Caroline Smith
Devon based writer sharing her passion for the West Country through her novels.
About Me
Born into a Naval family, my childhood was spent moving every few years to a new area. We mainly lived in Devon and Cornwall but also Dorset, Hampshire, Scotland and the USA. Having attended seven schools by the age of ten, I went to boarding school on the edge of Dartmoor, to be nearer extended family and save my education!
I believe my affinity with Devon and Cornwall stems from a childhood spent in the area and historical family ties - my great grandfather was vicar of both Tintagel and Lelant churches.
After raising my family in Kent, towards the end of my 25 year career working as a PA in the NHS, I began writing. My youngest son challenged me to write a novel and, having been inspired by the real life ‘Sea House’, some seven years later it was published!
Now retired and living in North Devon with my husband, I have more time to devote to writing and have just completed my second novel.
The Sea House
2015 - Sophie Chapman finally took the plunge. With her intuitive flair for interior design, she exchanged her chic West London life for an ambitious coastal renovation project in a North Devon idyll. The Sea House stood proud against a rugged seascape, but even before the restoration was underway, the discovery of a faded photograph album stirred a deep curiosity within Sophie, and as she delved deeper, secrets from the past began to unravel, unlocking the mystery surrounding the tragedy of a young woman’s life, nearly four decades earlier.
1976 – The beautiful and impulsive Charlotte Tremayne left her beloved Cornwall to follow her childhood sweetheart, as he quits the family fishing firm in pursuit of a better life for the young couple. Fuelled by a determination to be with Johnny and to get away from her grieving father’s intransience at their relationship, Charlotte moves to North Devon, in the long hot summer of 1976. Here, her eyes are opened to a life more exhilarating than she could ever have dreamt of in the small backwater of Cornwall, and the allure of a charming Frenchman makes her doubt her love for Johnny, with disastrous consequences.
The Thin Place
1980 – When Will leaves Cornwall for a career in London, he is swept up in the emerging hedonism of the 1980s, and swept off his feet by Rachel, queen of the dance floor and record breaking cocktail drinker. However, after the arrival of their two sons, Rachel struggles to curb her drinking habits and, as their relationship spirals, a family disaster blows their world apart.
2016 – Following the death of her mother and a shocking revelation which calls into question Lucy’s entire past, she sets out to learn the truth about her early life and the reason for her mother’s deception. On a journey which takes her and her daughter, Daisy, from Kent and East Sussex to Cornwall, and with the help of an old school friend, she uncovers a heart-breaking story of devastating loss, to which she is inextricably linked. Can her determination to right the wrongs of the past, heal the wounds of her family’s history?
