Written by Francesca Capaldi
|
Today I'm taking part in a blog tour organised by Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources, and I'm delighted to have a guest post from Francesca Capaldi, whose latest novel
Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel is available through the links towards the bottom of this post.
Francesca's post talks about real historical events and landmarks in Littlehampton that she has used in this novel. I was particularly interested because I was recently in Littlehampton doing some research of my own about the history of Rustington Lido during WWII.
Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel is available through the links towards the bottom of this post.
Francesca's post talks about real historical events and landmarks in Littlehampton that she has used in this novel. I was particularly interested because I was recently in Littlehampton doing some research of my own about the history of Rustington Lido during WWII.
The blurb:
Love and Loss at the Beach HotelCan true love win the day?
Hetty Affleck is working as a maid at the prestigious Beach Hotel in Littlehampton. Her beau, Lorcan, is away at war and has recently stopped replying to her letters but she is determined to keep her spirits up. When she meets wealthy shipbuilder's son Victor Perryman, they pass the time of day and they both feel a connection but she can’t allow herself to think anything more of it - not only does she have Lorcan to think of, but she and Victor are divided by wealth and class.
Yet they meet again and Hetty is charmed and intrigued by Victor and his openness towards her. It becomes harder to ignore the attachment growing between them.
When Lorcan comes back on leave, Hetty is forced to face her true feelings. Who does she really love, and can that love conquer everything in its path?
Fiction
Historical Romance
Historical Events in Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel: Fact and Fiction
Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel, along with the rest of the Beach Hotel series, is set in a real place: Littlehampton in West Sussex, on the south coast of England. This is the town where I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. When I was a child and youth there, the Beach Hotel sat on the vast grass common between the promenade and a long line of Victorian and Georgian houses known as South Terrace.
Most of the places and landmarks I mention in the books existed. The promenade with its entertainments, the pier, the riverside, the quay where Victor Perryman’s workshop is situated, the Harbour Tea Rooms by the river and the streets mentioned in the town were all real locations. Likewise, although what happens in the hotel with the staff and guests is fictional, some of the events around which their stories are spun really happened. With Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel, the events in the town at the time were a particular gift to the storyline.
The main event in this era was, of course, the Great War, a time of chaos everywhere. The lack of men at this time gave me an opportunity in the Beach Hotel series to show how the women took on roles unfamiliar to them, giving them challenges to overcome. Love and Loss at the Beach Hotel is set between July 1917 and April 1918, in a particular time of turmoil for Littlehampton. What happens to the main character, Hetty Affleck, and her fellow staff members at the Beach Hotel, involving the River Arun, is fictional. The events involving the river and its effect on the Littlehampton’s residents, however, really happened.
One of the incidents, the Admiralty blowing up the River Arun to widen it for ships, I know took place in 1917. It’s when in that year it took place that still remains a mystery to me, despite a diligent search. I finally enquired at the museum in Littlehampton, and they took on the quest, but had no more luck than I did. Eventually, I decided to place it in November of that year.
The second river related event in the book, the extensive flood, I found out occurred on 22nd January 1918, and so that’s when it happens in the novel. The Arun had always been prone to flooding and was so for many decades afterwards. In real life, the 1918 flood, blamed by some on the Admiralty’s earlier blowing up of the Arun, was a huge problem for the shipbuilding industry. And so it is in the novel for Hetty’s potential sweetheart, Victor Perryman, and his father, owners of shipbuilding businesses.
The public meeting about the flood which occurred on 30th January 1918 in the novel, involving the port commissioners, the Admiralty and the council, also occurred in real life. I could only find an outline of what was said, but it’s clear that the public was angry and that nobody would take responsibility. The conversation at the meeting in the novel is itself fictional, but I think it conveys the essence of what took place.
It was certainly an interesting time in Littlehampton’s history, which leant itself well to Hetty and Victor’s story, as the explosions and floods complicate what is an already tricky situation for them.
| Author Bio – Francesca Capaldi |
|---|
 Francesca has enjoyed writing since she was a child. Born in Worthing and brought up in Littlehampton in Sussex, she was largely influenced by a Welsh mother who loved to tell improvised stories. A history graduate and qualified teacher, she decided to turn her writing hobby into something more in 2006, when she joined a writing class. Writing as both Francesca Capaldi and Francesca Burgess, she has had many short stories published in magazines in the UK and abroad, along with several pocket novels published by DC Thomson. Her Welsh World War 1 sagas were inspired by the discovery of the war record of her great grandfather, a miner in South Wales. Heartbreak in the Valleys was a finalist in the Historical Romance category of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Awards (RoNAs) in 2021. Her latest series, The Beach Hotel, is set in her own childhood town, where her Italian father had a café on the riverside. The first in that series, A New Start at the Beach Hotel, won the Romantic Saga Award in the RoNAs in 2024. Francesca is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. She currently lives on the North Downs in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando Calrission. |
| Social Media Links – | |
| Web site | https://www.francesca-capaldi.com/ |
| https://www.instagram.com/francesca.capaldi.burgess/ | |
| TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@francesca.capaldi.author |
| Facebook Author Page | https://www.facebook.com/FrancescaCapaldiAuthor |
| X | https://x.com/FCapaldiBurgess |
No comments:
Post a Comment