That Summer at Hill Farm

A clear-eyed, wise and subtle debut novel from a novelist to watch. Miranda France´s depiction of a vanishing rural Britain is packed with characters and events that ring coruscatingly true.

Liz Jensen

There is so much to admire in this novel: authorial eloquence, sly wit and the multi-faceted evocation of a rural community.

David Lodge

Miranda France has minutely drawn a farming community, and a broken woman, with excellent skill. She is superb at plucking comedy from tragedy, as well as exhibiting a wry authorial narrative that must owe more than a little to Jane Austen. She manages to square this lightness of tone with a subtle tale full of secrecy, betrayal and fear that keeps you clinging on right to the very end

The List

It's impossible to avoid comparisons with Stella Gibbons...But Miranda France's debut novel is set in modern-day Sussex and she has drawn on her farming roots to a paint a picture of bucolic pastures.

Sussex Life

Beautifully rendered, the shifting inner lives of the characters are subtle and believable and the fresh, sometimes subversive observation is a delight

Elizabeth Buchan, Sunday Times

Miranda France writes skillfully and with a wry touch... That Summer at Hill Farm is a pleasure to read, tempting the reader to wolf it down in one

Sunday Herald

A convincing depiction of the way in which ordinary lives can be nudged towards quiet tragedy

Literary Review

An arresting writer...France's account of village life conveys a genuine, smoldering anger... Adultery, arson and assault - all come bursting out

Guardian

Reads like The Archers written by Tolstoy...This debut novel from a well-known travel scribe twists coming-of-age drama with Karenina-esque sensual discovery, and perfectly captures the more Gothic aspects of country life

Daily Mail

With an incredible confidence for a debut novelist, Miranda France changes tack from rural romance to murder mystery...[she] writes with such assurance and humour that she carries us along...through the subtle underpinning of her characterization

Spectator

Immensely clever unearthing of rural life and love

Sainsbury's Magazine

Pyromaniac labourers, feuding pensioners and adulterous housewives blot the landscape in Miranda France's entertaining novel, a sort of homage to Cold Comfort Farm, with a dash of Jilly Cooper and The Archers thrown in

Adrian Turpin, Financial Times

France writes superbly about the reality of living in the countryside - and the pitch-black ending chills the blood.

Saga Magazine