I’ve always wanted to write about Lyme Regis. There’s something special about the place. It’s big enough to have lots of interesting landmarks, features, and people, but small enough to maintain a sense of community that you usually find in a village. The town shrinks and grows depending on the time of year—its population grows by 15,000 in the summer.

Out of season is when I love it the most.

I visited plenty of times to research Dorset Crime Book Six, The Fossil Beach Murders, but I always wanted to write more stories set in Lyme Regis. There’s so much material—the harbour, the beaches, the fossils, the hills and alleyways, the shops—I could go on. Lyme Regis has that special combination of being big enough to be interesting but small enough to maintain a community feel, making it the perfect place for a cosy mystery series.

The idea for a cosy mystery series set in Lyme Regis had been bubbling in the back of my mind for quite a long time. Then, after Millie Ravensworth and I finished the London Cosy Mysteries series, it seemed obvious to move our setting to Lyme Regis.

After all, everybody loves Lyme Regis. Whenever I tell someone that I’m writing a series set there, their face lights up. Everyone who’s visited Lyme has fond memories of the place, whether it be sitting on the pebbly beach, fossil hunting towards Charmouth or climbing the steep hills. People just love Lyme Regis.

So, we decided to create a spin-off series for DC Tina Abbott and her family. Tina’s mum, Annie Abbott, is a bit of a character. She and Leslie cross swords, metaphorically speaking, in The Fossil Beach Murders, but I knew there was plenty of scope to give her some stories of her own. She’s the kind of person who’s interested in the people around her and the community she lives in, without being a total busybody like Freya Garside (who you might have read about in my Deadly Christmas book in the Zoe Finch series).

We wanted Annie to have a group of sidekicks. In The Fossil Beach Murders, there’s no mention of a husband or Tina’s dad, so we wanted those sidekicks to be a group of female friends.

Now, what activity in Lyme Regis might bring a disparate group of women together and forge real bonds between them?

The answer is swimming. Lyme has a beautiful, sheltered harbour, which makes it possible to swim safely here all year round. Unlike some of the longer expanses of beach to the east, the curving nature of the harbour means that the fiercest waves are somewhat broken, and you can swim at times of year that you simply wouldn’t consider on beaches like [Insert Beach Names].

Of course, Millie Ravensworth and I needed to do some research. Now, Millie is actually two people—Heide Goody and Iain Grant—so we decided to spend a night staying above a pub in Lyme Regis and try out early morning swimming for ourselves. I’d taken plenty of early morning walks on the beach in the past, watching the swimmers and admiring their hardiness. It had never occurred to me up to that point that I might be mad enough to do it myself, but Heide in particular was keen, so we met at 6 a.m. and walked down to the beach.

It was May. The sun wasn’t shining. It was chilly. 

We stripped off, laughing at how bonkers we were, and admired the other swimmers dotted around the beach, who looked as if they knew what they were doing. They had the proper gear—swimming hats, flotation devices, waterproof pouches for their belongings. We, on the other hand, had some plastic bags with towels and a change of clothes. I didn’t even have a change of clothes—I just put on my shorts over my cossie after the swim. I tell you, I regretted that!

But we were there to swim, and swim we did.

So, we plunged into the sea, Heide and I more enthusiastically than Iain. The look on Iain’s face was quite a picture—I think he really felt the cold!

Once we’d acclimatised to the temperature of the water, it was wonderful. Swimming around in the calm bay, watching the boats and the seagulls, and chatting and laughing between ourselves—it was idyllic. We didn’t stay in for long, as we soon realised we were going to get cold, but once we were out, there was an even better feeling. 

Because the best thing about cold water swimming is the feeling of having done it. We spent the rest of the day feeling smug that we were now cold water swimmers.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that it’s something I now do regularly off Bournemouth beach. Bournemouth is trickier, as there isn’t a sheltered bay to mitigate the effects of the weather. There have been days when I’ve struggled to swim over the waves or found myself in a rip current—pretty scary stuff.

If you’re inspired by The Lyme Regis Women’s Swimming Club to have a go at open water swimming yourself, I strongly advise you to do it with friends or a group and to do your research first. Make sure you pick a spot that’s safe, and ideally, try it out for the first time in the summer months.

But, as Annie, Rose, Helen, and Figgy will tell you, nothing beats getting up early in the morning and going for a swim.