Rhys Bowen explains The Castle in the Glen
A hiking mishap became the gothic spark for Rhys Bowen’s new novel
The origin story behind Rhys Bowen’s new novel, The Castle in the Glen, is wonderfully specific: a hiking mishap on Scotland’s Isle of Skye helped shape the book’s gothic atmosphere. I like creative backstories that begin with something slightly inconvenient rather than a grand revelation. A wet path, a difficult moment, and suddenly the landscape has a different charge.
A setting with weather in it In her interview, Bowen talks about the novel’s Scottish setting and the way real terrain can become part of a story’s tension. That appeals to me as someone who spends a lot of time noticing how weather changes a familiar place. Fog does not need much help to make a castle feel suspicious, but apparently Skye supplied plenty of atmosphere on its own.