- On Location in Yorkshire, UK

Yorkshire’s Flora and Fauna:

Bluebells, Gorse Bushes and dried Heather (this was taken in May. Come August the field will be covered in purple heather)

In Book 3, Harriet encounters everything from pheasants to fawns, and faces a particularly challenging case involving Highland cattle. In Book 9, it will be lambing season. 🙂

White Church Bay

The fictional village of White Church Bay is fashioned after the coastal village of Robin Hood’s Bay overlooking the North Sea. Harriet lives on the cliffs less than a mile north of town. The coast to coast trail crosses the back of the large farm property she inherited from her grandfather. And fields flanked by drystone walls surround the property.

the narrow “streets” between the houses in the lower Bay Area

White Church

The church depicted on this street was reimagined as a community church with a white-washed exterior based on a circa 1848 Wesleyan Chapel in Hull and an interior based on a church overlooking Robin Hood’s Bay that I was able to visit:

The interior was set up unlike any church I’d ever seen with a three tier pulpit area in the centre of the church and gated pews.

The Countryside

“The undulating hills weren’t as lush green as they’d been when she arrived in the spring, but the bilberry bushes were already fruiting. Their globe-shaped pink flowers dotted the low-lying shrubs and, even from the road, she could see the abundance of butterflies, damsel flies, and bees flitting about them. In another couple of weeks, the heather would bloom and paint the fields a glorious purple. Inhaling deeply, she revisited their light floral scent with musky undertones from her summer romps through the moors as a child.

The whistles, chirrups, and twitters of various birds drifted through her open windows, occasionally punctuated by a cock pheasant’s distinctive call.”