The Scarbados Trilogy

In late 2023 the Scarborough-based author, Mark Harland, was challenged by a friend to write a novel set entirely in Yorkshire. This represented a sea-change from his normal genre of international thrillers set in the Far East and Australia.

Drawing on his experiences of travelling many times between Hull and Belgium, Mark decided to centre his story on a family who were badly affected by the Covid epidemic. He thus created the ‘Fishburn family’ whose head, Peter Fishburn, lost his job when Covid affected international travel and the Hull to Zeebrugge route was suspended and then axed completely. How would Peter and his wife Mandy and three almost-adult teenagers, cope with redundancy?

There was only one answer; to leave their home in Hull of twenty years and, when restrictions on movements were lifted, buy a small hotel up the coast. How would they cope with a new town and a new career? How would the family’s much-loved pet labradoodle, Sebbie, cope with the move too? After all, he was as much a part of the family as the three kids.

The story traces the initial excitement and prospect of a new life followed by the practicalities of a move to Scarborough, over forty miles north, during a bitterly cold spell of weather reminiscent of the dreaded ‘Beast from the East’ a few years earlier. Had they made a huge mistake?

The characters are all fictitious with the exception of the ‘removal man’ Clayton James, who gave the author permission to use his real name.

So does it work? After changing the name of the hotel to the catchy “Hotel Scarbados” the Fishburns had to wait until the following Easter before opening their doors to the holidaying public. The events that followed could not possibly have been foreseen.