The night before the publication of The Last Days of Leda Grey, I was in the town where the book is set – attending the fabulous Bookish Supper Salon at the Brighton & Hove Regency Town House.
The Town House is the most splendid venue, and it’s currently being lovingly restored by a team of local volunteers. But, it was even more special to me, being one of the very houses that I used as a setting when writing The Last Days of Leda Grey: the house where my heroine lived as a child – even with the remnants of some wallpaper that could well be the same that I described in Leda’s childhood bedroom.
Another house very near in the terrace has now been converted as a hotel, just like the one in Leda Grey …
Leda. Leda. Leda Grey. Chanting the name inside my head I wandered through the bustling Lanes, and then along the seafront road until I found the small hotel I’d booked into the night before. Converted from a private home in the grandest of Regency crescents, it had wide stone steps and a pillared porch; though best not to look too carefully at the crusting rust on ironwork ~ or the paint that peeled from cracking wood when, back inside my room again, I forced up creaking window frames that opened to a balcony …
Sitting next to some well-repaired window frames, I was joined on the night by two other writers, Jules Grant and Mark Thompson. We were all wonderfully looked after by the evening’s host Laura H Lockington, and also by Anna Burrt. In fact, the evening was such fun that I hope to go back and visit again; this time as a guest, to really enjoy the chat and the general ambiance ~ as well as all the gorgeous food prepared by The Boys Cafe and Eatery in Hove.
With Laura Lockington, and Mark Thompson
Being interviewed by Laura Lockington
Brighton. The view from my hotel. I hope to be back again soon.
