Goodreads asked Cynthia Fletcher Rothstein:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Cynthia Fletcher Rothstein My husband and I decided to take a three-month vacation to the United Kingdom. Although I had been to London several times, I had never seen anything outside the city - and I'm a huge Brit Lit fan! I dreamed of seeing Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Jane Austen's Hampshire and Somerset, Robert Louis Stevenson's Scottish Highlands, Charles Dickens' Kent, Beatrix Potter's Lakes District... I could go on and on! When I compiled a list of everything I wanted to see, it was way too long to tackle in a few weeks - up to then, the longest I had ever traveled for pleasure.

Then I read an article by Lynne Martin about selling your house and traveling the world one rented house at a time. What a wonderful concept! By renting a home in foreign countries, I'd really be able to explore. I didn't sell my home (I'm a homebody at heart!), but I did figure out a way to live economically in other people's homes while keeping my own. We tried to stay a week in each home we rented in the UK, and found we loved getting to know the neighborhoods, the shops, the pubs, and the people.

I was so blown away by the experience that I started blogging about it on my website: www.spinningcompass.net. I got great feedback from friends and family - and a publisher in Edinburgh! He asked me to write a book he would publish.

When I came home and started polishing up my blogs for the ebook, I realized I had a lot more to say than the little bit I had time to blog while on the road. So we separated the experience into two books: Scotland at the speed of life was published in August 2014, and England and Wales at the speed of life will be published in the Spring of 2015. Both books have a final "how-to" chapter on planning your own extended vacation. Anyone can do this!

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