All Desires Known

Book excerpt: All Desires Known... And from whom no secrets are hid. (from the collect before Communion in the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.) Lay out your classic English village in a little bowl-shaped valley: you'll need a church, village hall, couple of farms, row of council houses, old rectory, and a river. Take the following ingredients: One disaffected vicar One vicar's wife, rural-life-fantasist A jobbing gardener and log man The gardener's mother (who happens to be the vicar's ex) The gardener's sisters: one young and bright, one a recovering addict and single mum The vicar's mother: a frail but wise old bird One actor-falling-on-hard-times (who once dated the vicar's wife) One village church A bitter church warden Pour all of the above into the village and stir. All Desires Known is a story about country life. Not chocolate-box-perfect with roses round the door, this is chick-lit for grown-ups, and the first in a series to be set in and around the villages strung along the fictional river Hindle.