Author Picks: 6 Transporting Books Set in the English Countryside

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Patti Callahan Henry is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author of several novels. A full-time author and mother of three, she lives in Alabama and South Carolina. Find out more at PattiCallahanHenry.com.

We often read novels to become lost in the landscape of another world, and one of my favorite destinations is the English countryside. When I find a novel that takes me to the rolling hills and jagged sea cliffs, to the hedgerows and hidden gardens of England, I am as good as gone. There is a certain mystique surrounding the geography of the English countryside, and the best novels capture that tender charm while immersing us in a riveting story.

When I sat down to write The Secret Book of Flora Lea, set in Oxfordshire in the hamlet of Binsey, I was inspired by the books with a similar captivating setting. Here are some of my favorites! These books, each in a different time and place, explore that enchanting world.

The Secret Keeper
by Kate Morton

A riveting story of three women from vastly different worlds unfolds as a decade’s old secret comes to the surface. But it all begins with a shocking scene of childhood in an idyllic British countryside that feels as real as the earth beneath your feet. In signature Kate Morton style, the passages describing the landscape read like poetry. This is one of her many novels set in Suffolk, and it grips the imagination.

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The Secret Keeper
Kate Morton

Sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson witnessed a shocking crime that challenged everything she knows about her adored mother. Now reunited on their mother’s ninetieth birthday, Laurel and her sisters search for clues to illuminate the truth about that long-ago day. It is a mesmerizing novel of family secrets, murder, and enduring love.

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Dawnlands
by Philippa Gregory

The third in the Fairmile series, DAWNLANDS is set in 1680s England during the reign of the Stuart kings. This novel has it all: palace intrigue, lovers scorned and lovers reunited, heroism and cowardice. Following one family and their many branches, DAWNLANDS takes us to the Somerset Levels, a coastal plain that is both desolate and haunting. To say I am anxiously waiting for the next book in the series is an understatement. 

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Dawnlands
Philippa Gregory

The “sweeping” (Parade) and “superb” (People) Fairmile series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory continues as the fiercely independent Alinor and her family find themselves entangled in palace intrigue, political upheaval, and life-changing secrets in 17th-century England.

It is 1685, England is on the brink of a renewed civil war against the Stuart kings and many families are bitterly divided. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister, Alinor, that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant, Rowan, to join the rebel army. Instead, Alinor has been coaxed by the manipulative Livia to save the queen from the coming siege. The rewards are life-changing: the family could return to their beloved Tidelands, and Alinor could rule where she was once lower than a servant.

Alinor’s son, Rob, is determined to stay clear of the war, but when he and his nephew set out to free Ned from execution for treason and Rowan from a convict deportation to Barbados, they find themselves enmeshed in the creation of an imposter Prince of Wales—a surrogate baby to the queen.

From the last battle in the desolate Somerset Levels to the hidden caves on the slave island of Barbados, this third volume of an epic story follows a family from one end of the empire to another, to find a new dawn in a world which is opening up before them with greater rewards and dangers than ever before.

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I Capture the Castle
by Dodie Smith

This 1948 classic has a near-cult following and was made into a film in 2003. Set near Godsend, a small English country village, this story introduces us to the Mortmain family when they move into a ruined castle. The father is a famous author with writer’s block, and the narrator of the novel, seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, is an aspiring author herself. The plan was for the castle to be a Bohemian home for the eccentric family, paid for with their father’s royalties, but now the castle is crumbling and so is the Mortmain family. Cassandra’s narrative brims with dry wit, humor, and heartbreak, all the while reveling in the beauty of the British countryside.

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I Capture the Castle
Dodie Smith

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The Whalebone Theatre
by Joanna Quinn

This is one of the most immersive novels I’ve read in years. It’s set in a crumbling Dorset estate on a cliff over the sea, and I felt the splash of every wave, envisioned each jagged edge cliff, and ran through a field of bluebells. Cristabel Seagrave narrates the bulk of this coming-of-age (and yet so much more) novel with her crisp and imaginative voice. This is a true feat of captivating storytelling, and the English countryside is a character in its own right, just as it should be.

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The Whalebone Theatre
Joanna Quinn

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Once Upon a River
by Diane Setterfield

Taking place along the River Thames, Setterfield’s third book is about a mysterious girl who returns to life after drowning in the river. Haunting and mysterious, this novel tells the story of three separate families who claim this young mute girl as their own. The English countryside brings an atmospheric quality to this tale that combines myth, folklore, and science. When I was finished, I felt as if I had stayed in an old stone cottage in the small village of Radcot, where the story opens.

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Once Upon a River
Diane Setterfield

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The House on the Strand
by Daphne du Maurier

I picked up this book when I was visiting the enchanting seaside on the Cornish coast and wanted to read a book about the area. I didn’t expect this gem of a novel. A haunting tale that is part time travel, part true history, part love story, and completely page turning. When a University of London chemical researcher drinks a potion and finds himself in the same spot he was moments ago, but now in the fourteenth century, he becomes addicted to the thrill of the past while slowly letting go of the present. As you might guess, there are consequences. The seascapes and ancient history of Cornwall are ever present, and the novel is practically splashed with sea salt.

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The House on the Strand
Daphne du Maurier

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The Secret Book of Flora Lea
by Patti Callahan Henry

THE SECRET BOOK OF FLORA LEA comes out on May 2! Check out Patti Callahan Henry's website for more details about a preorder prize pack!

When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed.

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The Secret Book of Flora Lea
Patti Callahan Henry

When a woman stumbles across a mysterious children’s book, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed in this “transporting, heartfelt, and atmospheric” (Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author) novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Surviving Savannah and Becoming Mrs. Lewis.

1939: Fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora evacuate their London home for a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the Aberdeen family in a charming stone cottage, Hazel distracts her young sister with a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own: Whisperwood.

But the unthinkable happens when Flora suddenly vanishes after playing near the banks of the River Thames. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, carrying the guilt into adulthood.

Twenty years later, Hazel is back in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore for a career at Sotheby’s. With a cherished boyfriend and an upcoming Paris getaway, Hazel’s future seems set. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing a picture book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel never told a soul about the storybook world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years? Or is something sinister at play?

For fans of Kate Morton, Janet Skeslien Charles, and Kristin Hannah, this is a “fantastical” (Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author) celebration of sisterhood and the magic of storytelling wrapped up in a “heartrending, captivating tale of family, first love, and fate” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).

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Photo credit: iStock / RachelDewis

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