SHORTLISTED FOR THE WINSTON GRAHAM HISTORICAL PRIZE 2018

The beautiful, questing second novel in Tim Pears' acclaimed West Country trilogy. Two teenagers, bound by love yet divided by fate, forge separate paths in pre-First World War Devon and Cornwall

Lonely and grieving for her exiled best friend, thirteen-year-old Lottie feels a prisoner. Her only solace is her study of the natural world around her father’s estate: the strange profusion of its plants, the beauty and brutality of its predators, its mysterious dances of life, death and survival.

Grazing on berries and sleeping in copses, Leo travels alone through the wild, strange tapestry of the West Country towards Penzance. But a wanderer is never alone for long – and when the gypsy waggons rattle into view, Leo is drawn into a colourful and dangerous world far beyond his imagination.