Currently I live in what is technically a market town, though our Friday market has a piffling three stalls on a good day. I did the fast-paced city stuff when I was a student, and though there are certain cities I love, I wouldn’t want to live in any of them again… with the possible exception of Edinburgh, which is a fairly small city and has areas that feel like villages even though they’re within the city limits. Rolling hills and sleepy villages or fast-paced city life? You can go fossil-hunting along the shore, spot the dinosaur footprints, explore the pretty, winding alleyways of this old smugglers’ haunt, or just enjoy a coffee and a big slice of cake in one of the cafés.Ģ. If you’re not too tired afterwards, just down the coast is the picturesque village of Robin Hood’s Bay. You can visit the town museum, which contains hundreds of fossils as well as artefacts related to Captain Cook’s voyages to New Zealand and Alaska, and lots of wacky things like Victorian dolls, stuffed animals, and a creepy-looking Hand of Glory (which inspired my novella of the same name!).Īfter all that sightseeing, it’s good to know that decent grub is never far away-I recommend The Magpie for what are easily the best fish and chips in the UK. The jet is washed up on the beaches along with lots of fossils, from tiny ammonites to huge great dinosaur skeletons. Getting back to your day out, if you like shopping you can wander the cobbled streets of the old town and maybe buy some silver and jet jewellery. Vampire fans can do tours of the town, and if you come at the right time of year, there’s a big Gothic festival that’s a lot of fun.

Bram Stoker stayed in Whitby, which he used as a location in Dracula. It’s a fishing town famous for the ruins of its medieval abbey, the spooky church beside it and the 199 steps between the town and the abbey. You’re spoilt for choice! However, the one place I always take any overseas visitors to see is Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast.

If I was coming to the UK on vacation, tell me one place I MUST visit? She enjoys writing long, plotty novels and quirky novellas featuring a heady mix of foxes, emperors, swordsmen, priests, ancient Greeks, Tang Dynasty China, Romans, Heian era Japan, magic, Mediterranean archaeology, British medieval abbeys, vampires, fantasy, illusion, imperial ministers, wuxia, random theology, D/s and power, and–of course–romance mixed with oodles of hot manlove.ġ. Kate Cotoner writes m/m fiction with the occasional m/f and f/f for balance, but mainly she’s all about the slash.

Fall of a State by Kate Cotoner