Fact or fiction? St Ives or St Felix? by Ali McNamara
Fact or fiction? St Ives or St Felix?
When I first set out to create a fictional Cornish seaside town for my novel The Little Flower Shop by the Sea, I knew I had to base it on St Ives. I’ve taken more holidays in this beautiful Cornish resort than anywhere else, and even now not many years pass without a visit there – be it in spring, autumn or winter. We tend to avoid the height of summer; it gets very busy and very expensive to rent a property then!
I didn’t want to use the real St Ives to set my first story in, because when you write about an actual place it’s important to stay true to the location (otherwise someone will always point out where you’ve gone wrong!) and it can often be limiting to what you want to write about. But St Felix (named after my friend’s son who was born while I was writing Little Flower Shop!) is still pretty close to the real St Ives. It has the same harbour with a little lighthouse at the end and its main shops – including Poppy’s flower shop and Kate’s craft shop from my new book – are on Harbour Street, which in real life is inspired by the infamous Fore Street in St Ives where all the lovely art galleries, craft and gift shops are based, along with the many Cornish pasty shops which St Felix and St Ives both share an abundance of!
St Felix, like St Ives, is set on a peninsula that juts out into the sea, so it’s surrounded by water on three sides, and many of the locations the characters visit are exactly the same in both towns – for example in Kate and Clara’s Curious Cornish Craft Shop Kate and Jack, the two main characters, share a few tender moments up on a hill with a little chapel at the top looking out to sea. This is exactly like The Island in St Ives with the beautiful but tiny St Nicholas chapel. Anyone who knows the town well will be able to picture exactly where the characters are at any one time, and anyone who doesn’t will hopefully be able to imagine exactly what St Ives is like.
I often reference the many surfers that frequent Porthmeor beach in St Ives in the stories, and in Daisy’s Vintage Cornish Camper Van the main character Ana arrives for the first time in St Felix by train, the same way many tourists and holidaymakers arrive in St Ives every year on the incredibly pretty coastal rail line which runs into the town.
In Kate and Clara’s Curious Cornish Craft Shop the story references the artist communities of both the 1950s and the present day which St Felix and St Ives share, and I based part of this story on the famous St Ives artist Alfred Wallis, who became Wilfred Jones in my story.
So far, I’ve set three novels in St Felix. I enjoy going back there to write about the residents, just as much as my readers seem to be enjoying revisiting it with me! And I’m sure this new novel won’t be the last time we visit St Felix together, or the last time I visit its inspiration, St Ives.
Ali McNamara
April 2020
Welcome to the glorious little Cornish town of St Felix - where romance and magic sparkle in the summer air
'An enchanting escape to the seaside. Pure magic!' Heidi Swain
'St Felix has stolen my heart yet again; a perfect, sparkling, summer read.' Cathy Bramley
Kate thinks all her wishes have come true when she opens her own little craft shop in the idyllic harbour town of St Felix.
But she soon finds a mystery lingers in her new shop - a sixty-year-old love story told through beautiful paintings and intricate embroideries.
Jack, the owner of the nearby art shop, volunteers to help Kate unravel the mystery, but in doing so they realise their own lives share some uncanny similarities with Clara and Arty, their 1950s counterparts . . .
Can Kate and Jack put right a decades-old wrong, and maybe find their own happy ending on the way?
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Praise for Ali McNamara:
'Fun and endearing' Katie Fforde
'Perfect easy reading' Sun
An irresistible, feel-good story infused with infectious humour' Miranda Dickins
'Funny and light-hearted' Heat
