The one where Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop is published

It’s publication day today! Yay! Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop is available in all formats – print, digital and audio – from today and I’m feeling my usual mixture of excitement and nerves.

Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop is a return to Whitsborough Bay’s Castle Street in the run-up to Christmas and tells the story of bookshop co-owner, Lily Appleton, who needs an extra pair of hands in Bay Books while her dad, Marcus, is out of action for a few months. When Lars Jóhannsson applies for the job, he’s the perfect candidate … or would be if it wasn’t for how he behaved towards Lily in the past.

Here's the blurb:

It's the most wonderful time of the year at Bay Books, and a new love story is being written in the stars...

Nestled amongst the comforting shelves of her beloved Bay Books, Lily Appleton finds the peace and quiet she needs. But with Christmas just around the corner, Lily has to find an extra pair of hands to help her share the bookish magic.

After selling his business, Lars Jóhannsson is feeling lost. A job at Bay Books would give him the space he needs to contemplate his next move, but returning would mean confronting a painful past he's been avoiding. He’s also fairly sure he’s the one person Lily would never want to see again.

Lily is torn. Lars could be the perfect fit for Bay Books, but he once rejected her friendship and the hurt still lingers. But working together, Lily discovers a vulnerability that Lars has kept hidden away, along with a few surprising secrets. And as the Christmas season sprinkles its magic, Lily discovers the warmth of renewed friendship and the joy of heartwarming traditions from Lars’s Icelandic roots.

Surrounded by the quiet magic of the season and the soft glow of festive lights, perhaps there’s even the possibility of finding a love as enchanting as the Northern Lights on a winter's night.

As well as being a romantic second chance story, Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop is my love letter to books and the power of reading. I loved immersing myself in the world of Bay Books – a Castle Street shop I’ve had on my radar since the very beginnings of Whitsborough Bay but whose story wasn’t quite right to tell until now.

It’s always a joy to return to Castle Street, to mention some of the other retailers there and, if possible, to give some insights into how their lives have moved on. I say ‘if possible’ because I would never want to shoehorn an update in. If it’s there, it has to be because that individual and what’s going on in their life feels a natural part of the new story I’m telling. One trader fitted the bill this time but I won’t say who; that’s for you to discover and enjoy for yourself.

Although most of the novel is set in the bookshop or on Castle Street, readers spend time with Lily and Lars in their homes. While Lily’s home comes purely from my imagination, Lars’s new home is inspired by a real place…

Whitsborough Bay itself is partially inspired by Scarborough where I live and there are several pretty villages nearby. Separated only by the River Derwent, we have East Ayton and West Ayton which I’ve combined into one village to create Hutton Wicklow, the name of which was inspired by the nearby villages of Hutton Buscel (pronounced bushel) and Wykeham.

Near the real East and West Ayton are the ruins of Ayton Castle which feature in Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop as Hutton Wicklow Castle – a place that’s very special to Lars. I mention a walk he used to take with his nanna from the river to the castle, across some fields and along a boardwalk by the river through an area called Hutton Valley. This is inspired by a real walk from Ayton Castle through an area called Forge Valley. It’s a lovely walk which I did a couple of times with my brownie pack when I was a Brown Owl in the 2010s. Sadly, the boardwalk has fallen into a state of disrepair. Riverbank erosion resulted in large sections collapsing and it therefore being unsafe. It’s a shame to see it so rotten and overgrown now but Google tells me the local park authorities are looking at a longer-term solution for repairs or replacement, which is good to hear.

Hutton Valley Lane where Lars moves to is inspired by a road called Castlegate where there are some lovely houses with amazing views over the castle and the surrounding countryside. One of the really special features of Castlegate is a much beloved character – Paddington Bear. He was chainsaw carved by Karl Barker of Yorkshire Carvings and commissioned by the Ayton Jubilee Committee in memory of Queen Elizabeth II. Paddington was chosen, of course, because of the wonderful sketch where Her Majesty and Paddington take tea together during her Platinum Jubilee Celebrations (70 years on the throne) in 2022, the year in which she sadly passed away. Even though Paddington Bear doesn’t feature in Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop either in book form or statue form, he was still eager to support my publication day and have a read with me.

I mention several books in Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop, some real and some fictional. The real one which features the most is Lily’s favourite – Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. This is a book I read and loved when I was younger, supported by the gorgeous 1980s miniseries of the same name starring Megan Follows as Anne Shirley and Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert Blythe. Have you seen it? I used to have it on video but I cleared my videos out long ago. It took some tracking down but I eventually found a replacement copy on DVD and immersed myself in the series again in the name of research while also re-reading the book.

I already had a hardback of the first book and a paperback which I’d bought for my daughter but which remained unread as she couldn’t get into the language of the time and was therefore passed back to me. I couldn’t resist adding a beautiful series boxset to my collection.

There are some wonderful quotes in Anne of Green Gables and I use several of them in Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop, including this one at the start:

I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I am going to believe that the best does

Isn’t that fabulous? It’s appropriate for Lily’s story but also appropriate for life. I was delighted to find several Anne of Green Gables quotes captured on small metal signs by Ava Loves Rosie. You can find their Anne of Green Gables merch here.

My publication day biscuits arrived but it’s the first time ever I haven’t troughed them on publication day because I was going out for lunch with authors Sharon Booth and Eliza J Scott – a prolonged get-together which includes a warm cheese scone (mmmm), lunch a bit later, and cake even later, so I wanted to make sure I hadn’t filled my pudding stomach. I will look forward to having them tomorrow.

Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop is off on a blog tour but something a bit different this time – a shorter, Instagram-based tour – so my huge thank you in advance to those reviewers involved in that tour and any lovely bloggers for whom my books have become an auto-read. I’m so grateful for the support.

My final thanks to everyone who has pre-ordered or bought/borrowed Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop today. There’s a massive lag these days on the Amazon charts so it’s already evening and I haven’t seen any position move yet, but hopefully it will have a leap up the charts later tonight. I was delighted to see it in the top 10 of the Apple Books Romance chart (#7) and just outside the top 30 (#32) in the overall Apple Books chart first thing this morning.

Big hugs
Jessica xx

.