Hayley Baxter

I loved this book. I was on holiday when reading and I stayed in my holiday cottage for two days to read it. It is beautifully written and researched, with characters I fell in love with. Moyes manages to capture the tensions of the Depression, depicting rural poverty, domestic abuse, and the rise of feminine power. New attitudes towards race, feminism as well as marriage and sex come up against old money and old values in a tragic way. I found myself desperate for the progressive characters and attitudes to prevail and it was this that built the tension and kept me reading till 2am! An absolute must read and perhaps her best novel to date.