Eleven Stone Cottages and One Painted Lady
One of the first reviews that I got on my first book, Toasted to Death (available here on Amazon) was quite critical of the number of characters in the book. After I got over my initial shock — how dare a reader question the number of characters in my precious creation — I decided that okay, yes there probably were too many. While all the grandmothers that I had originally introduced in Toasted to Death seemed necessary to me, I decided that at least two, or possibly three, could disappear completely, to return in a sequel.
Jane’s Painted Lady Victorian Mansion
In Toasted to Death, my heroine, Jane Drew is first encountered hanging a needlework poem describing the residents of her house, “Gram’s Place”, in the front foyer of her home. Following the death of her husband Greg, Jane, her daughter Nora and grandson Robbie were rattling around alone in a huge house that had been designed to accommodate a large extended family. Now Jane’s house is called home by a gaggle of grandmothers, all of whom attended university with Jane. The grams enjoy private bed sitting rooms — each with their own private bathroom — and share kitchen privileges, including doing dishes. I’ll introduce them individually over the next few posts.
Don’t let the Victorian exterior fool you though. Gram’s Place is connected to the rest of the estate by an ingenious pneumatic tube system that allows residents to send messages and other things (like snacks and drinks) to anywhere on the estate that has an access point. Of course the house is tied into the computer network that is essential for managing the Secret Springs Spa and Convalescence home so the grams can order up a meal using the convenient touch screens that are discreetly placed in their living quarters.
There are three grandmothers who currently live full-time at Gram’s Place and three others that are jokingly called ‘Transient Grams’ because they wander through Gram’s place at random and even unexpected moments.
Eleven Stone Cottages
When Jane’s great-great (squared) grandfather and his privateer boss discovered the patch of land that was to become The Hollow, there were some interesting stone cottages scattered around the area. As the estate was developed, eleven cottages were finally built, some of them larger than others, but all in a circular pattern that ended up being outside the walls of the castle itself.
As the years rolled by, four of the houses remained in private hands, owned by some of the original crew of Captain Agnew’s privateer vessel, while the remainder of the structures stayed part of the estate itself. The cottages that are part of the estate turned into Bed & Breakfast type rentals where relatives and friends of guests and the Spa and Convalescence Home can stay.
Here is a quick peek at the houses (in random order) of The Hollow.
Other intriguing features of The Hollow
One of Jane’s great-great-grandfathers was an inventor of some amazing things. Pneumatic or hydraulic lifts fascinated him, with the result that there are some amazing hidden elevators in the castle, concealed in Gram’s Place and even out in plain sight where you would never expect an elevator to be. The elevators have all been modernized over the years, giving the butlers at the European Butler Institute numerous ways to move quickly through the tunnel system and around the estate without being seen, or heard!
Rock on!
