Fans flocked to the locations in his romance novel One Day after it became a Netflix success.
But now David Nicholls has been forced to tell readers the settings in his latest book, You Are Here, do not exist.
The 57-year-old award-winning novelist told audiences at Hay Literature Festival: ‘They are genuinely all made up.
‘The first night they stay in a pub on the shores of a lake – that pub doesn’t exist. Don’t try and book it.’
His sixth novel follows two middle-aged protagonists on a walk across the Lake District.
David Nicholls (pictured) has been forced to tell readers the settings in his latest book, You Are Here, do not exist
After Leo Woodall (right) starred as Dexter Mayhew in the Netflix adaptation of Nicholls’ 2009 novel, One Day, with Ambika Mod (left), fans have made it their mission to find the real locations
Nicholls has been in a relationship with his partner, Hannah Weaver, for more than 20 years
The book contains a disclaimer from the author explaining that while he ‘tried to describe the landscape as accurately as possible, the pubs, hotels and restaurants along the way are all entirely fictional’.
The author added that he has also ‘taken a few small liberties with the route’.
After heartthrob Leo Woodall starred as Dexter Mayhew in the Netflix adaptation of Nicholls’ 2009 novel, One Day, fans have made it their mission to find the real locations.
The 14-part series aired in February and La Maison Highbury, a small cafe in London, has seen queues ever since it appeared in the show for ten seconds as Dexter’s workplace and went viral on TikTok.
Nicholls has been in a relationship with his partner, Hannah Weaver, for more than two decades, and said that having ‘not been on a date since 1997’, the modern world of dating apps appears ‘such a different experience, in many ways much more direct and frank’ than what he has experienced in his lifetime.