What Lies Within

Travel Guide

Author Travel Guide:

Vist Marrackech

“Marrakech had to be the heart of the book; almost a character in itself.  Although I’ve been many times, I went for a few days on my own when I started writing What Lies Within, and it gave me the opportunity to collect all sorts of details and moments that made it, unchanged, into the book.  I was chased through the souk by a vendor shouting ‘Hey London, buy my shoes,’ and spent a lot of time on the lovely chilled out terrace at Kosybar, above the Place des Ferblantiers, that doubles as Larousse, the scene of the pivotal dinner party in the novel.  My day at the Beldi Country Club – a gorgeous country estate a few kilometres out of the city – becameLa Vie en Rose. And La Mamounia is exactly as I’ve described it.  Like Dame Edith, it really is the grand dame of the city.

Perhaps the place I’ve taken most liberties with is Villa Merteuil, home to the louche Jean-Charles and Sabine.  Whilst I’ve never been to that sort of party, I did visit a hotel in the Valley d’Ourika, about twenty minutes’ drive out of the city, that was owned by a French ex-banker and coterie of friends that definitely had the sense of being the kind of place where those sort of things might happen.   It was less of a hotel, more of a super-luxurious guesthouse, with works of art and antiques dotted around large, dimly-lit rooms.”