The Beautiful North

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Durham Cathedral
So I'm sitting in a train travelling North West towards Preston and watching the green fields grow dark in the dusk.  This week I've already been up to Durham City where I gazed in awe again at the spectacular cathedral and castle set in a heavily wooded bend overlooking the River Wear, I explored the nearby coastline and the quaint holiday towns of Hartlepool and Seaham, nicely restored from their heavy industrial past.


I also had an amazing trip to Whitby, a beautiful Victorian seaside resort on the Yorkshire coast and the site where Bram Stoker's Dracula first touched dry land in England when his ship washed up on shore and the Count was taken to the ruined abbey that still now stands imposingly above the bay.  I'm researching settings for my new novel "A Proper Lady" which will be set partly in the gorgeous town of Kirby Lonsdale, Cumbria and Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast.  Set in the 1890's this novel features the feisty Bonita Salt, a plump but pretty young farm girl taken under the wing of the glamorous Violetta de Vere who promises to change Bonita's life for the better.  Things don't go quite as planned and Bonita is plunged into an adventure she can't turn back from.  I'll keep you posted with more great pictures and info about the characters.

Ruskin's View Kirby Lonsdale

Whitby

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