RHYS BOWEN: When you read this I'll be on a plane, about to land in London. It will be a short trip just long enough for John to visit his sister in Cornwall and for a few days in London. We'll be seeing family and maybe doing a little shopping (and eating cream teas, Cornish pasties, full English breakfast and all those delicious things that make your cardiologist turn pale.)
This was supposed to include a trip to Scotland, to check on sites for the novel I'm writing at the moment, FROM SEA TO SKYE, but we both felt that John was not up to changing trains and going through rugged scenery. So my trip to Skye has to be entirely in my head this time.
Luckily I have been there and can picture all the scenery and there are all kinds of wonderful tools to remind me of the island. I've been gazing at the map, watching YouTube videos and spent most of last week on Google Earth. As you know, I like to keep things as accurate as possible, so I've been checking on exactly what I would see at any point in a journey from A to B on Skye. The one thing that is very clear to me is that there are so few people on the island, apart from summer visitors who come in campers. It truly is a remote and fairly hostile sort of place--bare hillsides, steep and craggy mountains and a few tiny villages, even today.
And the weather? I remember the weather so clearly. We had had a glorious week driving through Scotland. We took the ferry across to Skye with the view of the mountainous island ahead of us, and watched a magnificent sunset. It was indeed a magical sort of place. The next morning the mist had come in and had blotted out every single feature on the island. We drove around with me in the back seat, reading from the guidebook :To our left is probably the best view of the magnificent Cuillin mountains..
"Shut up," the other occupants of the car snapped. We could see literally ten feet around the car and that was it. So I never saw the famous rock formation or the Cuillins close up. We stayed three days with permanent rain, mist, cloud and finally gave up and retreated back to the mainland. So now I'm seeing the sights I missed via YouTube. Thank heavens for the internet.
I'm almost finished with the first draft and there will be a lot of editing and shifting scenes around because it's a book within a book--an old woman who is writing a story we think is fiction, but turns out to be fact. So I've a character in 1965 reading a story set in 1935 but that really took place in 1903. Yes, it's complicated!
Here is a snippet to whet your interest:
Excerpt from THE WILD GIRL, by Iris Blackburn
When McIntyre saw the size of the car ferry he was even more grateful that he had not accepted the offer of a vehicle. This car ferry was a recent addition to the crossing but it was not a huge steamer, rather a flat bottomed crate that didn’t look as if it was sea worthy, with space for only two cars at once. He watched a driver trying to maneuver his delivery van on board while the swell of the sea lifted the ramp up and down.
To his relief he found that the passenger ferry to the island was a bigger craft, a proper steamer that looked seaworthy. He paid his money and walked on board, taking a seat at the prow of the vehicle. Across a strait of shining silver water he saw the island, a low shoreline rising to a chain of blue-grey mountains in the distance. It was a fine blustery spring day and whitecaps dotted the sea. Remembering the way his stomach had reacted on that coach ride as a boy he hoped he was not prone to sea-sickness. It would be ironic since his father had spent his life building boats, although to McIntyre’s knowledge his dad had never actually been on one.
Exactly on the hour the gangplank was raised, the engine sputtered to life and the boat moved away from the dock. As it met the oncoming waves it rose and fell, sending fine spray over the side and making McIntyre hastily move into the center. He found he was holding his breath, waiting for the sea-sickness to strike. When it didn’t he looked around, rather surprised. The other passengers across from him, two women with shopping baskets and local tweed shawls wrapped over their heads and shoulders, a man with a suitcase and an older couple, were chatting easily as if this crossing on the wild seas was the most normal thing in the world. McIntyre heard the soft Gaelic sounds of their speech, so different from the harsh Glasgow dialect. It look him a while to realize they were actually speaking Gaelic, not English and he found himself wondering if he’d be able to communicate once he got to Skye. Surely all school children had to learn English, didn’t they?
Once away from shore the boat settled into a more gentle rhythm, rocking from side to side as it turned toward the island, as if it was in a giant cradle. Unbidden the words of a song came to McIntyre—a song learned by every school child in Scotland. Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing, onward the sailors cry. Carry the lad who was born to be king over the sea to Skye.
The Skye Boat song, telling of Bonnie Prince Charlie, escaping from the English after his failed attempt to gain the throne. He’d been assisted by the local Scots and got away safely after risking the stormy sea crossing, remaining a romantic figure for all Scots. Anything that defied the English was treasured here in Scotland, where they were still seen as the invaders and conquerors after all those hundreds of years. As McIntyre hummed along to the rocking of the boat a strange felling came over him. His first time leaving the shores of his birth, being transported, like Bonnie Prince Charlie, over the sea to Skye. It almost felt like a rite of passage, as if he was leaving the shackles of his past life behind him and was somehow being reborn, free to be the person he wanted.
The story takes place in an inhabited castle and there are several for inspiration. Such atmosphere. I'm having fun writing it.
So fellow writers especially, who uses Google Earth? Isn't it wonderful, how you can go down to street level and there you are? I love it.
From Sea to Skye comes out July 2026.
