Description

When Jenny and Robert fall in love in the late 1960s they decide to build a new future together, away from the city. They escape to an isolated sheep farm nestled on a mountainside. It has no running water but it is beautiful and rugged. Their young sons can roam wild.

As their flock struggles, money runs low and rain drives in horizontally across the fields, inside the ancient house their marriage begins to unravel. Wilful and romantic, Jenny refuses to abandon her farm. She will bring her boys up single-handedly on the mountain. Together they embark on a perilous adventure.

Running for the Hills is astonishing family memoir – Horatio Clare vividly recreates his mother’s extraordinary way of life and his own bewitching childhood in a magical story of love and struggle.

Publisher Review

'An assured and compelling first book ... A moving exploration of the slow triumph of adversity over optimism' * Rose Tremain, The Sunday Telegraph * 'The classic Great Escape . . . strikingly told' * Matthew Bell, TLS * 'It is the prose equivalent of a collection of poems by Ted Hughes - or Wordsworth' * Sunday Times * 'Beautifully written ... crammed with precious details ... It should be required reading' * Guardian * 'A major talent' * Marie Clare * Enchanting ... magical ... so beautifully written that you almost hold your breath' * Daily Mail * 'Touching, funny and extremely well-written' * Telegraph * 'A joy ... heartening, raw, tender.' * John Carey, Sunday Times * 'A tender, eloquent book about love, the power of the land and the price to paid for living out one's dreams' * Sarah Dunant * 'The young family has to face the hardships that small farmers and smallholders endure everywhere' * The Times *