The Sketchbook - returning to Rosecraddick

After more than a year immersed in its world, I’m so excited to introduce all my readers to The Sketchbook, the fourth and final Rosecraddick novel.

For those of you who have loved The Letter, Oyster Shore and The Locket, this book is a return to a corner of Cornwall where the past has a habit of refusing to stay quietly in the past and secrets refuse to remian hidden. Writing it has meant gathering threads from the earlier novels, following them through the generations and discovering where they lead. It has been the hardest write of my life, involving lots of checking and a huge amount of historical research.

There were moments when I wondered quite what I had taken on and others when I doubted myself - always the lot of an author, no matter how many books you may have under your belt. There were so many characters, connections, secrets and dates to keep straight! But there were also those wonderful moments when a piece of research unlocked something, or a character suddenly made sense, and I remembered why I love doing this.

The Sketchbook moves between the early twentieth century and the present day. At its heart are a young artist discovering Cornwall and a young woman fighting to preserve her family’s heritage. Between them lie the lives, choices and stories of people whose influence has lasted far longer than they could ever have imagined.

And, of course, Cornwall itself plays a huge part in the story.

Much of the landscape in the book grew from the places I know and love around Fowey and its river. When I lived on Pont Creek, our cottage was tucked among the trees, reached by a little path from the water. We could cross to the bustle of Fowey in minutes, then return to complete peace. That feeling of two worlds separated by water stayed with me and found its way into the novel. Point Neptune, a house overlooking the river looms large in this story as the imaginatively retitled Neptune's Point!

As writers always do, I have moved places, changed names and allowed my imagination to reshape the geography, but the feeling of the landscape remains true to itself: tidal water, wooded creeks, old churches and paths that generations have walked before. These elements are the key to all my stories.

The fictional Trevellyn House grew from several Cornish houses, particularly Carclew ruins (Visited strictly by private invitation only), Prideaux and Lanhydrock. I’m fascinated by the traces people leave behind and the lives once lived within. A house can vanish, yet its gateposts remain. A photograph preserves a room. A family story survives long after anyone remembers quite how it began. Even gardens and planting are echoes of the past, as at Helligan and even on my own land.

At Lanhydrock, I found myself thinking about the children in the nursery, the people working behind the grand rooms and the everyday lives that carried on within those walls. All of this helped me imagine Trevellyn as a home filled with people who had their own hopes, worries and plans.

Researching this novel took me down some extraordinary paths. I’ll be sharing more of them here over the coming weeks, without giving away the secrets!

For now, I’m looking forward to welcoming you back to Rosecraddick. Thank you to everyone who has asked about the next book, encouraged me while I’ve been writing, or told me what these stories mean to you. It makes a tremendous difference.

Visit The Sketchbook page here on my website to find out more, and sign up for my newsletter to hear about publication news. Fingers are crossed it will be this side of Christmas.

I can’t wait for you to read it!