Alex Bell - fantasy author

I was complaining about summer on Twitter this morning. I am, at heart, a winter girl. Winter is my favourite season for a number of reasons. However, it occurred to me that complaining about summer wasn’t really the right attitude. There are lots of things I like about summer, so, in the interest of positive-thinking, I thought I would list a few of my favourites.

First up, it’s Pimms:

Is there anything better than sitting in the garden on a sunny day enjoying a nice tall glass of Pimms? It’s refreshing, it’s tasty, and it’s served in a glass chock-full of ice and fruit and sprigs of mint.

Invisible Stockings:

My new summer must-have are these invisible stockings from Tess Daly’s beauty range at Marks and Spencers. Not only are all the products in this range reasonably priced and beautifully packaged, but the invisible stockings are scented with jasmine and sweet vanilla. For someone like me who has naturally pale skin but no desire to sunbathe, this product is perfect. Not as heavy as a fake tan, it just adds a little bit of bronzed shimmer to legs whilst making them smell really good at the same time. A bronzer and a body butter all in one.

Tortoises:

My third reason for loving summer is that the tortoises come out of hibernation. You know summer has arrived when you see them stumping about in their pen, mashing up their food and getting it all over their faces. Pompey and Hannibal are both in their sixties – and very grand old men they are too.

Minx pedicure:

Clearly, there is no point paying out to have your toes look like this if they are hidden away in slipper-socks and boots the whole time. Summer, with its flip-flops and open sandals, is the perfect excuse to get a Minx pedicure. It would be a shame to ruin an outfit with plain feet, after all.

Bubbles with Moose:

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I love my Great Dane very, very much. And during the summer we get to spend more time playing bubbles in the garden. They’re a little hard to see in this picture but the bubbles are there, and she is catching them. Bubbles is Moose’s favourite game – she never really got the hang of chasing balls, and will give me an evil look if I throw one of her toys across the lawn. The only downside to the bubble game is that, sometimes, after I’ve blown them for her, the wind changes and they come right back towards me. And Moose doesn’t really see me when she’s intent on the bubbles. You can get knocked right off your feet that way . . .

Summer Reads:

You know the books I mean. Something that’s fast paced and easy to read. Something to take on holiday with you. Something to read whilst drinking Pimms. These books are sheer, unadulterated pleasure that has nothing to do with anything. I usually read novels for a reason – like I’ve heard good things about the author and want to see what the fuss is about, or I’m trying a different genre, all the time with my own writing in mind. But, during the summer, it’s nice to treat yourself to a book you know you’re going to enjoy. There’s often an element of guilty pleasure in this as well. My top summer read indulgences would be anything by Victoria Holt, Madeleine Brent or Deanna Raybourn.

Travel treats:

You know when you go on holiday and decide to buy yourself some little thing that you don’t need but really, really want? This hydrating face spray by Evian was my holiday purchase this year. Yes, I know. It’s a little bit much. I acknowledge the foolishness. But it’s the perfect size to take on the plane with you and it has a pink lid and pink bubbles on the packaging and it did make me feel more refreshed after the long flight. And pure mineral water is much better for your skin than hard tap water. Go ahead and laugh at me - I don’t care - I will still love my dinky tube of face spray and I will still take it with me every time I travel.

And, finally, Starbucks frappucino:

A little piece of chilled blended heaven in a cup - ahhh! My favourite is the peppermint mocha frappucino. I could drink it all day.

So – there are some of my favourites. Now that I think about it, there is quite a lot I like about summer. So perhaps I will focus on the good stuff and try to make the most of it rather than wishing summer away.

I love Jamaica Inn. For those who do not know, it is an ancient coaching house from the 1700’s, situated on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, spectacularly shrouded in ghosts and atmosphere. It is also the inspiration, and setting, of Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name – a fantastic story of smuggling, murder, romance and intrigue. She wrote the book after becoming lost on the moor, and finding Jamaica Inn in the fog, where she was then entertained by the local vicar with ghost stories and tales of smuggling.

