Books set in Suffolk

A beautifully atmospheric and nostalgic tale where, whatever happens, the clocks must not stop!

A collection of recipes for favourite duck dishes, as well as some surprises, and the story of the farming family behind this special breed.

Beautiful to look at and to hold, this is a fascinating and engaging diary of nature in both city and countryside from this award-winning writer.

A beautifully atmospheric, nostalgic yet contemporary account of a family spending one summer together by the sea.

A comic tale setting the already extraordinary story of the medieval saint Edmund against the shenanigans of modern British government.

One summer, in Suffolk a body is found draped over a baby's cot, but the baby is missing. In France a family holiday is interrupted by the police making an arrest for murder. How are the families connected, what secrets are they hiding, and where is the baby? Published 28 May 2020.

A gothic novel with a disturbing and haunting Suffolk setting. A brilliantly atmospheric and sinister read.

Set in wartime Suffolk, steeped in the myths of the Sutton Hoo finds, this is a story of friendship, courage, superstition and faith.

A charming innocence of a correspondence between strangers. Confidences are struck through revelations of loss and disappointment, and solace and friendship results. Delightful, and moving.

Sailing alone in the Atlantic, Heiney takes time to remember his son's life. A beautiful book which is moving and insightful.

A father and daughter, working with secondhand books, discover a diary hidden in an old Bible revealing lives at Bletchley Park during the war. A story of love and loss, grief and bereavement, old and new relationships.

A couple move to Suffolk in the hope of adopting a child, but the house they are renovating holds unsettling secrets.

Driving to Southwold, a young woman thinks she may have hit something, but keeps going. Later, hearing of a hit-and-run accident, she becomes involved in a terrifying chain of events.

A teenage boy recounts his experiences of artist and architect Charles Rennie Macintosh, who lives in Walberswick for a year at the outbreak of the First World War.

Two women look back on their childhood in the Suffolk forest, and struggle to contend with the tragic events that are continuing to impinge on their adult lives.

A young mother dies suddenly. Was this natural causes, assisted death or murder? Father Anselm investigates. Suffolk provides the setting from Sudbury through Polstead and Hollesley Bay, to Aldeburgh and Southwold.

A mystery, ghost story and romance set on and beside the River Deben featuring Woodbridge and Sutton Hoo and spanning Anglo-Saxon, Victorian and present day.

When Buffy inherits a run-down B&B in Wales he launches residential divorce courses to help fill beds. An ex-wife thinks the village more desirable than living in Suffolk!

People living in Hardborough, an East Anglian seaside town resembling Southwold and Aldeburgh, don't want a bookshop. Owner, Florence Green battles against the opposition before facing the inevitable.

The village of Worlingworth in the 1980s - a bleak, dark, disturbing account of the secrets of village life.

Sri Lanka is paired with Orford, Dunwich and Ipswich in this account of a relationship between a middle-aged woman and a young male immigrant. Rather inauthentic description of Suffolk.

Three young wives try to please their domineering mother-in-law, while seeking to assert their individuality. The backdrop is Shingle Street, Aldeburgh and Snape but, for me, there is no real sense of place. A good holiday read.

This wonderful coming-of-age classic is set in a castle inspired by the ruins at Wingfield, near Eye, Suffolk.

A story of how the second world war is impacting the villages and bomber bases of Suffolk in the summer of 1943.

A powerful, moving and completely consuming account which has been meticulously and sensitively researched. Huge admiration expressed for the author.

An account of the unearthing of Anglo-Saxon treasure, at the home of Mrs Pretty at Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge in 1939.

A bleak but compelling story of a murder in a seaside town, based on Southwold.

A student priest is found dead at the foot of a crumbling cliff. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is sent to the small theological college on the East Anglian coast to investigate.

Escaping his boarding school, the narrator befriends the mysterious Finn who lives alone in a fishing hut. Set in fictionalised Shingle Street and Southwold.

Set in Walberswick (although renamed Steerborough), and a tribute to Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse', this is a book about secrets.

A ghost story for children set in a house inspired by Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge, Suffolk.

Set in Ipswich, this is the story of a Polish couple and their young son who are trying to make a life together after the War.

Rural Suffolk at the outbreak of the Second World War. La is a divorcee who moves from London to the country for a fresh start and decides to form an amateur orchestra.