In all my fiction, one truth is apparent: I am passionate about travel. Kenya, Italy, Spain, France, Britain, Ireland, the Greek Islands, Egypt – all these countries, and more – are places that have inspired my writing.
Here are five places you can visit by reading one of my books.
Las Ramblas, Barcelona
Novel: Legacy
In my latest book, the protagonists meet as strangers in the big, bustling, vibrant city of Barcelona. Here is a glimpse of the heroine’s impressions of Las Ramblas, the busy main street:
The brightly lit promenade, adorned with plane trees, was seething with a river of people. As she joined the cosmopolitan throng, it felt like all of the action – Barcelona’s entire nightlife – was centred on this wide, tree-lined street, from cosy traditional Spanish bars and restaurants to clubs lit up with neon. The hubbub was indescribable. … Luna could barely take in the staggering parade of diversions. There were booksellers, souvenir stands, flamenco dancers, clowns and acrobats. A dozen street performers, painted bronze or white like statues, wowed the crowds in a fantastic array of costumes, some standing or sitting, others moving in jerky mime.
The Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya
Novel: Burning Embers
The Masai Mara is a vast game reserve in Narok County, Kenya, where visitors can see so many wild animals in their natural habitat: lions and leopards and cheetahs and zebras and wildebeest and the Thomson’s gazelle. In Burning Embers, my characters have a spectacular opportunity to view the Masai Mara from on high, with a hot-air balloon ride:
Gradually the mist had lifted, and the sun burst forth, a ball of fire radiating the sky with unnaturally incandescent hues. Coral was reminded of the strident brushwork and wild colors of the Fauvist paintings that filled her mother’s gallery, which Coral had always loved. The scene was now set for the show to begin: the drama in which the broad, breath-taking landscapes of Africa were the stage and the animals the actors.
Pamplona, Spain
Novel: Masquerade
Pamplona is a beautiful city that is known internationally for a single event: the Running of the Bulls. This is a very old tradition in which six bulls are let loose in the old quarter of the town’s streets and people attempt to outrun them before they reach the bullring, a distance of 825 metres. The Encierro lasts only two and a half minutes or so, but so much occurs in that time. It is what Ernest Hemingway called a ‘wonderful nightmare’.
Piazza San Marco, Venice
Novel: The Echoes of Love
Napoleon called St Mark’s Square in Venice ‘the drawing room of Europe’. Certainly, it is always busy, because it is so popular with tourists (and with pigeons, I may add!). They come for good reason: to see the stunning Byzantine architecture of St Mark’s Basilica, its imposing Campanile bell tower with gold archangel Gabriel weathervane, and the early-Renaissance clock tower. They also flock to the oldest coffee house in the world, Caffè Florian, whose clientele has included Balzac, Goethe, Casanova, Lord Byron, Proust, Stravinsky, Rousseau and Dickens.
The Alhambra, Granada, Spain
Novel: Indiscretion
This complex of palaces has a fairy-tale feel right out of the Arabian Nights. It was built by the Moors on a steep wooded hill during the mid-14th century, and it is the very pinnacle of their architecture, a glorification of a long-distant past. Here, within these silent walls, where the shadows and echoes of the past confront one at every step, where the ghosts of emirs, slaves and beautiful princesses move through the corridors with silent footsteps; here in this wonderful and mystery-laden atmosphere dwells romance.
About Legacy
A troubled young journalist finds her loyalties tested when love and desire unearth dark secrets from the past.
Spring, 2010. When Luna Ward, a science journalist from New York, travels halfway across the world to work undercover at an alternative health clinic in Cadiz, her ordered life is thrown into turmoil.
The doctor she is to investigate, the controversial Rodrigo Rueda de Calderon, is not what she expected. With his wild gypsy looks and devilish sense of humour, he is intent upon drawing her to him. But how can she surrender to a passion that threatens all reason; and how could he ever learn to trust her when he discovers her true identity? Then Luna finds that Ruy is carrying a corrosive secret of his own…
Luna’s native Spanish blood begins to fire in this land of exotic legends, flamboyant gypsies and seductive flamenco guitars, as dazzling Cadiz weaves its own magic on her heart. Can Luna and Ruy’s love survive their families’ legacy of feuding and tragedy, and rise like the phoenix from the ashes of the past?
Legacy is a story of truth, dreams and desire. But in a world of secrets, you need to be careful what you wish for…
Legacy is available to buy now.
About Hannah Fielding
Hannah Fielding is an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: writing full time at her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breathtaking views of the Mediterranean.
Hannah is a multi-award-winning novelist, and to date, she has published five novels: Burning Embers, ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’, set in Kenya; The Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story that is beautifully told’ set in Italy; and the Andalusian Nights Trilogy – Indiscretion, Masquerade and Legacy – her fieriest novels yet, set in sunny, sultry Spain.
About Hannah Fielding
Hannah Fielding is an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: writing full time at her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breathtaking views of the Mediterranean.
Hannah is a multi-award-winning novelist, and to date, she has published five novels: Burning Embers, ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’, set in Kenya; The Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story that is beautifully told’ set in Italy; and the Andalusian Nights Trilogy – Indiscretion, Masquerade and Legacy – her fieriest novels yet, set in sunny, sultry Spain.
For more information about Hannah and her work, please visit her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads.
Which of these places do you wish you could visit? Let me know in the comments below!
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