A Cornwall-based author launched her tenth novel on Friday, at the auction house in Penzance that inspired its plot.

The Secrets of Harbour House by Liz Fenwick sees auctioneer Kerensa sent to catalogue a neglected house in present-day Newlyn. Intrigued by a sensual portrait of a young woman in the hallway, she pieces together the history of talented young artist Basheba Kernow, who left 1930s St Ives for Venice and found herself embroiled in a forbidden love affair.

The seeds of the story were sown when the author glimpsed an oil painting of a beautiful woman on a chaise longue at Lay’s Auctioneers. “While I was there, I noticed how all the notes were about men – even those for women artists were about the men in their lives,” recalled Liz, who lives in the Helford area.

“I asked myself: what about the women, and what they achieved? The book started from a place of anger, which was a first for me.”

To prepare for the novel’s Venetian scenes, Liz immersed herself in countless history books and academic papers. “When I discovered that Mussolini met Hitler in Venice in 1934, and that it was also the year of the Biennale with Cornish artists like Ben Nicholson in attendance, those were the signs I needed,” she said.

She spent five days in the city, imagining it “through the eyes of a 1930s artist” and even travelling on the Orient Express. “It was the most amazing thing in the world – outrageously expensive but worth every penny,” she enthused.

“It’s like a museum, and it was a such a sensory experience, from feeling how the carriages moved to seeing the fires stoked at the end of each one to keep the hot water running – so evocative of the glamour of the time.”

Liz first came to Cornwall with her then boyfriend to meet his parents, who had a house in Penarven Cove. “I didn’t realise it was really a Cornwall test – if I hadn’t fallen in live with it in June 1989, we wouldn’t be celebrating our 34th wedding anniversary this year,” she laughed.

“Little did I know Cornwall would become my literary muse. I wrote three-quarters of a novel while at university, but never finished it – the truth was, at 22 I hadn’t lived enough life to write the kind of books I’ve written.

“My first book came out in 2004, I got an agent in 2011 and wrote a book a year after that. The landscape of Cornwall and its folklore continue to inspire me today.”

And Liz is delighted to see female artists being given the attention they deserve, including a major exhibition at Tate St Ives of work by Ithell Colqhoun. “Only now are they beginning to get that recognition, including what they had to overcome to achieve what they did.”

Liz Fenwick appears at Waterstones Truro at 7pm on Wednesday, July 9 with fellow authors Philippa Ashley and Emma Cowell, in conversation with Tiffany Truscott. Tickets cost £6 (£13 with book).