If I lived closer to it, I would be a permanent fixture in the Smuggler’s Bar. They have six reasonably priced vegetarian options on the menu (SIX! Arghh!) (one of which is veggie sausage and mash – arghh, arghh, have I died and gone to heaven?). I love the timelessness of it – especially when you stand in the courtyard outside in the dark, with the sign creaking ominously, and all this mist pressing in. I can practically see Daphne du Maurier riding across the cobbles on her pony. They even have a little brass plaque on the floor in the bar saying ‘On this spot, Joss Merlyn was murdered.’ For some reason this plaque delights me profoundly. I try not to spend too much of my time staring at it when all the locals are walking past it in such a blasé fashion. Plus I do realise that Joss Merlyn is a fictitious character created by du Maurier and so was not really murdered on that spot. In fact he wasn’t murdered anywhere but in du Maurier’s own head. But still, when I see the plaque, I can’t help thinking: wow, Joss met his well-deserved end right here on this spot!

Conveniently, Jamaica Inn also allows dogs. Moose was very warmly welcomed despite her huge size. Not only that but she was even provided with her very own private doggy water bowl. This is what I call service.

We’ve been in Cornwall since yesterday, and as a result of peoples’ reactions towards her, I am starting to suspect she may have sneakily got bigger without my noticing. She just looks medium to me. But when you hear people remarking upon her size in shocked voices, it does make you wonder. She has started leaping right over Loki in the garden, but I just sort of thought perhaps the Doberman was shrinking. But it has to be said that she takes up significantly more room on the back seat of the car than she did last time we came to Cornwall in May. In fact, there is not really room for me on the back seat as well but I manage to squash in there somehow. If she had any sense she would just put her head on my lap but, being a little afraid of the car, she prefers to sit on my lap as much as she possibly can. This is very sweet, because she becomes very cuddly in the car – like a nervous child – but it does mean that by the time we get wherever we are going, I can no longer feel my legs, and I am covered in slobber (because Moose has a propensity to motion sickness, which causes her to drool). My favourite cap is now quite ruined.

But, anyway, I am sure that she thoroughly enjoyed her time at Jamaica Inn, even though she had no idea that she was snoozing just mere feet away from where Joss Merlyn was murdered! Perhaps I will consider moving to Cornwall in the future. That way I can go to Jamaica Inn every day, and perhaps get lost on the moors and have an amazing idea for a novel. Or perhaps go back in time. Every time I go to Jamaica Inn I can’t help half expecting it to happen. And I am always just a little bit disappointed when I open the door to the Smuggler’s Bar to find that there are no bloodthirsty smugglers in tricorn hats gathered there, all staring at me murderously. Maybe next time. Hope springs eternal, and all that . . .

Thanks to the insatiable appetite my parents have always had for travelling, I have been well-travelled since about the age of six. By that time I had been trudging fairly extensively around the Far East as well as the usual places like Europe and America. And I have been thinking recently about how travelling has helped me as a writer. It might sound clichéd, but travelling really does broaden your horizons, and if you can do it from a young age, I think it’s even more useful.

