A Medieval Travelogue
Donna Fletcher Crow is the author of 35 books, mostly novels dealing with British history. The award-winning 
Glastonbury, The Novel of Christian England is her best-known work, an Arthurian grail search epic covering 15 centuries of English history. A Very Private Grave, book 1 in the Monastery Murders series is her reentry into publishing after a 10 year hiatus. The Shadow of Reality, a romantic intrigue will be published later this summer.
Donna and her husband have 4 adult children and 10 grandchildren. She is an enthusiastic gardener and you can see pictures of her garden, watch the trailer for A Very Private Grave, and read her international blog at www.DonnaFletcherCrow.com
Click on any picture for a larger view.
What fun to be back with you and your readers so soon, Lelia. Last month we talked about how gardens affect my writing and I mentioned a couple of the English gardens that actually made it into A Very Private Grave. This time we’ll look a little wider to a travel guide of the settings in the book.
It would be hard to find a more appropriate topic for talking about this particular story since, in order to solve the mystery of the hidden treasure Felicity and Antony follow the clues in the footsteps of the widely-travelled St. Cuthbert— an especially intriguing journey since the vast majority of Cuthbert’s travels were posthumous.
Monastery, Mirfield
I like the way this plays out in the story because we begin in the very cloistered setting of a monastery on a remote hillside in Yorkshire. A setting that, perhaps, could rather quickly become claustrophobic. But Felicity and Antony never stay in one place long enough to catch their breath, let alone feel hemmed in. The monastery that serves for the model of my fictional Community of the Transfiguration is the one where my daughter studied theology, so the research there became part of my real life visits to her in Mirfield, a delightful town just three miles from where “Last of the Summer Wine” is filmed, in case any of your readers are fans of that perennial British TV charmer.
Viking Beach
Then came the fun of traveling to all the scenes I would be writing about, because I try very hard never to write about any place I haven’t actually visited. This entailed a wonderful retreat to The Holy Isle of Lindisfarne where St. Cuthbert served as prior in the 7th century. My daughter and I, just as Felicity and Antony later, clambered over the broken ruins of the medieval monastery and walked to the back of the island to Viking Beach where the first Viking attacks on England occurred in 793. Since our visit was only a few weeks after the 9/11 attack the RAF fighter jets roaring overhead were particularly evocative of long thoughts about how little the world has changed.
Whitby Arches
From there we went to Whitby— home of the remarkable St. Hilda who played hostess to the epoch-making Synod of Whitby in 664 and later nurtured Caedmon, England’s first poet, as well as the home of Count Dracula where costumed brides and vampires still lurk among the gravestones of St. Mary’s parish church, much to the vicar’s dismay. Of course, all this made it into the story in one form or another.
Whitby--Caedmon's Cross
Abbey Ruins
Jarrow, home of The Venerable Bede who wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, source of almost all we know of early English history, was a perfect venue for Felicity and Antony to make a significant find among the historic documents housed there.
Whithorn White Gate
And then on to Whithorn in southern Scotland, home of St. Ninian, the chieftain’s son who brought Christianity to Scotland in the 6th century. This was a particularly poignant visit because the area
Whithorn--Ninian's Cave
was suffering from foot and mouth disease. Our B & B hostess told us of the great, black clouds of smoke that billowed over their home when their herds of cattle were slaughtered and burned. We were required to seek special permission from the Ministry of Agriculture in order to walk across farmland to visit the atmospheric Ninian’s Cave on the shores of Luce Bay where Ninian had meditated and St. Cuthbert’s body had rested so long ago. And where my mind was busy devising dastardly deeds. Would the tide rise high enough to seal Felicity and Antony in the cave? Could the villains shadowing them cause a landslide to seal off the mouth of the cave? Could Felicity be pushed from a ledge while exploring the cavern walls for a hidden cache? Or could Antony simply succumb to the charms of their provocatively attractive redheaded guide?
Tea in Monastery Garden
And finally, to one of my favorite places on earth, and St. Cuthbert’s final resting place—
Durham Cathedral
Durham Cathedral high on its rocky precipice above the River Wear where Elizabeth and I enjoyed tea in a monastery garden. But wait, what about the ancient legend that Cuthbert isn’t actually buried there? And what did happen to all that treasure amassed around his tomb? And what about the people who have already been killed in this quest? Will Felicity be next?
Please visit my website at www.DonnaFletcherCrow.com to see the trailer for A Very Private Grave on the home page and more pictures of these scenes under “Research Albums.”
With a bludgeoned body in Chapter 1, and a pair of intrepid amateur sleuths, A Very Private Grave qualifies as a traditional mystery. But this is no mere formulaic whodunit: it is a Knickerbocker Glory of a thriller. At its centre is a sweeping, page-turning quest – in the steps of St Cuthbert – through the atmospherically-depicted North of England, served up with dollops of Church history and lashings of romance. In this novel, Donna Fletcher Crow has created her own niche within the genre of clerical mysteries.” – Kate Charles, author of Deep Waters
September 10, 2010
Posted in: Guest Blogs
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4 Responses
Oh, Lelia, I’m delighted you were able to use all my pictures! What fun to review it all again. Thank you so much for inviting me to Buried Under Books.
Thanks for sharing all of this!
It was my pleasure, Brenda. Cheers
Donna, I’ve loved having you here both times and hope you’ll come back soon!
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