Jern began the book in Thailand, then returned to Devon to walk its lanes, look at its wells and churchyards, and settle the details that make the fictional village of Coplestone Cross feel real. This month, she writes about the old places that keep their stories—and the questions that make their way into hers.
Jern’s update
Devon is a fascinating place, although I suspect it would consider fascinating a rather unnecessary word for something that has managed perfectly well without my opinion for several thousand years.
Some of its villages seem to linger in time. Preservation wins quiet little battles over modernisation; cottages keep their uneven walls, lanes remain confidently too narrow for modern cars, and a chimney leaning at an angle that would alarm any sensible engineer is not considered a structural problem but a feature of historic character. Add ivy and a brass plaque, and it may become important enough that nobody is allowed to straighten it ever again.
On the surface, these villages appear wonderfully coherent. They unite under common causes: cream tea, complaints about the weather, opposition to inappropriate window frames, and the firm conviction that everyone else is driving too quickly through the village.
But beneath that agreement, every place keeps its own private collection of stories.
There are tales of women heard crying beneath the ground, old wells that should not be disturbed, stones that remember promises, and figures glimpsed where the road disappears into rain. The stories change from village to village, and sometimes from one side of the same village to the other. One family tells it as a warning. Another insists it happened to an aunt. Someone else dismisses the entire thing as nonsense, then quietly leaves flowers beside the well.
Perhaps that is what happens when a village is old enough. Stories accumulate like moss. Most disappear when the people who told them are gone, but a few survive—altered, argued over, and polished smooth by generations of retelling. I find myself wondering about the first person who told each one. What did they see? What were they trying to explain? And, perhaps more importantly, what did they want everyone else to stay away from?
I began writing Mermaid’s Fury, the fourth Treggan Bay mystery, while I was still in Thailand. The draft came with a healthy population of asterisks: check the path, check the stone, check whether that sort of village well would still exist, check whether a scream could carry that far in the rain. Very reassuring things to leave for one’s future self on another continent.
So that is how I spent much of July: walking through old villages, looking at wells, footpaths, leaning chimneys and damp churchyards, and quietly finalising the little details that make Noah and Leo’s visit to Coplestone Cross feel real.
The best research, I’ve decided, is a quiet walk through a village at the end of the day, when the lanes are empty and the windows begin to glow. Everything looks peaceful.
Which is, of course, when you start wondering what the village remembers.
– Jern
Eddie’s update
While Jern was walking village lanes and checking wells, I was at the other end of our small publishing operation: maps, proofs, sample files, retailer pages, and the many small checks that sit between a finished story and a book readers can open.
We do this as two people. Jern writes the stories; I help edit and publish them. That can feel very small beside the machinery of publishing, but one of the nicest things this month was watching a Kobo promotion for the first Treggan Bay mystery lead to readers choosing Books 2 and 3—and even preordering Book 4.
The numbers are not enormous. The people are real, and someone wanted to keep going.
That is the part of publishing I want us to keep doubling down on: Jern’s voice, patient books, and real readers finding their way from one village mystery to the next.
– Eddie
Mermaid’s Fury is out now
The old fire was blamed on a mermaid.
In Mermaid’s Fury, shell offerings, an impossible scream, and a dead newspaper file draw Noah and Leo towards the truth behind a 1961 fire in Coplestone Cross.
The fourth Treggan Bay mystery is an atmospheric, clue-led old-case puzzle with village folklore, hidden family history, and Noah and Leo investigating together.
The book page has the free Chapter 5 sample, Series reading order, and current store links.
Latest and next
Out now
- Mermaid’s Fury — Treggan Bay Mysteries Book 4
At the desk
- The fifth Treggan Bay mystery — in its final editorial pass
In closing
Thank you for coming back to Treggan Bay with us.
Thanks, Jern and Eddie Tonkoi