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The Cotswolds are an area of the UK that have been inspiring people for decades. With beautiful postcard-perfect villages and bustling market towns it is a wonderful part of the country so I’ve picked a few books that might inspire you to visit the Cotswolds.
Books to Inspire You to Visit The Cotswolds
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M.C. Beaton
High-flying public relations supremo Agatha Raisin has decided to take early retirement. She’s off to make a new life in a picture-perfect Cotswold village. To make friends, she enters the local quiche-making competition – and to make quite sure of first prize she secretly pays a visit to a London deli.
Alas, the competition judge succumbs after tasting her perfect quiche, and Agatha is revealed as a cheat and potential poisoner. Definitely not the best start. So Agatha must turn amateur sleuth – she’s absolutely got to track down the real killer!Â
Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee
Cider with Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity or cars, a timeless place on the verge of change.
Growing up amongst the fields and woods and characters of the place, Laurie Lee depicts a world that is both immediate and real and belongs to a now-distant past.
Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
Eugenia Malmains is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of Captain Jack and the Union Jackshirts; Noel and Jasper are both in search of an heiress (so much easier than trying to work for the money); Poppy and Marjorie are nursing lovelorn hearts; and the beautiful bourgeois Mrs Lace is on the prowl for someone near Eugenia’s fabulous country home at Chalford, and much farce ensues.
One of Nancy Mitford’s earliest novels, Wigs on the Green has been out of print for nearly seventy-five years. Nancy’s sisters Unity and Diana were furious with her for making fun of Diana’s husband, Oswald Moseley, and his politics, and the book caused a rift between them all that endured for years. Nancy Mitford skewers her family and their beliefs with her customary jewelled barbs, but there is froth, comedy and heart here too.
A Cotswold Killing by Rebecca Tope
Nestled in the fertile hills of the Cotswolds, the village of Duntisbourne Abbots is a well-kept secret: beautiful, timeless and quintessentially English. When recently widowed Thea Osborne arrives to house-sit for a local couple, her only fear is that three weeks there might prove a little dull. Her first night’s sleep at Brook View is broken by a piercing scream outside but she decides such things don’t require investigation in a sleepy place like this. At least not until a body turns up…
In calling on her neighbours to get some answers, Thea uncovers more tragedy and intrigue than she thought possible behind the peaceful Gloucestershire village. The first in a new series of thrillers to be set in the Cotswold area,
A Cotswold Killing takes the reader on a tense journey along winding roads and muddy paths towards a dramatic and unexpected denouement.
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
Flora Thompson’s immortal trilogy, containing “Lark Rise”, “Over To Candleford” and “Candleford Green”, is a heartwarming portrayal of country life at the close of the 19th century.
This story of three closely related Oxfordshire communities – a hamlet, the nearby village and a small market town – is based on the author’s experiences during childhood and youth. It chronicles May Day celebrations and forgotten children’s games, the daily lives of farmworkers and craftsmen, friends and relations – all painted with a gaiety and freshness of observation that make this trilogy an evocative and sensitive memorial to Victorian rural England.
Have you read any books that have inspired you to visit the Cotswolds?
Let me know in the comments.
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