Description

‘Fabulous: vivid and funny, sometimes heart-rendingly sad’ Guardian

This is the story of how we came to Frith. And we’re never, ever, ever leaving.’

Amy Connell and Lan Honey are having the best childhood, growing up on a West Country farm – three families, a couple of lodgers, goats, dogs and an orphaned calf called Gabriella Christmas.

The parents are best friends too. Originally from the city, they’re learning about farming: growing their own vegetables, milking the goats, slaughtering chickens and scything the hay–

‘Mind your eyes! Don’t break your neck! Careful!’

The adults are far too busy to keep an eye on Amy and Lan, and Amy and Lan would never tell them about climbing on the high barn roof, or what happened with the axe that time, any more than their parents would tell them the things they get up to – adult things, like betrayal – that threaten to bring the whole fragile idyll tumbling down…

‘A gently episodic and humorous tale whose sharp-eyed, effervescent child narrators entertain… Beguilingly readable’ Daily Mail

‘Jones’s evocation of childhood is spot-on: its fierce passions, disaffections, loyalties and suffering’ Financial Times

Publisher Review

I loved Amy and Lan: the way parents mess up their children's lives is heartbreaking yet beautifully conveyed. I've long been a Sadie Jones fan but this may be her best yet. Poignant, compelling and brilliant -- Mary Lawson, author of A TOWN CALLED SOLACE Alive with the wonders of seasonal changes and the thrum of farm life, Amy and Lan will make you cry. Complex, beautifully written and true. I loved this book -- Monique Roffey, author of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH I couldn't put it down. Amy and Lan is a love letter to nature, to the seasons, to the ideal of simple living with all its human complications. It's a beautifully evoked story, full of empathy and hope -- Esther Freud, author of I COULDN'T LOVE YOU MORE Sadie Jones is a consummate novelist of the modern family, in all its mess, cruelties, loyalties, treacheries and tragedies. This child's eye perspective on the 21st century attempt at the Good Life is topical, comical and horrifying. I read it heart in mouth -- Amanda Craig, author of THE GOLDEN RULE Enchanting, funny and layered in pathos... Sadie Jones' unusual take on the rural dream is a gift of a book -- Sarah Langford, author of IN YOUR DEFENCE