The Moon Field

A poignant story of love and redemption, The Moon Field explores the loss of innocence through a war that destroys everything except the bonds of human hearts.

No man’s land is a place in the heart: pitted, cratered and empty as the moon…

Hidden in a soldier’s tin box are a painting, a pocket watch, and a dance card – keepsakes of three lives.

It is 1914. George Farrell cycles through the tranquil Cumberland fells to deliver a letter, unaware that it will change his life. George has fallen for the rich and beautiful daughter at the Manor House, Miss Violet, but when she lets slip the contents of the letter George is heartbroken to find that she is already promised to another man. George escapes his heartbreak by joining the patriotic rush to war, but his past is not so easily avoided. His rite of passage into adulthood leaves him believing that no woman will be able to love the man he has become.

Reviews

‘Genuinely and deeply moving’ THE TIMES

‘Deeply engaging and unsentimental…really memorable’ CHARLES PALLISER, author of The Quincunx

Praise for The Poet’s Wife:

‘Allnatt gives her an affecting, beautifully written afterlife’
THE TIMES

‘'This is a beautifully written, poignant novel, lyrically descriptive of the landscape, detailed in the country life of the time and reminiscent of the gentle style of the genius peasant poet'
CHOICE MAGAZINE

Praise for A Mile of River:

'A novel of rare insight, exquisitely written. A standing ovation for this debut’ Michael Morpurgo

‘'Excellent…The writing is restrained but powerful and the description of that remorseless heat is masterful’
NEW BOOKS MAGAZINE

About the author

Judith Allnatt is an acclaimed short story writer and novelist. Her first novel, A Mile of River, was a Radio Five Live Book of the Month and was shortlisted for the Portico Prize for Literature; her second novel, The Poet’s Wife, was shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award. Her short stories have featured in the Bridport Prize Anthology, the Commonwealth Short Story Awards and on BBC Radio 4. She lives with her family in Northamptonshire.