In September, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of visiting the UK — to meet my publisher and see my novels on foreign shelves.

The trip had been planned for months but as it happened, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth passed away just before we were due to fly out of Australia. We arrived in London the day before her funeral — a truly sombre and historic time to touch down. Straight from Heathrow, while ambling around waiting for our accomodation to be ready, we found ourselves swept up into a long (and very orderly) line of mourners passing directly by the gates of Buckingham Palace to lay bouquets and bears in Green Park’s sea of flowers.

The evening before the Queen’s funeral, from our apartment in Draycott Place, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, we watched a magnificent sunset rainbow over London…

We had hoped to catch some small glimpse of the funeral procession the next day, but we’d never have guessed just how close we would come…

Everything was closed on September 19th, and the streets were eerily quiet as we wandered in the direction of the Natural History Museum.

We followed our feet on into Hyde Park, thinking we might get to at least hear some of the event. At this point, we noticed a cordoned off street and a small police presence, and people milling around sharing phone screens.

There were no real crowds gathered at that stage, so we went and stood behind the cordon, enjoying our coffees and croissants from the Serpentine Lido Cafe while waiting to see what might happen next.

Slowly and respectfully, people began to appear around and beside us, until soon we realised we had bumbled our way into a front row position for the funeral procession! (It felt like such an Aussie thing to do.)

When Queen Elizabeth passed by, on her final journey to Windsor, we were only metres away. One of the most moving moments of my life.

There was a camera opposite us, and thus my own family watching 15,000 km away in Australia were able to pick us out of the crowd. We felt like extras on a faraway film set, in some strange dream.

This sense of having stepped into something half way between movie and dream, did not abate for the rest of the trip…

Meeting with my publisher, Bonnier Books UK, in the stunning Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, was a career highlight. Exactly the kind of thing an aspiring author daydreams about when still querying agents and submitting manuscripts to slush piles.

It was definitely what this author fantasised about when she was locked away at home with four kids during the pandemic, editing her debut novel. To be published during worldwide pandemic lockdowns is a surreal and perhaps tempered experience of the publishing dream. Bookstores and borders closed, international travel at a standstill, events gone virtual, or virtually impossible.

But I got there in the end.

Likewise, the dream of seeing my novels on bookstore shelves in a whole other country was every bit as wonderful as hoped. Never in my life have I seen so many beautiful bookstores. Having read my debut novel, Those Hamilton Sisters, you will already know what I think about rambling bookstores with floor to ceiling shelves, serving tea, with BOOK LADDERS! Imagine my utter joy, then, to sign my own novel in one. Topping & Company Booksellers in Edinburgh topped my list of stunning bookshops…

Another dream-come-true bookstore was the Scrivener’s Books and Binding in Buxton. Five rambling floors full of books in the most gorgeous shop you ever did see…

While I was touring the UK, I also donated some signed editions of my novels.

This is something I like to do regularly in Australia —send my books out into the world, to magically find their readers.

(This is totally a thing; books choose people. More on this, in a moment.)

I left books everywhere from a second hand store in the Lakes District, to a charity shop in York, and a red phone box book exchange in the Cotswolds.

Sorry, I should have shouted that, too:

RED PHONE BOX BOOK EXCHANGE.

A Dove Cottage visit, for Esther Hamilton

As if all that weren't enchanting enough, I fianlly made it to Hay-on-Wye in Wales, the world’s first Book Town, where I was able to leave signed books IN A CASTLE…

Not just any castle, but Hay Castle! (Barbara Erskine fans will surely understand the elation.)

While in Hay, a book chose me. I knew there would be a book in Hay, waiting just for me. I had been saying it the whole trip. (You’re welcome, everyone.)

It was true, though. I walked into Hay on Wye Booksellers on Castle Street — directly opposite Hay Castle — and pulled this 1962 edition of a beloved book from the shelf: Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery. I’d never seen this cover before and I was already besotted and walking to the checkout with it, when I opened the book to read the inscription…

With love to Averil.
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And that, Dear Reader, even made up for Mr Darcy not being in at Chatsworth House when I called to see him swimming in his little pond…

xx Averil

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Literary Odyssey

With love to Averil.*

With love to Averil.
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