The Farm at the Edge of the World: The unputdownable page-turner from bestselling author of ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL, soon to be a major Netflix series

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1939, and Will and Alice are evacuated to a granite farm in north Cornwall, perched on a windswept cliff. There they meet the farmer's daughter, Maggie, and against fields of shimmering barley and a sky that stretches forever, enjoy a childhood largely protected from the ravages of war.

But in the sweltering summer of 1943 something happens that will have tragic consequences. A small lie escalates. Over 70 years on Alice is determined to atone for her behaviour - but has she left it too late

2014, and Maggie's granddaughter Lucy flees to the childhood home she couldn't wait to leave thirteen years earlier, marriage over; career apparently ended thanks to one terrible mistake. Can she rebuild herself and the family farm And can she help her grandmother, plagued by a secret, to find some lasting peace

This is a novel about identity and belonging; guilt, regret and atonement; the unrealistic expectations placed on children and the pain of coming of age. It's about small lies and dark secrets. But above all it's about a beautiful, desolate, complex place.

Reviews

A beautifully evocative story of love, loss and forgiveness. You can taste, feel, see and hear Cornwall on every page as the characters pull you into their lives. Loved it.

Absolutely loved it. Very rare I sit and devour 220 pages in one afternoon.

An evocative and page-turning story of love and heartbreak, written in beautiful and poignant prose that captivated me from first word to final page

A wonderful book about love and loss through the eyes of three generations of Cornish women. Lovable, flawed, and so very human, each character had me rooting for them right until the very end. But it was the setting on the north Cornwall coast that makes me love this book: the weather, the seasons, the landscape, the house are all written so vividly that I could step into that place and instantly know my way around.

Sarah Vaughan not only writes beautifully but her stories and characters have a way of climbing into your heart and staying there long after you've turned the last page . . . Highly recommended!

Author Bio

Sarah Vaughan read English at Oxford and went on to become a journalist. After training at the Press Association, she spent eleven years at the Guardian as a news reporter and political correspondent before leaving to freelance and write fiction.

The Art of Baking Blind, published in the UK, US and seven languages, was her debut novel, and The Farm at the Edge of the World, a French bestseller, her second.

Anatomy of a Scandal, her first courtroom drama/political thriller, became an instant international bestseller and Sunday Times top five bestseller. Translated into 23 languages, it was also filmed for Netflix as a six-part mini-series, written by David E Kelley, and starring Sienna Miller, Michelle Dockery and Rupert Friend.

Little Disasters was a Waterstones thriller of the month, a kindle bestseller, and is in the process of being adapted for TV. Her fifth novel, Reputation, has just been optioned by the team that developed Anatomy of a Scandal for TV.