I was a little kid when I went to Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, and so it didn’t occur to me to think: these people look different, this food tastes different, the air smells different, am I happy about this? In many of the photos from these holidays I’m either sat on a filthy pavement cuddling a stray cat or sat on a filthy pavement reading a book. But I put the cats and books down for the sightseeing, obviously, even if I sometimes had to be forced to do so. I have seen the Great Wall of China, and the hieroglyphics in the tombs at the Valley of the Kings, and climbed the ruins in Chichen Itza. I’ve ridden on elephants and camels (although not at the same time, obviously); sat in a sled pulled by huskies (and even runaway huskies on one memorable occasion), and swam with dolphins. I’ve held giant snakes, fed giant tortoises, and had my sandwiches snatched away by monkeys (all right, so maybe I gave the monkey my sandwich because it tasted horrible and I didn’t wish to eat it). In the Far East I’ve been caught in a sudden downpouring of rain so heavy that you’re soaked within seconds, and I’ve walked out of air conditioning into heat so intense it feels like you’ve been smacked over the head with it. We have been swindled, robbed and tricked during our travels – which perhaps is no great surprise given the kinds of back street places we have been known to wander into. My parents are such seasoned travellers that they can now spot a scam a mile off. Not me, though. I’ll fall for any con going. In addition to this, I’ve seen the most beautiful crystal waters on beaches in the Caribbean, and soon got used to the jellyfish bobbing around in the sea on beaches in the United Arab Emirates.

From a very young age, my brother and I did everything on holiday that my parents did. There was none of this going to bed early crap; there was certainly none of this being carried or pushed in pushchairs nonsense (we knew we would have been laughed at if we had even suggested such a thing); and there were absolutely no Kidz Clubz (shudder), which I absolutely loathed, possibly because they did not allow me to sit quietly in a corner and read my book, but instead insisted that I participate in group games with the other children (although I do still have the cap I won in the coca cola drinking contest). I ended up in such a club just once in Jamaica only because my brother was so keen to go. There was a bit of an incident when I ran away at the first opportunity and, I’m happy to say, I’ve never seen the inside of one of these clubs since.

I have used locations from my holidays in both my Gollancz books, and I have drawn on my experiences from them for the Lex Trent books, even if only indirectly (although the midnight markets are created straight out of the night markets I visited in Hong Kong and China). I don’t ever remember a time when I was not well travelled, and I am extremely grateful to my parents for taking us to those places and giving us those experiences rather than molly-coddling us in some English-only hotel year after year. You don’t get a feel for the country if you never leave the private beach, after all. Better to intrepidly venture forth in search of adventure and new experiences and glory! Even if this does mean that somewhere along the line you may get scammed, or robbed; or find yourself horribly lost; or stranded in the middle of nowhere with a flat tyre; or bitten by a really huge bug; or, as in my brother’s case, have copious amounts of blood gushing out of your head on at least two occasions that I can think of. But that, perhaps, makes my parents sound a little more happy-go-lucky than they actually are. They did mop up the blood, after all, and they were only accidents. But, yeah, travelling is great, and all writers or aspiring writers should do it. Just try to avoid the blunt trauma to the head thing – especially when out on safari in the African wilderness surrounded by wild lions, because blood is much more difficult to clean up under those circumstances. And the lions dislike the screaming.

It’s good to be home. I like going on holiday but towards the end I start to suffer from intense cravings for two things: meat (of the vegetarian variety, obviously), and my animals.

On our last night in Las Vegas, we stayed in the Luxor. Nowhere near as nice as the Mirage, and we were all having a bit of a whinge about it, and saying we should have stuck with the first hotel. But then we went into breakfast and there, on the menu, was a side order of vegetarian sausages. Vegetarian sausages! I wouldn’t go so far as to say I actually wept with delight but . . . well, it was a near thing. There’s only so much lettuce a person can take, after all. Now I won’t hear a bad word said against the Luxor.

I was probably suffering from meat cravings even more than usual at that point because of the white water rafting we’d just done in Colorado. This involved a night of camping. And, believe me, there is nothing more painful than watching bacon sizzling away on a campfire, smelling all tasty and delicious, when you know you can’t have any of it. Later on they got the marshmallows out but these ones had gelatine in them, so I couldn’t have any of those either. By this time I could feel the cold sweat starting to prickle the back of my neck. Given all this, can I really be blamed for feeling so profoundly delighted by the veggie sausages at the Luxor?

