The people of St Albans know what it is that makes their city so special – the winding, cobbled streets, the hidden boutique shops, the ancient architecture sprinkled around just waiting to be stumbled upon. And it is this aspect of St Albans that former resident Jo Platt has captured in her debut novel, Reading Upside Down.

“It’s a very cosy novel,“ says Jo, who lived here from 2003 to 2004. “I set it in St Albans because it was the cosiest environment I’d lived in, we had a lovely life there and I loved everything about the place.“

Reading Upside Down tells the story of 30-year-old Rosalind Shaw who has been abandoned at the altar and charts her recovery in a comic, lighthearted way. She moves from London to St Albans to “opt out a little bit“ by buying a share in an antiquarian bookshop, Chapters, which will make many of us remember the wonderful Paton Books on Holywell Hill.

“In my head the bookshop is on Holywell Hill,“says Jo, “although it’s actually based on D’arcy Books in Devizes in Wiltshire, which also closed a couple of years ago. When I was writing it, I saw Rosalind going off up the hill to the house that I lived in on Woodstock Road North, and see Daniel cycling off down the hill to his flat.

“In the book, Rosalind has to learn to think about other people again after becoming entirely introspective after the breakup. The title of the book is because of the bookshop reference, but also refers to her inability to read other people. I’d describe it as a ‘why dunnit’ – you might go back and read it again to pick up on the little clues that were dropped throughout it. It’s like an Agatha Christie rom-com!“

Jo and her family moved to Bristol from St Albans for her husband’s job in 2004 but she still remembers the city with great fondness. While she was here, Jo sometimes wrote columns for the St Albans Review’s now-defunct sister paper, the St Albans Observer – “They were all basically about my being in love with St Albans.

“We came back a few years ago,“ says Jo, “and I was worried I’d find out I’d been looking at it with rose-tinted glasses – but I hadn’t been, it was still lovely.“

  • Reading Upside Down is available now as an e-book from Amazon