The Farm at the Edge of the World, my novel about love, loss and forgiveness played out on the desolate north Cornish coast, is published today. I'm not having a hardback launch but I will be doing this event with two fellow Hachette authors on the Hodder roof terrace on July 19 and would love to see some friendly faces there:

I've also been busy publicising the novel, with an audible interview here and a series of blog pieces, many collated on my previous blog page; the others to be listed here when published.

The novel is also out as an audiobook, expertly narrated by Claire Corbett. I find it difficult listening to my words being read by someone else - a common writerly problem I think - but from this little clip, I know she'll do it justice. If you click here you'll get a flavour. Hope you enjoy! 

The Farm at the Edge of the World will be published in less three weeks - and as in the run-up to finals, or the birth of a baby, I've found myself immersed in a sudden frenzy of activity.  

I've attempted a mini book-tour, whisking to the very western tip of Cornwall and the fortuitously named Edge of the World bookshop, in Penzance, as well as Waterstone's Truro and St Ives bookseller to try to drum up support:

I've helped create a Pinterest page of photos that helped inspired the novel - see it here - and, having been picked as the Hodder, Quercus and Headline women's fiction website's choice of the month, have blogged on the books on my bedside table, here and my perfect weekend - in Cornwall, of course - here.

I've also written about the inspiration behind the novel for the Prime Writers website, here:

My great grandfather, Matthew Jelbert, who farmed just outside St Austell. Part of the inspiration for the book.

Childhood holidays in north Cornwall - and the emotional significance of a certain place - sparked the initial idea. Here my sister and I are walking on Tregirls Beach, aged 11 and 9, 1984.

And I've been interviewed for audible.com and written about the archetypal tricky second novel for fellow Hodder author Katie Marsh, here.

With a Hodder rooftop reading planned, I'm not holding a party until the paperback's released in January - not least because I'm determined to finish the first draft of my third novel by June 30, my publication day. It won't be a day of languid self-congratulation: one child has a piano exam and athletics tournament; another swimming; while my evening will be spent preparing for a school leavers' breakfast and attending a secondary school meeting.

But amid the busy-ness of everyday life, I'll make time to sit and stroke a finished copy, relieved that my archetypal tricky second novel has emerged as a beautifully-jacketed, tangible, thing. The book I once agonised over, and doubted I could ever wrest into a tightly-structured story, is being read, and - finger's crossed, so far - enjoyed. And that's reason enough for a celebration, however quiet a kind.

My new novel, The Farm at the Edge of the World, will be published next month (June 30) and to celebrate Hodder have organised a goodreads giveaway. Simply sign up to win one of twenty copies: http://fal.cn/2x7i 

Here's the story behind the novel which focuses on love, loss, regret and atonement - all played out on a stretch of the north Cornish coast : http://bit.ly/1Tjgvo1

And here's what some early readers have already said: 

A beautifully evocative story of love, loss and forgiveness. You can taste, feel, see and hear Cornwall on every page as the characters pull you into their lives. Loved it. (Liz Fenwick)

Absolutely loved it. Very rare I sit and devour 220 pages in one afternoon. (Nina Pottell)

An evocative and page-turning story of love and heartbreak, written in beautiful and poignant prose that captivated me from first word to final page (Katie Marsh)

A wonderful book about love and loss through the eyes of three generations of Cornish women. Lovable, flawed, and so very human, each character had me rooting for them right until the very end. But it was the setting on the north Cornwall coast that makes me love this book: the weather, the seasons, the landscape, the house are all written so vividly that I could step into that place and instantly know my way around. (Claire Fuller)

Sarah Vaughan not only writes beautifully but her stories and characters have a way of climbing into your heart and staying there long after you've turned the last page . . . Highly recommended! (Fleur Smithwick)

When I was a girl, we holidayed in a pilot's cottage on the edge of a cove in north Cornwall, where the water pooled petrol-blue and deep then slithered over the sand all day. Behind us the cliffs were high: a headland where you were buffeted by the wind and the sky stretched from Land's End, to the west, and all the way up to Devon. Infront of us, the estuary shifted: silvered puddles of water then ribbons of sea, and then a mass of charcoal ocean through which fishing trawlers chugged, drawing seagulls and wheeling guillemots in their wake.

Beyond the sea, there were fields and a farm: a low-slung stretch of granite seen on the horizon. Our stay would often coincide with the harvest and I would watch the combine as it trundled through the fields of barley all week. The air was thick with the smell of crushed camomile, dog rose and gorse, and the shoreline casually offered its gems: jewel-like anemones; blennies and crabs; a shoal of mackerel, spiralling through the water; a pair of seals, spied from the cliffs as they basked on the salt-lashed rocks beneath.

Years later, I took my then-boyfriend to this place. "Why didn't you tell me this existed?" he asked me. Later still, we began to stay, first in the cottage, then on the farm with our kids. And as the lane opened up to offer a view of the estuary, and I spied the cottage where I holidayed as a child, I would always have the same response. "Oh no," one child would say. "Don't tell me," my husband would look incredulous. "Oh yes," the other would add. "She's crying again."

My over-emotional, some might think excessive, response is not just due to the beauty of this spot - though, on a cloudless day, it takes my breath away - but to the fact that this place is packed tight with memories. A world over-invested with positive emotions: the place I remember feeling happiest as a child. And so, when I decided to write about an isolated farm on a stretch of the north Cornwall coast - a farm filled with more complex memories; darkness as well as light - it was inevitable that my recollections would feed into it.

The Farm at the Edge of the World, to be published by Hodder on June 30, is the result.

Here's the blurb:

The farm sits with its back towards the Atlantic; a long stretch of granite, hunkering down. For over 300 years it has stood here, steeped in the history and secrets of one family. A farm at the very edge of the world.

1939, and Will and Alice are evacuated to a granite farm in north Cornwall, perched on a windswept cliff. There they meet the farmer's daughter, Maggie, and against fields of shimmering barley and a sky that stretches forever, enjoy a childhood largely protected from the ravages of war.

But in the sweltering summer of 1943 something happens that will have tragic consequences. A small lie escalates. Over 70 years on Alice is determined to atone for her behaviour - but has she left it too late?

2014, and Maggie's granddaughter Lucy flees to the childhood home she couldn't wait to leave thirteen years earlier, marriage over; career apparently ended thanks to one terrible mistake. Can she rebuild herself and the family farm? And can she help her grandmother, plagued by a secret, to find some lasting peace?

This is a novel about identity and belonging; guilt, regret and atonement; the unrealistic expectations placed on children and the pain of coming of age. It's about small lies and dark secrets. But above all it's about a beautiful, desolate, complex place.

If  you want to read any more about its inspiration, I blogged about my Cornish farming ancestors in the June section of my blog . (You will need to scroll a little down.)

And if you want to read about a research trip to Cornwall - and the importance of a sense of place in my writing, with some very attractive pictures of moorland cattle - you can do so in the May section. (See archive to the right.)