Bette and Nina Crowdie have never been close – the ten-year age difference doesn’t help, and Bette’s rarely been home since she left for university at eighteen. When their father passes away and unexpectedly splits the family farm between them, Nina is furious and afraid. She’s been working at the farm for the past five years. It’s the only home her young son, Barnaby, has ever had, and she’s convinced that Bette will sell at the first chance she gets.
When they discover the huge debt their father has been hiding, Bette reluctantly agrees to help her sister. But that means they have to find a way to work together, and Bette must face up to the real reason she left all those years ago.
Could a long-forgotten diary and the discovery of a secret orchard on their land help save the farm – and the sisters’ relationship?
My thoughts: Farming is an incredibly hard job, poorly paid, with long hours and little respite, it’s also critical to feed the country. Nina and Bette’s father has kept hidden from them how badly in debt the family farm is, trying desperately to make it all work and stop the bank repossessing the land their family has worked for generations. His death means all the secrets start to come out and for the sisters, who have a tense relationship, this brings new trouble.
Bette is a high flying lawyer in London, she only plans to be in Scotland for a few days, then back to her life, but things change, the farm, and Nina, need her. Nina is completely thrown by the revelations about how dire the finances are and by her dad’s decision to split the farm between her and her sister. But she has nowhere else to go, and this is her home, and the home of her son, Best Barnaby Barnacle and his dog, Limpet.
I actually knew a sheepdog, who much like Limpet, found sheep terrifying and would run in the opposite direction. But Limpet does save his beloved master and is a real hero, so don’t judge him by his sheep phobia.
The sisters think their luck might have changed when they discover a forgotten orchard on a cliff at the edge of the farm, an orchard full of cider apple trees. I have West Country ancestry, and I love my cider, but I didn’t know there was much of an industry in Scotland, so this was interesting.
The whole story was interesting, every time things started to work out, there was a curve ball, a terrible act of sabotage, a complete idiot who was way too spoilt as a child, a change of circumstances. At times it felt more like a thriller than the gentle story of two sisters finding their way back to each other and saving the family farm in the process.
I wanted more Best Barnaby Barnacle, I wanted to know more about the tunnels and the monks, I wanted more of Nina and Cam, do Bette and Ryan ever work their stuff out, can Allie turn the lost monastery into a historical research project or attraction? I think there’s lots of scope here for a sequel. A what the Crowdies did next type story.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 