I grew up in Norfolk, the setting of both of my novels and most of my family are still there, in or around Norwich. One of my favourite books as a child, When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson, was one of the inspirations for The Marsh House. It’s a book that was turned into an animated film by Studio Ghibli, about a lonely girl who meets a ghost in an old house.
Zoe Sommerville by Beata Cosgrove
After university, I went to live in Japan for a year in a small town on the Japan Sea. I was one of only ten foreigners living there. I taught English at eight different schools, from tiny children to teenagers, including one school with only 6 pupils high up a mountain and one school on an island, famous for its cows.
In 1999, I travelled overland across Asia by bus and train, from Kolkata in India to Istanbul, Turkey, passing through Pakistan, Iran and Georgia on the way. One of the highlights was visiting the incredibly beautiful, mountainous Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan, watching polo (the favourite sport of the area), climbing over glaciers and seeing apricots drying on rooftops and the Hindu Kush mountain range and apricots drying on rooftops. The valley is supposed to be the model for the mythical valley, Shangri-La and I can well believe it.
I had my first child in America. We were working in Washington, D.C. and living in Maryland. Our son is an American citizen! We also got married in America, in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia.
I’m allergic to peanuts and was once on an overnight trek through the jungle in Thailand and accidentally ate something with peanuts in. My sister and I had to be escorted back through the jungle in the middle of the night to the nearest hospital. The next night, which was New Year’s Eve, we were in a nearby town when it happened again. This was before Epipens were easily available! Luckily, the Thai health service was amazing, but I don’t think my sister has ever forgiven me.
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When I was ten I read all of Agatha Christie’s Poirot novels and my dream was to become a novelist!
I was once bitten by a scorpion that had got into my pillow case on holiday in France!
About The Marsh House
Part ghost story, part novel of suspense The Marsh House is the haunting second novel from the author of The Night of the Flood where two women, separated by decades, are drawn together by one, mysterious house on the North Norfolk coast.
December, 1962
Desperate to salvage something from a disastrous year, Malorie rents a remote house on the Norfolk coast for Christmas. But once there, the strained silence between her and her daughter, Franny, feels louder than ever. Digging for decorations in the attic, she comes across the notebooks of the teenaged Rosemary, who lived in the house years before. Though she knows she needs to focus on the present, Malorie finds herself inexorably drawn into the past…
July, 1931
Rosemary lives in the Marsh House with her austere father, surrounded by unspoken truths and rumours. So when the glamorous Lafferty family move to the village, she succumbs easily to their charm. Dazzled by the beautiful Hilda and her dashing brother, Franklin, Rosemary fails to see the danger that lurks beneath their bright façades… As Malorie reads on, the boundaries between past and present begin to blur, in this haunting novel about family, obligation and deeply buried secrets.
The Marsh House by Zoe Somerville is published by Head of Zeus [Apollo Fiction] and is out now in hardback, RRP £18.99
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