This is Somerset --Bath can be a wonderful place for whiling away time in one of its many cafés.
And if you have ever seen a woman feverishly tapping away on her laptop for several hours on end, it might well have been Sarah Hilary, working on either her first or second novel.
After beavering away writing novels over many years – she made her first attempt when she was just 10 years old – Sarah, 47, finally hit the jackpot with her crime novel Someone Else's Skin which suddenly had publishers falling over themselves to get their hands on it.
Eventually it went to a closed auction and now, even before the book is published in Britain in February, publishing rights have already been sold to countries all across Europe, as well as to Penguin in America.
Sarah has already written her second novel featuring her police officers Detective Inspector Marnie Rome and her sidekick DS Noah Jake. "My agent said I should write the second novel before the first one comes out, or I just wouldn't have time to do it. And she was right."
Sarah, husband David and daughter Milly had wanted to live in Bath for years.
"Earlier this year everything fell into place and we finally found the place we wanted in Bath.
"But I found it was just too quiet at home and I found I worked much better with the white noise of a cafe surrounding.
"In a café environment you just have to get on with your writing."
When she came to live in Bath earlier this year, Sarah made her second home in the Chelsea Café in Chelsea Road and then extended her writing activities to The Bear's Paw at Bear Flat and Colonna & Small just off Queen Square in the city centre, and many other friendly establishments.
Although Someone Else's Skin is her first novel, Sarah has been writing short stories for years, winning some of the UK's top awards. But she found that it really was just too difficult to get a book deal for short stories.
So Sarah decided to turn to crime – in a literary sense. She had cut her reading teeth as a small girl on Sherlock Holmes stories, before graduating to writers like Patricia Highsmith. So, when she and friends talked of her writing a full-length book, a crime novel became a serious option.
In her novel, Rome – who is a rising star in the police ranks – and her partner are sent to interview a resident in a women's shelter but on arrival find one of the women's husbands lying stabbed on the floor. As Rome and Jake investigate what has happened, events begin to spiral and the violence escalates.
Everyone is keeping secrets, some for survival and some, they suspect, to disguise who they really are. Split into two parts, the narrative twists in the middle as Sarah deftly plays on the characters' and the readers' perceptions and judgments towards domestic abuse.
Sarah says she is not interested in brutal violence simply for the sake of it, although she won't shy away from violence if it is part of the story.
She is treading a well-trodden path in Bath, which seems to have become a breeding ground for top-quality crime writers. Peter Lovesey lived in Bath when he started writing and he has been joined by people like Mo Hayder, Tim Weaver and Morag Joss. Reported by This is 13 hours ago.