Festival author Ruth Dugdall takes us on a special Christmas visit back to the location that inspired her relaunched Cate Austin crime series

I hadn’t been to a Christmas market until I moved to Luxembourg with my husband and two children and we fully embraced the tradition of drinking warm Gluhwein (or hot chocolate for the kids!) and eating gromperekichelcher – a traditional Luxembourg ‘delicacy’, if that’s the right word for fried potato served with a carton of apple sauce. It really is delicious.

Though Luxembourg is a small city it packs a punch with its markets, selling gingerbread hearts iced with messages and glass globes full of snowy scenes. For two years, the month of December was full of family trips to the market, to meet friends and go on the big wheel and eat salt-studded pretzels, and all the time I was working Nowhere Girl which takes Cate Austin, my Suffolk-born probation officer, to Luxembourg.

Ten years after leaving I returned this year, because Nowhere Girl and the rest of the Cate Austin series is being relaunched by Harper Collins, starting in January 2026 with The Woman Before Me. I wanted to re-fresh my view of Luxembourg and notice any changes. They now have a tramline, so I needed to include that! As we walked around the cobbled streets that we once knew so well, something limbic happened and the ten years melted away. Our faces were illuminated by lights as we visited wooden chalets selling trinkets, and looked up at the big wheel wondering if we dared go on it. We went ice-skating, laughing and falling over, and I felt that we were home once again; that my son and daughter were no longer the young adults they are, but were playful children once again.

I think the magic of Christmas is that it gives us permission to play. Whether it’s ice-skating or Monopoly, pulling crackers or doing the Christmas Dip, the traditions we create act as alchemy to make the season special. It’s like walking through a wardrobe into another world where we can be more carefree. Just for a while.

I hope this Christmas brings you and yours a moment of playfulness and joy.

Merry Christmas, Ruth x