That Summer at Hill Farm

Miranda France author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:3rd May '12

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

That Summer at Hill Farm cover

It was the summer that everything changed... A sparkling, witty debut, perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson, Stella Gibbons and Joanna Trollope

To the casual outsider, Hill Farm is a rural idyll and the perfect retreat from urban life. His neglected wife Isabel adores her three children, but is temperamentally unsuited to life as a wife and mother.

To the casual outsider, Hill Farm is a rural idyll and the perfect retreat from urban life. Yet beneath the tranquil surface lie discontent, desire and death-watch beetles.

Farmer Hayes loves the land - but hates farming. His neglected wife Isabel adores her three children, but is temperamentally unsuited to life as a wife and mother. The Smith sisters have not spoken to one another for forty years, farm-hand Mikey dabbles in pyromania, while neighbour Mr Payne has fled the city, only to find a greater threat to his karma in the hedgerows of Middle England. And after one incendiary summer, all of their lives will be different...

Originally published with the title Hill Farm

Beautifully rendered, the shifting inner lives of the characters are subtle and believable and the fresh, sometimes subversive observation is a delight -- Elizabeth Buchan * Sunday Times *
Miranda France writes skillfully and with a wry touch... That Summer at Hill Farm is a pleasure to read, tempting the reader to wolf it down in one * Sunday Herald *
An arresting writer...France's account of village life conveys a genuine, smoldering anger... Adultery, arson and assault - all come bursting out * Guardian *
Pyromaniac labourers, feuding pensioners and adulterous housewives blot the landscape in Miranda France's entertaining novel, a sort of homage to Cold Comfort Farm, with a dash of Jilly Cooper and The Archers thrown in -- Adrian Turpin * Financial Times *
With an incredible confidence for a debut novelist, Miranda France changes tack from rural romance to murder mystery...[she] writes with such assurance and humour that she carries us along...through the subtle underpinning of her characterization * Spectator *

ISBN: 9780099555131

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 19mm

Weight: 219g

304 pages