Locations in my new book don’t exist, David Nicholls tells fans
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David Nicholls has warned readers that the pubs and B&Bs in his new novel don’t exist, after fans mobbed the locations featured in his Netflix hit One Day.
He has added a disclaimer to You Are Here, which is set in the Lake District where his two characters strike up a romance while walking the Coast to Coast path.
“While I’ve tried to describe the landscape as accurately as possible, the pubs, hotels and restaurants along the way are all entirely fictional,” the note says.
“Angle Tarn and Urra Moor are real, the Black Dog and Sunnyview Lodge are not, and walkers will search in vain for a pub on the shores of Ennerdale Water.”
Appearing at the Hay Festival, Nicholls stressed the point. “The first night, they stay in a pub on the shores of a lake. Don’t try and book it because it really doesn’t exist.”
Asked by interviewer Samira Ahmed if fans were already searching for these places in the hope of making a booking, Nicholls replied: “Yes. But they’re all made up. They might have been inspired by a stay somewhere, but they’re not real places.”
Nicholls’ 2009 romantic novel One Day became a hit when it was adapted for Netflix earlier this year. It led to fans flocking to a cafe in Highbury, north London, where some of the scenes were filmes, and sharing videos of the place on TikTok.
TikTokkers also posted content from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, another location in One Day.
You Are Here is another romantic tale, this time between two divorcees - Marnie, 37, and Michael, 42, who end up on the same walking trip. Nicholls said he would no longer be able to write about romance between younger people because he does not understand the world of dating apps.
“I haven’t been on a date since 1997 so I’m very much from another era,” the 57-year-old author said. “There was a random quality to meeting someone back then. You went to a lot of dinner parties in the hope you might be sat next to somebody, and it was unlikely that something would happen. Now, there’s a frankness and directness - there are tools, for want of a better word.
“That’s such an unusual experience for me that it’s not something I’m sure I could ever write about. I suspect that I would find it really hard to write a novel which was entirely about 20- or 30-somethings dating - which is strange, because when I began my career that’s largely what I was writing.”
