Why a Booktrail?
1924, 1931: A girl must learn what grief can do and how she can fight for what she believes in
The First Dance
What you need to know before your trail
1924
The First World War is over and eleven-year-old Alexa is growing up on the idyllic Cornish coast with her best friend Harvey. But she soon discovers there are secrets at the heart of her family that have been hidden for years.
1931
Alexa flees Cornwall for the intoxicating city of Venice. But her new glamorous life is not what she hoped for and, with dark shadows closing in on her, Alexa will question everything she thought she wanted . . .
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Cornwall and London
This novel started with a painting. When the author was visiting the sumptuous Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice in he summerof 2015 when a portrait stopped her in her tracks. It was the painting of one woman through three stages of her life: girl, woman, grandfather.The painting was by Domenico Maggiotto b1713. A desire to tell a story of a woman as she grows and learn about generations past and present began to form.
The locations in Cornwall are fictional. Enys Point, Porthdeen House would be wonderful to visit though!
Venice
She travels here in order to find someone…it seems a wonderfully warm and colourful place but the dark waters run deep…
Infrequent lanterns on landing stages and at dark water doors threw fragmented beams over the surface of the canal.
Ahead the light of Lido were brighter, brasher, like slice of cut diamonds on the night horizon.”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The First Dance
Destination : Cornwall, London, Venice Author/Guide: Catherine Law Departure Time: 1924, 1931
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