Thorns

By Frances Brand

 

Passion and evil amidst the Bosnian tragedy of the 1990s.

 

Narrowly escaping death from a Serbian shell newsman James Lambert watches the love of his life die in a ruined church. Traumatised by the horrors of the Sarajevo siege  he flees back to England, hoping for peace and recovery in the apparent tranquillity of the countryside.

 

Haunted by memories and the reverberating clamour of artillery he takes on a small farm in the Welsh Marches, with a commission to write about the conflict.

 

Though entranced by the unspoiled beauty of the landscape he settles slowly into a community which seems to him a time warp of ideas and behaviour.

 

His seclusion is disrupted by a vulnerable girl's appeal to find a home for her young horse and his kindness to her drags him into the mesh of her family's secret guilt.

 

A letter draws him back to the Balkans and the aftermath of genocide where he becomes involved in covering the ongoing search for the bodies of the missing.

 

His relationship with the girl is threatened by the enmity of her ex-boyfriend but it develops into a love which brings with it dreadful consequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: North Hill Publishing
• Release date: Aug 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781916270817

Frances Brand

Former journalist Frances Brand is based in the west of England among the glorious countryside of the Marches where a crow or raven can fly quickly over the border into Wales. She gave up journalism when the internet was giving regional papers a hard time to begin a new career running a popular bed and breakfast. She was latterly the editor of a farming newspaper, working closely with farmers and others involved in agriculture so knows at first hand the problems and vicissitudes of farming in the 21st-century and what conflicts can arise in a claustrophobic rural society. She witnessed at close quarters the trauma inflicted on the farming community during the UK foot and mouth disaster of 2001. She feels very strongly that so many people have lost touch with the countryside and its benefits, not least the ability of the landscape to inspire and comfort and renew optimism. She breeds horses and dogs at her home in the Shropshire Hills