Review
‘A beautiful, almost poetically-written tale of love and tragedy in the Yorkshire Dales mainly set during the Second World War. The characters are real flesh and blood and the reader shares their ups and downs with genuine empathy.’
Maureen Lee, author of Kitty and her Sisters
‘An epic tale of hardship and tragedy straddling the Second World War’
The Bookseller
‘A captivating journey back to the past’.
Closer Magazine
‘a warm and enchanting first novel from a writer with an instinctive feel for the northern landscape’
Lancashire Evening Post
Closer Magazine
Product Description
When tragedy strikes, there’s only one place she can go…
A captivating debut from a born storyteller.
When 8-year-old Mirren Gilchrist is orphaned after a tragic accident, she is sent to live with her estranged relatives deep in the Yorkshire Dales. She struggles to fit in, her town ways a mystery to the country children.
One day, fleeing school – and the cane – she takes refuge from a fierce snowstorm in the ruins of a stone cottage. Legend has it that World's End is haunted but Mirren has finally found somewhere she can call home and her love affair with this magical place begins.
It's the place she falls in love with Jack, the place she secretly hopes will one day become their very own. But the Second World War arrives and everything is thrown into turmoil. Jack returns from leave a changed man – violent and uncaring, a cruel streak shining though.
Mirren struggles to cope with the transformed Jack and new motherhood. Then tragedy strikes and history looks set to repeat itself. Is heartache here to stay or can Mirren find solace and inspiration in the only place she has ever felt truly safe?
From the Back Cover
After the death of her drunken father in North Yorkshire, newly-orphaned 8-year old Mirren Gilchrist is sent to live with estranged relatives in the heart of the Dales.
Struggling to adjust to the unfamiliar rural lifestyle, she grows tough and resentful. She finds solace in World's End, a dilapidated stone cottage at the edge of the moor.
As the years pass, Mirren falls in love, marries and begins a family with roguish and handsome Jack - but the arrival of war throws her life into turmoil once again.
Jack returns from leave a changed man, whose dependence on alcohol is all too familiar for Mirren. Whilst he sinks deeper into depression, Mirren struggles to cope with the violent, cruel stranger she married. Then tragedy strikes and history looks set to repeat itself ...
About the Author
Leah Fleming was born in Lancashire of Scottish parents, and is married with four grown-up children and four grandchildren. She writes full-time from a haunted farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales and from the slopes of an olive grove in Crete.
