Words leave imprints in your mind like footprints in the sand...
beach reading
starry skies to read under
reading in nature

About The Book Trail

About TheBookTrail

Books set in location offer readers and travellers the possibility to travel around the world and gain a unique insight into each destination and culture. It’s a unique way to travel as you visit a location seeing it through the eyes of the author and their characters. Actual travellers and Armchair travellers unite!

About The Creator of The BookTrail

My name is Susan and I created the site having been inspired by the novel Around the World in 80 Days. I wanted to be Passepartout as a child – travelling and speaking French. Now, many years later, I’ve lived and worked in France, Spain, Canada, Belgium and Sweden and speak four languages. My dad would read me the story when I was very small. He sadly died when I was only five years old and so this website is dedicated to him.

I taught myself Swedish using Camilla Läckberg’s novels but also used children’s books as the language I was learning wasn’t that suitable for everyday use!

TheBookTrail allows you to read your way around the world without taking a single step. But the real BookTrail experience is to take a book, visit the locations in it and see how the author captured this landscape in their novel, how the characters interact, where they live, work, meet…

You can search books by location, by author, genre and setting – and cross reference all four of them! Location refers to the physical place on the map – a town, neighbourhood etc in any country across the world. The Setting of a book refers to where the action in the book takes place – is it set in a haunted house, on a boat or in a castle? The list of settings is growing – this is how many people read. Where do you want to go? Go back in time to a castle or spend time now on a beach? The possibilities are endless.

Paris Echo

Paris Echo

The BookTrail is a great resource for readers and travellers of all kinds- you can search for books set in a city you’re travelling to, find the books by a particular author set near to the place you’re in right now. Or just sit in your armchair and be transported to wherever your mind takes you.

Why a Booktrail? – Each book comes with an invitation to take a journey.

What you need to know before your trail – Then, like any good traveller knows, planning is essential before you go. Is this the right literary holiday for you? The right book to take you there?

Bellevue Square

Bellevue Square

A Literary Map – A select number of locations evoked in the book are on the BookTrail map. Where does the author take you? Where do the characters live, work, meet etc? Places of interest around the novel’s themes can also be found here.

Travel Guide: If you’re going to go somewhere, you want to know a little bit about it right? What’s there to see and do? How does the book make the reader see and experience the real location?

Seeing a place through the eyes of a character or an author is a rare treat indeed. Like a personal guide, a novel can be a guide book with a difference!

Literary Travel is a good thing and hope it’ll inspire readers and travellers alike to travel literary style and place their favourite book on the map.

Places in the books

Not all places in the books are real and even those that are are not used or represented as they are in real life. For obvious reasons the places mentioned under each book are there to give a flavour for the setting and story and to encourage readers to travel further via that novel. We hope it gives you inspiration to quite literarily book your next read and discover your new literary horizon.

Contact The BookTrail to get your favourite book or one you’ve written yourself! on the map

The BookTrail 

    Featured Book

    The Royal Librarian

    1940, 2000s:  A royal palace. A closed book. A betrayal that will echo through generations…

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