Why I Chose Heysham Village as the Setting for Her Daughter’s Mother

When I sat down to write Her Daughter’s Mother, I knew straight away the story needed to be anchored somewhere real. Somewhere with atmosphere. Somewhere with a sense of history pressing against the present.

For me, that place could only be Heysham Village.

Heysham is just a stone’s throw from where I live in Morecambe, and it’s a place I return to again and again with my wife, son, and Guide Dog. We walk there often, sometimes in the sunshine, more often in the rain, and each visit reminds me why it makes such a powerful setting for a domestic thriller.

Heysham is small. That’s part of its appeal. Unlike a bustling city where people can vanish into the crowd, Heysham feels like a community where everyone knows everyone else. Neighbours talk. Gossip travels quickly. There’s a sense that secrets are harder to keep when lives overlap so closely.

For Her Daughter’s Mother, I wanted to create a story where the boundaries felt tight, where Sally’s world was closing in.

A small village provides that naturally. The school gates, the shops, the narrow streets—they’re all places where chance encounters feel inevitable. You can’t simply cross town to avoid someone. If Robyn, the birth mother, wants to insert herself into Sally’s life, Heysham gives her the perfect stage.

Heysham isn’t just a pretty village—it carries the weight of centuries. Walking through its lanes, you’re never far from reminders of the past. Old stone cottages huddle together, their walls weathered by sea winds. The church of St Peter stands as it has for hundreds of years, its churchyard lined with tilted gravestones.

And then there are the Anglo-Saxon rock graves near St Patrick’s Chapel. Cut directly into the stone, overlooking the sea, they are stark, haunting reminders of lives long gone. No bodies remain, of course, but the outlines suggest children, adults, families resting side by side. The first time I saw them I felt a chill—history carved into the very bedrock.

Those graves make an appearance in the novel, not simply as a backdrop but as a symbol. They carry the weight of continuity, of people buried within sight of the sea for more than a millennium.

They remind us how fragile our lives are, how fleeting. For Sally, struggling to hold on to her daughter, those graves echo her fear of loss, her sense that forces beyond her control are pulling Amelia away.

Heysham sits on the edge of Morecambe Bay, its coastline rugged and changeable. At low tide the sands stretch out endlessly, but the bay is treacherous—channels shift, quicksand lurks, and the tide sweeps in faster than you think. The place is beautiful, but it demands respect.

For me, the coastline is more than scenery. It’s mood. On a bright day, the sea glitters with promise. On a grey day, when the wind lashes in from the Irish Sea, it feels harsh and unforgiving. That duality mirrors the tension in Her Daughter’s Mother: love and warmth colliding with fear and suspicion.

Another reason I chose Heysham is its sense of being both connected and cut off. It’s not far from Morecambe or Lancaster, but once you’re in the village, the pace slows. The streets narrow, the cottages lean in. There’s a sense of being tucked away from the wider world.

That atmosphere is perfect for a story about obsession and intrusion. Sally thinks she has built a safe, contained life for her daughter, but Heysham becomes a pressure cooker. Robyn isn’t a distant threat—she’s right there, standing at the school gates, walking down the same lanes, smiling at the same neighbours. The village magnifies every encounter until escape feels impossible.

It also mattered to me that Heysham is somewhere personal. I know the curve of its paths, the feel of the stones underfoot, the way the sea smells when the tide is out.

When I write, I want the setting to feel lived in, not painted from a postcard. By choosing Heysham, I could bring in those textures and details—how the air shifts when you pass the churchyard, how the village green gathers people on summer afternoons, how the cliffs open up to sweeping views across the bay.

When I walk there with my wife, son, and Guide Dog, I’m not only enjoying the scenery—I’m absorbing its rhythms. I notice how quiet the village gets in the evening, how shadows stretch across the cottages, how the sound of the sea underpins everything. All of that fed into the novel, giving it a groundedness I couldn’t have achieved otherwise.

What I love about Heysham is that it lingers in the imagination. Visitors often remember the graves, the church, the coastal views—but what stays with me is the atmosphere. It’s the feeling that you’re standing in a place where countless lives have unfolded, where stories have played out across generations.

In Her Daughter’s Mother, Sally feels her world shrinking. She’s fighting not only Robyn but also the judgement of neighbours, the sideways glances, the whispers. Heysham gave me the perfect stage for that drama: a village where history, community, and isolation collide.

Choosing Heysham Village as the setting wasn’t just about convenience, though it helps that it’s close enough for regular walks. It was about finding a place that could carry the story’s weight. A small, self-contained community where tension festers. A village steeped in history, where Anglo-Saxon graves look out across the sea. A coastline both beautiful and dangerous.

For me, Heysham embodies the balance of intimacy and threat that defines domestic thrillers. It’s a place I love, a place I walk with my family, but also a place that holds shadows—the perfect backdrop for a story about obsession, betrayal, and the fight to hold on to what matters most.