A BookTrail journey through books

Submitted: 21st May 2023

Books of 2022 that transport the reader

There were so many good books published last year. Oh the places I travelled to! Amazing journeys I shall never forget. A bit like the post on Dickensian a few weeks ago, it got me thinking what would a journey through a few of the books at once be like? I travel with every book I read but what about if a few books merged together and gave me a package holiday to remember?

Where would I start?

Nunnery in Florence

I thought a nice relaxing stay in a nunnery in Florence might be nice to start off with. Not this one though as in the early pages, a nun finds a naked man murdered in one of the rooms. Apart from that, it seemed like a nice place to stay for a night or two – nice gardens, cobbled streets, peace and quiet…..

BookTrail locations in The Darkest Sin

Staying in Florence for a bit, I would HAVE to visit the palace as seen in The Marriage Portrait. Sounds lovely for a relaxing time after the issue with the naked man and the nuns. However, there is an atmosphere here. I would have to help poor Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara try to escape the gilded cage. When I read her story, my heart went out to her so I couldn’t just leave her there. Maybe she would like a visit to New York? It’s where I’m off to next.

BookTrail locations to The Marriage Portrait

A museum in New York

I have always wanted to go to this museum in New York so when a book was set there, I got to visit, in literary form at least. Well, this has made me want to go even more now and walk its hallowed halls. I wish all museums were as interesting as this. The mystery and the scene setting is brilliant. I would love to go here and walk the corridors at night. Maybe not, but that cover alone is enough to want me to go inside this book for real.

BookTrail the locations in The Cloisters

Now, I know travel from Florence to New York is far and I was thinking of how I would travel but the boat with either Ruth Ware or the plane with T J Newman are not really options given the author’s perpencity to derail such trips. SO. I travelled just via books. Safer.

Don’t be taking a Carribean Cruise with Catherine Cooper either.

Time for some fun now, right? What better place than that iconic adventure park in The Rabbit Factor and The Moose Paradox? I’m not normally a fan of theme parks but this is just something else. I so want to go in real life. Antti – build this for real please!

After all that excitment, I thought it best to head home to England and settle in London for a while. I did think about going up to Northumberland. On an island perhaps. Oops. No. Vera has just found a body there in the Rising Tide on Holy Island so best avoid that place for a while. I will stay in London with Endurance Proudfoot. She wants to be a bonesetter so to study how bones work, she’s taking me to the zoo. Nothing can happen there right?