidden places and a few chapters of history to share that you might not know about. Allow us to introdue the London guides you won’t find on one of those open top buses anytime soon…..sadly….

Dancing at The Rainbow Corner Dance hall, Piccadilly

After the Last Dance by Sarra Manning

This is the story of the Rainbow Corner, an exclusive club in Piccadilly during the 1940s where only those invited are allowed to enter, let alone dance in. Where soldiers, GIs from America take their latest sweetheart or whoever they fancy at the time to dance the night away and forget life as it is.

It was a real place, opened by the Red Cross where Americans could taste a little piece of home – cooking, music etc. Rose in the novel enters this amazing place and soon learns of its special character, its history and what it means to have a wartime romance which is as unpredictable as war itself.

The hall is no longer there but if you stand at the location, it’s as if you can hear the music and the laughter in the faint distance.

Stay at The Savoy hotel

The Girl from the Savoy by Hazel Gaynor

Like many who come to London searching for their dreams, Dolly Lane comes to the Capital in the 1920s seeking fame and fortune and looking for the chance to appear on the London stage. She finds work as a chamber maid at the Savoy hotel and this is where she meets the rich and famous she dreams of joining one day. Their world is also one of theatre – with their glitzy dresses, rich food and elaborate hotel suites, Dolly can only dream that one day all this will be hers.

Sit in the Savoy bar as the music picks up, the dancing starts and the clink of cocktail glasses is music to your ears. You’re  free to choose other hotels of course but Bloxham hotel was where Poirot returned to in order to solve a series of murders there so you might want to give that a miss for a good night’s sleep. There is also Bertram’s hotel where Agatha Christie wrote of, but there’s murder there too so…..the Savoy is a safer bet 😉

Need medical assistance whilst in the capital?

Call on The Hollow Man by Rob McCarthy

Living and working in the Southwalk side of the city, Harry Kent is the man you need on your side when there is a hostage and medical situation underway. He can see the London Eye from his apartment so he likes the finer things in life too, but his day to day takes him to the dark recesses of the hostage taker’s mind. This is the man you’d want to have watching your back – in every sense of the word.

Travel information

Look out for a girl on a train…..

Possibly the most talked about novel of 2015, this starts and ends in London where a girl on a train imagines the backstory of the people she sees from her train window. We’ve all done it, we all do it now, but what would happen if you decided to investigate more into the people you saw everyday? The story is one of complex links, intense emotions in an enclosed space, a girl who seems to be overly concerned to the point of obsession about who she sees. Who are the other people on the train? You will start to doubt your own fellow passengers when you read this.

London but not as you know it….

A futuristic London – all aboard the ship

Antonia Honeywell is your guide to take you away from the city as you know it.

For other futuristic views of the city – Ben Aaaronovich takes you down the rivers of London and when you see someone disappear into the shadows of Covent Garden, you’ll start your journey into a London of misery, magic and the wizarding world..

So – see London through new eyes by picking up one of these novels and explore the capital that you may not have seen if it weren’t for fiction.

Enjoy your journey!