'A powerfully confessional memoir that excavates important truths about our lives, our selves and our dreams and what happens when we have to let go.'
Clover Stroud, author of My Wild and Sleepless Nights
In 2017, Rebecca Schiller turned fantasy to reality and moved her family to a countryside smallholding for a life of sowing and growing.But as the first few years go by, and the ever-expanding list of tasks builds to a cacophony, it becomes clear that this is not going to be simple.
Another January comes in, and with it the threat of a mental health crisis, and so Rebecca turns to the garden where she has made her home, and to the women of this place's past. Here, she stumbles on a wild space of imaginative leaps, where she begins to uncover the hidden layers of her plot's history - and of herself. The ground under Rebecca's boots offers hard lessons as the seasons shift, delivering unflinching glimpses of damage done to peoples and the planet and regular defeats in her battle with the slugs.
Yet as the New Year returns, carrying a life-changing diagnosis and then a global pandemic, Rebecca begins to move forwards with hope: the smallholding has become her anchor, her teacher and her family's shelter. Because when we find ourselves in an unknown land, we all need something small to hold on to and a way to keep ourselves earthed.
*****
'The "how I moved to a field and had a breakdown book" that desperately needed to be written. Incredibly bold, brave, poetic and absolutely beautiful: a fascinating insight into the mind." - Sophie Heawood, author of The Hungover Games
'So honest, so raw and so vulnerable. This much-needed story of resilience integrates history, myth and folklore, drawing on the histories of the people who have gone before and to whom this land once belonged.' - Dr Pragya Agarwal, author of Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias
'A lyrical journey through nature and the human heart. Inspiring.' - Sarah Langford, author of In Your Defence