Anyway, the bacon aside, the white water rafting was fantastic. What I loved most about it was that my brother fell out of the raft about five minutes after we set off down the river. Much amusement was had at his expense, but we dragged him back in eventually. I did not fall out at any time during the two days. At one point, however, I did neglect to jump in quickly enough. We got to this bank in the middle of the river and were carrying the raft across to the other side. Everyone else seemed to leap in nimbly enough. I slipped, or something, and ended up clinging to the side of the raft as it started to move on down the river. The problem with this is that when the water is moving faster than the raft, you have to hang onto the side tight in order to avoid being dragged underneath it. I had horrible images of being, effectively, keel-hauled beneath the raft. So I clung to the rope like a limpet, all the while shrieking, ‘Pull me in! Pull me in! Stop laughing and help me!’ Finally, my brother and his other half managed to drag me in between them. It was quite undignified though. I ended up sort of sprawled on the floor of the raft like a landed fish.

Anyway, now all that adventuring is behind me and I am back home with the menagerie. Moose has outgrown her car seatbelt whilst we’ve been away. She’ll outgrow my car soon too. My Siamese cat gave me the cold shoulder for the first few hours after I got back. But, since making her displeasure known, she has spent virtually the whole time glued to my lap. If there was any animal I missed more than Moose, it was Suki. That little cat is the absolute apple of my eye. Nothing she does ever irritates me. Not even when she shits on my bed. I mean, obviously, I’m irritated that there is shit on the bed, but I’m not irritated with Suki. She is a Siamese, after all, she can’t help being neurotic. Here is a photo of her:

I have been told she looks evil in this picture, but I just think she looks ridiculously cute. Something between a kangaroo and a gremlin. It makes me want to kiss her feet. In fact, I’m gonna go do that right now.

On the next leg of our journey, we have now finally left Flagstaff. I say finally because the Monte Vista Hotel was, to be frank, quite horrible in a number of different ways. A lot of famous people - from John Wayne, to Humphrey Bogart, to Anthony Hopkins - have stayed there in the past. If it’s good enough for Bogie, and all that . . . But perhaps the place was nicer in his day.

It transpired that the rooms pictured on the internet were the refurbished ones. Our rooms were most decidedly not refurbished (even if it was the one Spencer Tracy reportedly stayed in). When I went into our bathroom upon arrival, the toilet bowl was full of smelly wee that someone had neglected to flush away (never mind actually cleaning the toilet). I go on holiday for several reasons, but smelly wee ain’t one of them. Nothing spoils a holiday faster than some stranger’s smelly wee.

But moving on from that - the main problem I had with the hotel was that it absolutely scared the wits out of me. I don’t believe in ghosts as such, but I do believe in the possibility of them, especially in a place like that. It was like something directly out of The Twilight Zone. And if any hotel was really haunted, it was this one. There was all this ancient dark wooden furniture, and creaking floorboards, and strange mirrors, and rusty hinges on the doors, and scary posters of girl-wonder Shirley Temple looking all smug and curly. . .

When the five of us went out for dinner, I suppose we all wound each other up a bit with ghost stories, so by the time we returned to the hotel my thoughts were veering towards wondering if I would survive the night, and so on. It didn’t help when the elevator came down to the lobby with two little girls clinging to their father and sobbing because they were too terrified of the hotel to stay the night. Kids can sense evil, y’know. I was a bit on edge by the time we got up to our floor. Perhaps that was why, when a large tattooed man burst suddenly out of the room next door to ours, I . . . well, sort of screamed in his face. He was very nice about it though.

I did, however, survive the night. Even if I did spend much of it sitting up in bed and peering owlishly into shadows, in search of ghostly figures, or horrifying Shirley Temple apparitions.

Now, we are staying in Monument Valley in a brand spanking new hotel. This is the view from our balcony:

Nice, eh? A very definite improvement on last night even if, mere minutes after our arrival, a storm blew up, knocking out the electricity and water supply. They got them back up and running eventually though.

All in all, this place pleases me tremendously. I may very well refuse to leave.