Why a Booktrail?
1940s, 200os: What if keeping your loved ones safe meant never seeing them again?
The Lost Letters
What you need to know before your trail
Canada, present day
When Martha’s beloved father dies, he leaves her two things: a mysterious stash of letters to an English woman called ‘Catkins’ and directions to a beach hut in the English seaside town of Wells-Next-The-Sea. Martha is at a painful crossroads in her own life, and seizes this chance for a trip to England – to discover more about her family’s past, and the identity of her father’s secret correspondent.
Norfolk, 1940
Sylvia’s husband Howard has gone off to war, and she is struggling to raise her two children alone. Her only solace is her beach hut in Wells, and her friendship with Connie, a woman she meets on the beach. The two women form a bond that will last a lifetime, and Sylvia tells Connie something that no-one else knows: about a secret lover… and a child.
Locations
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BookTrail Travel to Wells Next the Sea for wartime secrets
Wells next the Sea
A lovely little place on the coast of Norfolk and a great setting for a war time mystery. It looks divine in the present day:
“The tide was out and the shoreline stretched away to s a strip o sea that was barely distinguishable from the expanse of sky curving to the tips of the horizon. Directly in front of them a string of wooden beach huts, painted in sweet-shop colours of lemon yellows, sugar pinks and summer blues, stared out towards the ocean over clusters of families settled on blankets and towels. Between the beach huts and the sea, a sandbank made for climbing stood as the only barricade from the waves and winds of distant Norway.”
The author says in her book that she tried to base the story of war time evacuations in and around real events that happened in both London and Norwich in particular, between the war years. The details about the evacuations and the bombings are real and the author says she consulted a bomb map of the city to see where the bombs had fallen and she has never looked at those streets in the same way again.
London
The setting of London takes on an interesting note – famous sites such as Kings Cross Station and Kew Gardens take on a dark and depressing tone given that these are war years. The Grosvenor House Hotel plays a vital role.
Canada
The story starts here but there are no locations – the setting is just one of a far off and distant land where many people in England at the time chose to evacuate their children, given that it wasn’t as far as Australia.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Lost Letters
Destination: Wells next the Sea, London Author/guide: Sarah Mitchell Departure Time: 1940s, 2000s
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