#TravelTuesday – Books set in …cemeteries, churches and graves
Churches and graveyards provide a very chilling setting to many novels. Iconic scenes are often set there – who can forget the marriage scene in Jane Eyre? – but graveyards are the most chilling and gothic of all. Dead bodies, a place to remember loved ones or the best place to hide a body yourself?
Dare you enter the graveyards in these books?
Purged
You need a strong stomach for this one! It’s written by a minister so you can count on authenticity and then some – this delves into some dark religiously motivated crimes. In the book, a former minister is on holiday with his family in Oxfordshire, when he finds himself on edge in a seemingly idyllic village where wooden crosses hang at every turn….
Luckily the main village setting in the book isn’t real – Hobbs Hill is the village where Christianity rules and where darkness resides – the Kingdom Come Church is described as a “Colossal old gargoyle crouching on the top of a hill”. And the church and graveyard:
“Its centuries-old spire crumbled at the edges, threatening to topple over at any point and spike someone in the heart”
The Deepest Grave
The title says it all really! The victim, Gaynor Charteris was an archaeologist in the process of excavating a nearby iron-age site. So who on earth would want to kill her? There’s something very spooky about this cover and that’s before you even get inside the book. But the graves here play a major role and have a lot of secrets to reveal….
In the Garden of Good and Evil
One of the prettiest graveyards ( The cover on the book is The Bird Girl of Bonaventure Cemetery – This statue is no longer there but has been removed to the Telfair museum in Savannah)
It is based on the real life murder trial of Jim Williams, a Savannah antiques dealer accused of murdering his supposed gay lover Danny Hansford
The Cemetery of course is the focus of any visit to Savannah to see the cover art in real life. Walking around here and the surrounding area gives a feel for the story and as a true life tale, it is not hard to find literary and historic footprints of the novel and the people involved. The famous Bird Girl statue is no longer there but has been removed to the Telfair museum in Savannah.
Marked to Die
This book is all about churches, graveyards and dark deeds going on in the woods of Worcester
Worcester, just south of the cathedral is where the castle stood and where Serjeant Catchpoll lives in the book. It’s also where the news of the first deaths is brought and sets Bradecote & Catchpoll off on the hunt.
The ruins of Bordesley Abbey, which Bradecote & Catchpoll visit is also gothic and dark. Foreboding too with a keen sense of intrigue and traces of the past….
The GloveMaker’s Daughter – Yorkshire and Pennsylvania
1666, 2014: The ripples from a hidden secret found in an old Quaker Church is felt across the Yorkshire Dales and Pennsylvania where two Quaker communities are described. Their lives revolve around the church and graveyards. The Quakers were apparently made to walk the streets as punishment for marrying according to their conscience and not with the priest’s command.
“From sea to moor to city, the early morning sun bathed the towers of York Minster with a touch of scarlet……the stone walls of the York Castle gaol yawned at another day’s onslaught”
