Thorns

Doomed love and evil amidst the Bosnian tragedy of the 1990s.

Narrowly escaping death from a Serbian shell newsman James Lambert watches the love of his life die in a ruined church. Traumatised by the horrors of the Sarajevo siege  he flees back to England, hoping for peace and recovery in the apparent tranquillity of the countryside.

Haunted by memories and the reverberating clamour of artillery he takes on a small farm in the Welsh Marches, with a commission to write about the conflict.

Though entranced by the unspoiled beauty of the landscape he settles slowly into a community which seems to him a time warp of ideas and behaviour.

His seclusion is disrupted by a vulnerable girl's appeal to find a home for her young horse and his kindness to her drags him into the mesh of her family's secret guilt.

A letter draws him back to the Balkans and the aftermath of genocide where he becomes involved in covering the ongoing search for the bodies of the missing.

His relationship with the girl is threatened by the enmity of her ex-boyfriend but it develops into a love which brings with it dreadful consequences.