The Blackthorn Winter

In The Blackthorn Winter a band of gipsy travellers in the West Country catch the eye of a restless, young woman, Nancy Mead, in particular the seductive Mike. Leaving behind her dull blacksmith lover, Walter Westmacott, she elopes with him for a life of adventure on the road. Soon enough the powers of desire and passion set off bitter conflicts that bring remorse, revenge and death in their wake.

‘A sense of immediacy informs The Blackthorn Winter … The prose swerves from the abrupt to the naive; it is full of inversions, as though the author were quite unaware of the kind of language employed by her literary contemporaries. But she is not writing for a conventional novel-reading public … The book is alive with textures and smells; it is not written about country life but out of direct experience of it, the kind of life a rural readership would recognise.’ – From the Introduction by Glen Cavaliero

‘There is a distinctive energy and wildness to this work; its scenes of the harsh and peripatetic Gypsy life of the period are compelling and memorable.’ – The Times Literary Supplement (2007)

‘The charm of the book lies in its atmosphere – a heavy, slow, earthy atmosphere – and in the power of the author to conjure up country sounds and scents and scenes to such an extent that we almost cease to be readers and become participants in the story.’ - Spectator