The Secret Lake – live video from Isabella

Hello from London – I hope you all had a great Easter break.  Our one-off heatwave in early April seems a distant memory now, but the sun is trying to break through again today, and the magical woodland that inspired the setting for my top selling children’s time travel adventure The Secret Lake is already in bloom and I wanted to share a couple of images. (You’ll also find a link to a free sample of the story later on if you don’t yet have it.)

The woodland that inspired The Secret Lake is called Isabella Plantation, and is hidden away within London’s Richmond Park (one of the places Henry VIII used to ride out to from Hampton Court). Here’s a photo I took after cycling up there on Sunday. Our children loved exploring there when they were younger!

[image error]

But the best is yet to come: I also took a 12-second video of the stunning ‘Still Pond’ with all of the azaleas reflecting in the water. This was the inspiration for the book’s cover and the lake in The Secret Lake. It’s also the first thing Tom and Stella see after climbing down the time tunnel. (You can see this scene in the book cover image below.)

Click here to view a live sweep across Still Pond (opens in YouTube)

[image error]

Click to view – the inspiration for the front cover of The Secret Lake