Why a Booktrail?
1941: Everyone has secrets – some are just more deadly than others . . .
The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox
What you need to know before your trail
Josephine ‘Jo’ Fox hasn’t set foot in Romsey in over twenty years. As an illegitimate child, her family – headed by her controlling grandfather – found her an embarrassment. Now, she wants to return to what was once her home and uncover the secret of her parentage. Who was her father and why would her mother never talk about him?
Jo arrives the day after the Luftwaffe have bombed the town. The local pub has been completely destroyed and rescue teams are searching for the remains of the seven people known to have been in the pub at the time the bomb hit. They are shocked, however, to uncover eight bodies instead. The eighth, unidentified, body is that of a teenage girl, who no one in the town claims to know. Who is she, how did she get there, but most importantly – who killed her?
Teaming up with local coroner and old friend, Bram Nash, Jo sets out to establish the identity of the girl and solve the riddle of her death. In doing so, she also uncovers her own personal mystery.
Locations
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Travel back in time to wartime Romsey with Josephine Fox
Romsey was home to the 17th-century philosopher and economist William Petty and the 19th-century British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, whose statue has stood in the town centre since 1857
This is the market town where the novel takes place and it looks at the effects of returning home, of the war and wartime happenings of a small community.
Market Square and pub
Nearly forty years ago, Josephine’s grandfather put her on a train to London. She hasn’t returned home since and wants to find out why she was made to leave in the first place. She remembers her mother, terrified of a story in the local paper. And who was her father?
Josephine arrives on the night there is a bombing raid and an unknown corpse is pulled from the (fictional pub) The Cricketers Arms. It’s right at the heart of the Market Square however and there is a pub there in real life….
There’s plenty of churches and a memorial garden which is quite fitting to the novel’s themes.
Coroner in a small town
The novel illustrates and evokes the duties of a coroner and the work they do which adds a gothic and creepy overtone to the rest of the story.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox
Destination: Romsey Author/guide: Claire Gradidge Departure Time: 1941
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