Here's a bit about the various locations I use throughout the Jane Hetherington's Adventures in Detection crime and mystery series
Failsham
Although some of the places mentioned in the novels do exist, London being a prime example, as many of you will have guessed, the market town of Failsham isn't a real town (at least not in Britain) any more than Jane Hetherington is a real person.
I created Failsham and Hoven (the county in which it is found) as the type of places I imagined Jane and her late husband Hugh, would live in. In the first book, Jane announces she's bored of city life and wishes to move to the countryside. Hugh obtains a job in an accountancy firm in the Cathedral city of Southstoft (of which more later) and the young couple buy a ramshackle thatched cottage in a nearby market town called Failsham. Here they will live until death does them part.
When I created Failsham, I had in mind any number of such timeless market towns as are to be found the length and breadth of Britain. Such towns, although often fairly large, are in many ways self-contained and all have grown over time, to serve the tiny villages and local agricultural communities which surround them, as well as serving as a base for those who live there.
As with all such towns, Failsham is proud of its heritage. I made Failsham a town which grew rich from the wool trade and its architecture reflects this. Because it is composite of many such places, I could have a little fun in its design. I gave it a Market Square lined with Georgian merchant houses; a large 17th-century church; workmen's cottages; a new housing estate; a pebbled Victorian schoolhouse; an elaborate town cross and a Primitive Methodist chapel. I also gave it a duck pond and a tree dotted common with sheep a-grazing.
Some people are born and die in the town, others move there never to leave, and others are merely passing through. Not everything is bucolic in Failsham though, it has its fair share of petty jealousies and the type of centuries-old blood feuds which run through such communities, giving me plenty of scope to weave different characters (some more eccentric or unsavoury than others) into the plots.
Hoven
Take any traditional, predominantly agricultural county in Britain; add rolling countryside, a Cathedral city, and a coast line with both genteel resorts and less genteel seaside towns and you have Hoven.
Southstoft
Creating a Cathedral city of Southstoft, and making it the capital of Hoven, allows me to add an extra dimension to the novels by introducing storylines which could only really take place in a larger place than Failsham. To name but some examples – Southstoft has a Magistrates' Court where Jane sits as a part-time lay (unpaid) magistrate; a health spa; a preserved mediaeval street and a golf-club – all of which I use as settings for various detecting adventures.
Greater Flyborough
After Failsham and Southstoft, the place which appears most often throughout the series is Greater Flyborough. Greater Flyborough is a bit of a brash seaside resort, but with a darker edge to it than Southstoft or Failsham. Jane and Hugh were frequent visitors to it when their daughter Adele was a youngster, eating sandy sandwiches on the beach or taking a turn on the helter-skelter and Jane has a soft spot for it.
Unlike stable Failsham, the population of Greater Flyborough is always on the move, making it the type of place people can hide away in and at least two detecting adventures centre around it.
available from all Amazon sites (e-book & paperback).
To read inside or link through:
https://www.amazon.com/author/ninajonbooks
http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B007N33HUC
Failsham
Although some of the places mentioned in the novels do exist, London being a prime example, as many of you will have guessed, the market town of Failsham isn't a real town (at least not in Britain) any more than Jane Hetherington is a real person.
I created Failsham and Hoven (the county in which it is found) as the type of places I imagined Jane and her late husband Hugh, would live in. In the first book, Jane announces she's bored of city life and wishes to move to the countryside. Hugh obtains a job in an accountancy firm in the Cathedral city of Southstoft (of which more later) and the young couple buy a ramshackle thatched cottage in a nearby market town called Failsham. Here they will live until death does them part.
When I created Failsham, I had in mind any number of such timeless market towns as are to be found the length and breadth of Britain. Such towns, although often fairly large, are in many ways self-contained and all have grown over time, to serve the tiny villages and local agricultural communities which surround them, as well as serving as a base for those who live there.
As with all such towns, Failsham is proud of its heritage. I made Failsham a town which grew rich from the wool trade and its architecture reflects this. Because it is composite of many such places, I could have a little fun in its design. I gave it a Market Square lined with Georgian merchant houses; a large 17th-century church; workmen's cottages; a new housing estate; a pebbled Victorian schoolhouse; an elaborate town cross and a Primitive Methodist chapel. I also gave it a duck pond and a tree dotted common with sheep a-grazing.
Some people are born and die in the town, others move there never to leave, and others are merely passing through. Not everything is bucolic in Failsham though, it has its fair share of petty jealousies and the type of centuries-old blood feuds which run through such communities, giving me plenty of scope to weave different characters (some more eccentric or unsavoury than others) into the plots.
Hoven
Take any traditional, predominantly agricultural county in Britain; add rolling countryside, a Cathedral city, and a coast line with both genteel resorts and less genteel seaside towns and you have Hoven.
Southstoft
Creating a Cathedral city of Southstoft, and making it the capital of Hoven, allows me to add an extra dimension to the novels by introducing storylines which could only really take place in a larger place than Failsham. To name but some examples – Southstoft has a Magistrates' Court where Jane sits as a part-time lay (unpaid) magistrate; a health spa; a preserved mediaeval street and a golf-club – all of which I use as settings for various detecting adventures.
Greater Flyborough
After Failsham and Southstoft, the place which appears most often throughout the series is Greater Flyborough. Greater Flyborough is a bit of a brash seaside resort, but with a darker edge to it than Southstoft or Failsham. Jane and Hugh were frequent visitors to it when their daughter Adele was a youngster, eating sandy sandwiches on the beach or taking a turn on the helter-skelter and Jane has a soft spot for it.
Unlike stable Failsham, the population of Greater Flyborough is always on the move, making it the type of place people can hide away in and at least two detecting adventures centre around it.
available from all Amazon sites (e-book & paperback).
To read inside or link through:
https://www.amazon.com/author/ninajonbooks
http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B007N33HUC