Showing results by author "Melissa Harrison" in Genre Fiction

The autumn of 1933 is the most beautiful Edie Mather can remember, although the Great War still casts its shadow over the fields and villages around her beloved home, Wych Farm. Constance FitzAllen arrives from London to document fading rural traditions and beliefs. For Edie, who must soon face the unsettling pressures of adulthood, the glamorous and worldly outsider appears to be a godsend. But there is more to the older woman than meets the eye. As harvest time approaches and pressures mount on the entire community, Edie must find a way to trust her instincts and save herself.

Eight-year-old TC skips school to explore the city’s overgrown, forgotten corners. Sophia, 78, watches with concern as he slips past her window, through the little park she loves. She’s writing to her granddaughter, Daisy, whose privileged upbringing means she exists in a different world from TC - though the two children live less than a mile apart.

Howard and Kitty have recently moved to Lodeshill after a life spent in London; now, their marriage is wordlessly falling apart. Custom car enthusiast Jamie has lived in the village for all of his 19 years and dreams of leaving it behind, while Jack, a vagrant farm-worker and mystic in flight from a bail hostel, arrives in the village on foot one spring morning, bringing change. All four of them are struggling to find a life in the modern countryside; all are trying to find ways to belong.

Die vierzehnjährige Edie Mather lebt mit ihrer Familie auf Wych Farm, wo der Schatten des Ersten Weltkriegs noch immer über der durch die Weltwirtschaftskrise verarmten Gemeinde hängt. Es ist die Zeit der traditionellen Landwirtschaft: Die Farm wird noch mit Pferdestärken betrieben, und das Leben auf dem Land ist hart. Edie ist "ein seltsames Kind"; als eines von vier Geschwistern in einer konservativen Farmerfamilie zieht sie die Gesellschaft von Büchern anderen Spielkameraden vor.