Amy and Lan

*Picked by the Guardian and Evening Standard as a Summer 2022 read*'Fabulous: vivid and funny, sometimes heart-rendingly sad' Guardian'Enchanting, funny and layered in pathos... Sadie Jones' unusual take on the rural dream is a gift of a book' Sarah Langford'No one conjures the magic of place like Sadie Jones... A beautiful, haunting novel about the limits of love and the loss of innocence' Clare Clark____________________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'Mesmerising' Good Housekeeping, *The 10 best books to read this month*