Of Love and Slaughter

George Elkin has loyally trained as a solicitor in order to follow in his father's footsteps and run the family firm. But when his father dies, George resolves to follow his heart instead, looking after the West Country farm he grew up on. With the help of neighbours, his childhood friends Prodge and Nell, George is sure he can adapt to a rural lifestyle. Nell holds feelings for George she has kept hidden since their childhood and has long had the hope that their friendship would develop into something stronger. But then Lily, a woman George knew in his Oxford days, comes to stay and changes all of their lives and it seems that Nell's hopes will forever remain unfulfilled. Meanwhile, the rural community is facing a threat to its very existence: BSE, foot and mouth, government proposals on hunting - each crisis straining farmers and their livelihoods to breaking-point. And George and Prodge are faced with the awful knowledge that their future is out of their hands ...

Huth is the daughter of the actor Harold Huth. She left school at age 16 in order to paint and to study art in both France and Italy. At 18 she travelled, mostly alone, across the United States before returning to England to work on a variety of newspapers and magazines. She married journalist and travel writer Quentin Crewe and soon became known most for her writing, having written three collections of short stories and eleven novels. She also writes plays for radio, television and stage, and is a well-known freelance journalist, critic and broadcaster. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.