A new release of Cottage by the Sea

If any of you historical readers love Cornwall, England, and are fascinated by the idea that events in the past are still impacting your life in ways you’d never imagine, you might enjoy A Cottage by the Sea that was published by Sourcebooks/Landmark in June of this year.

I’ve always been slightly obsessed by the linkages between areas in America that were settled fairly early and the regions in Europe from whence the settlers to our country came.  In this case, many the Cornish tin miners ended up in the mines of Wyoming and Pennsylvania. This novel starts out in the present time with a woman who has experienced a terrible trauma and literally runs away to the land of her ancestors—the area around Fowey, Cornwall, which is—surprise, surprise—Daphne du Maurier country!

Yes, there is a central love story, but this is a book about the way in which major events in eighteenth century Britain have echoed down through the centuries in the lives of the descendants of those brave souls who ventured across the Atlantic in search of a better life.  As my dear husband calls this book and the two others that use the dual-story device, these are my “Woo-Woo Historicals.” I was interested in the form after I saw the film version of The French Lieutenant’s Woman and the movie Dead Again –both of which interwove past and present.

I really loved the research that went into understanding not only the historical details of those periods in Cornwall (and for the other two books in this series: New Orleans and Natchez), but also my grasp of the “new science” that is developing about how traumatic events can become what I call “genetic memories,” –a subject about which I’ll have more to say next post!