Portobello Book Blog

I’m delighted to be joined by Angela Britnell today. You might remember I reviewed her latest book Summer at Seaspray Cottage recently. You can read my review here. Well she has written a great piece about the inspiration for the book and I hope you enjoy reading about how two very different houses sparked the idea for the book.

SUMMER AT SEASPRAY COTTAGE – GUEST POST

Thank you so much, Joanne, for inviting me to stop by and chat about my new summer book Summer at Seaspray Cottage. It’s another one of my signature trans-Atlantic romances and set primarily in Cornwall. The small fishing village of Chough Cove is loosely based on Mevagissey where my mother grew up and I’ve dedicated the book to her father – he was a fisherman there and also at one time the Mevagissey harbourmaster.

I’d say the most popular question I get asked when people find out I’m an author is where I get my inspiration from. Sometimes it’s a complete mystery to me but not in the case of Summer at Seaspray Cottage. We visited Cornwall earlier this year and while we were in Mevagissey to visit some of my cousins I spotted a large, uniquely designed house that was in the middle of being built overlooking the village. I took some pictures and then further on pulled the camera out again when I saw the bright blue door of a tiny fisherman’s cottage up a narrow flight of stone steps. My mind started whirring about the owners of these very different homes and that was the beginning of Thea and Harry’s story.

It soon emerged that they were teenage sweethearts who haven’t had any contact with each other in twenty years. Thea has inherited her aunt’s small cottage and returns to Chough Cove from her home in Tennessee purely to clear it out ready to sell up. Harry has also returned, in his case to the village where he was born, intent on building the house of his dreams and putting his roots firmly back in Cornish soil. The story surrounding their teenage romance that blew up so spectacularly and whether they might get a second chance at love is at the core of Summer at Seaspray Cottage but there are many other threads woven through the book. We have Harry’s long-time contentious relationship with his father and Thea’s dissatisfaction with her banking career which bring her into conflict with her own father. Pink iced buns from the local bakery also feature heavily but you’ll have to read the book to discover their place in the story!

I hope you and all of my readers enjoy another fictional escape to Cornwall where the sun always shines and the pasties are hot and fresh! Thank you again for the warm welcome and I’d love to chat again when my Christmas book is released. It’s a work in progress at the moment and features a pantomime, a troubled Hollywood actor and a classical pianist in search of her own new theme tune.

About the Book

What would you do if you inherited a Cornish cottage by the sea?

If you’re Thea Armitage, sell it as soon as possible. Whilst there’s no denying that Seaspray Cottage has its charm, it just holds too many bad memories for Thea to consider keeping it – although at least spending the summer preparing it for sale gives her a distraction from troubles back home in Tennessee.

What Thea didn’t count on was her worst Cornish memory moving in right next door. Local bad boy Harry Venton played no small part in Thea’s decision never to return to Cornwall twenty years before – and now he’s her neighbour! Could things get any worse?

Except Harry isn’t the boy he was, and as Thea comes to realise that her opinion of him was built on lies and misunderstandings, perhaps things will start looking up for her summer at Seaspray Cottage …

Buying links

Kindle: https://amzn.to/3uqkiry
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3bNvGar

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3QbBfz9
Nook: https://bit.ly/3QeSW0H

About the Author

Angela was born in St. Stephen, Cornwall, England. After completing her A-Levels she worked as a Naval Secretary. She met her husband, a US Naval Flight Officer, while being based at a small NATO Headquarters on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. They lived together in Denmark, Sicily, California, southern Maryland and London before settling in Franklin, Tennessee.

Angela took a creative writing course in 2000 and loved it so much that she has barely put her pen down since. She has had short stories and novels published in the US. Her novel Sugar & Spice, won Choc Lit’s Search for an American Star competition and was her UK debut.

Follow Angela on Twitter: @AngelaBritnell
Like Angela on Facebook: Angela Britnell