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Hearing the Grass Grow

By Katie Thear

Katie Thear’s First Novel!

Katie Thear is well-known as a writer of practical books for the small farming sector. With more than twenty published works, such as The Smallholder’s Manual and Free-Range Poultry, her accessible style is appreciated by many. Now, she has written an eagerly awaited first novel.

Hearing the Grass Grow is a compelling love story, set in a Welsh village during the Second World War. Mari, a single mother and member of the Women’s Land Army, Werner, a German Prisoner of War working on a farm and Martin, an injured English fighter pilot, come together in a drama of love and conflict that is witnessed by the local and evacuee children. Soon, they too are caught up in the unfolding story until the war intervenes with a series of shocking deaths. Can the fragile village culture weather these blows to its traditional ways?

Katie has written an engaging story that is both funny and poignant. It is punctuated by a number of dramatic incidents that make the book difficult to put down. She writes with a lightness of touch and with richly drawn characters, calling on her own experience of growing up on a smallholding in North Wales at the time.

Hearing the Grass Grow . Paperback. 320 Pages. £6.99.