Location, location, location! Ali Bacon gets her head around the streets – and the actual house – where much of her novel takes place
Iconic: Edinburgh from Calton Hill I’ve always thought setting a book in a famous city gives it a head start. The skyline and the iconic views, familiar to most readers, present us with an instant connection to our audience. Assuming of course we get it right - woe betide the writer who gets a street name wrong or transports the gets the hero/ine across town on the wrong bus! So there’s always a case for making the place as much of a fiction as the characters and adjusting the geography to suit. Of course the really successful writer (especially one who can conjure up a long-running detective series!) will add seriously to that city’s cachet and tourist offering. D. O. Hill (Image Preus Museum Norway) In the Blink of an Eye , which recreates the life of an Edinburgh artist – compelled me to use a city I knew as a visitor rather than a native, with the added difficulty of going back nearly 200 years. As a newcomer to historical...