"This room, with its green-and-white wallpaper and big bay windows looking out over Onslow Square, would continue to be the center of her world until Cassandra was old enough to wear her hair up and marry." —The Governess Was Wicked
I love books that are strongly grounded in their setting. I want to hear the rush of traffic and feel the breeze from the subway (disgusting though it may be) when I'm reading a book set in New York City. Likewise, if a book takes place during a London winter, I want to know that the characters are chilled to the bone from the damp that sets in around autumn and doesn't leave until spring.
It was important to me in writing The Governess Was Wicked that readers feel that my characters really do know their way around the parts of Central London that make up their whole world. Here are just a few locations readers will encounter:
- The Nortons' home in Onslow Square in South Kensington with its beautiful, perfectly symmetrical houses.
- Dr. Edward Fellows lives in the just-becoming-fashionable neighborhood of Chelsea on Sydney Street where a bachelor doctor could have had his office with rooms above
- There's Mrs. Salver's Tea Shop in Pimlico, a working class neighborhood where people who served the wealthy in Mayfair and Belgravia would have lived
- Elizabeth sends two very important letters from a huge hotel just off Rochester Row near the bustling travel hub of Victoria station
- And finally the book ends in Lady Crosby's Eaton Square home
Since my family lives in this area of London, I asked my father, a talented photographer, to take some photos to show readers a little of the world of The Governess Was Wicked. Enjoy this virtual stroll through the streets!