The East Riding Festival of Words will focus on Location, Location, Location on Sunday, 21 October, with a series of events at Beverley Art Gallery.
The day will be a chance to explore the allure of houses in literature – where would our favourite novels be without those idyllic cottages overlooking the sea?
Starting off the day at 10am will be The Big Read, looking at ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier.
Celebrating its 80th anniversary, the novel has haunted and enchanted generations of readers who find they are drawn to return to Manderley again and again. Why does ‘Rebecca’ retain its power to captivate and challenge after all these years? Local author Cassandra Parkin will lead the conversation. Booking is essential for this free event.
Cassandra will be the host for the whole day’s events – she is the bestselling author of ‘The Winter’s Child’ and ‘Underwater Breathing’.
The second speaker at 11.30am will be Phyllis Richardson, talking about ‘House of Fiction: from Pemberley to Brideshead, great British houses in literature and life’. Phyllis has written several books on architecture and design, and writes for national newspapers. This book presents some of the country’s most influential houses through the stories they inspired, and offers candid glimpses of the writers who brought them to life. Tickets for this event cost £5.
Bestselling author Lucinda Riley will take over at 1pm, talking about ‘Moon Sister: from the Scottish Highlands to the Alhambra’. This book is the fifth epic story in the Seven Sisters series, which follows five adopted sisters across the world as they search for their true heritage. ‘The Moon Sister’ transports the reader to the remote Scottish highlands and the gypsy caves of Granada, just as Spain descends into civil war. Lucinda’s books have been translated into over 30 languages and sold 15 million copies. Tickets for this event cost £5.
At 2.30pm, bestselling authors Emma Burstall and Harriet Evans will take over, to talk about ‘Houses by the Sea’. ‘The Wildflowers’ is the spellbinding new novel from Harriet Evans, featuring Tony and Althea Wilde; glamourous, argumentative and adulterous to the core. The story is based at their house by the sean, and told through the eyes of their daughter, Cordelia. . Emma Burstall was a journalist before becoming a ‘Top Ten’ bestselling novelist. She writes warm, funny, heartfelt books about and for women. Her latest is set in set in the fictional Cornish village of Tremarnock, and ‘A Cornish Secret’ continues the story of the village and the people who live there. Tickets for this event cost £5.
Susan Fletcher will be the speaker at 4pm, and her subject will be ‘Houses of Glass’. Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier, this is a wonderful, atmospheric Gothic page-turner. In June, 1914, Clara Waterfield is summoned to a large stone house in Gloucestershire with her task to fill a greenhouse with exotic plants from Kew Gardens, to create a private paradise for the owner of Shadowbrook. She finds herself drawn deeper into the dark interior of the house, and into the secrets that violently haunt this house. Tickets for this event cost £5.
The final speaker at 5.30pm will be Diane Allen, on ‘A sense of Place: Daughter of the Dales’. Diane is the author of seven family sagas set in the Yorkshire Dales, and her latest book is the third in her bestselling ‘Windfell Manor’ trilogy. She is the associate vice president of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Diane was born in Leeds, but raised at her family’s farm deep in the Dales. Tickets for this event cost £5.
A Full Day Pass is also available for just £25.
All tickets and passes are available now – visit www.festivalofwords.co.uk
