The Horseman: The West Country Trilogy - Hardcover

Pears, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1632866935 ISBN 13: 9781632866936

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2017

Synopsis

From acclaimed author Tim Pears, the first novel in a sweeping historical trilogy, beginning in rural, pre-WWI England.

Somerset, 1911. The forces of war are building across Europe, but this pocket of England, where the rhythms of lives are dictated by the seasons and the land, remains untouched. Albert Sercombe is a farmer on Lord Prideaux's estate and his eldest son, Sid, is underkeeper to the head gamekeeper. His son, Leo, a talented rider, grows up alongside the master's spirited daughter, Charlotte--a girl who shoots and rides, much to the surprise of the locals. In beautiful, pastoral writing, The Horseman tells the story of a family, a community, and the landscape they come from.

The Horseman is a return to the world invoked in Pears' first award-winning, extravagantly praised novel, In the Place of Fallen Leaves. It is the first book of a trilogy that will follow Leo away from the estate and into the First World War and beyond. Exquisitely, tenderly written, this is immersive, transporting historical fiction at its finest.

About this title

About the Author:

Tim Pears was born in 1956, grew up in Devon, left school at sixteen, and had countless menial jobs before studying at the National Film and Television School. He is the author of eight novels, including In the Place of Fallen Leaves, which won the Hawthornden Prize and the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award; In a Land of Plenty, which was made into a BBC series; and Landed, which won the MJA Open Book Award in 2011. Pears lives in Oxford, England, with his wife and children.

Review:

"Tim Pears's The Horseman, the first novel of a projected trilogy, is. . . a marvelously imagined re-construction of a lost world and vanished way of life. . . I look forward to reading these promised volumes, for this is a wonderful novel. . . Tim Pears combines a down-to-earth rendering of the realities of rural life with a magical sense of another world beyond our everyday experience." - Wall Street Journal

"The most entrancing novel I read this year is The Horseman by Tim Pears. This intelligent and moving evocation of life on a country estate just before the First World War is both down-to-earth and magical. There are faint echoes of Alain Fournier's masterpiece Le Grand Meaulnes, and there's no higher praise." - Sunday Herald, "Books of the Year"

"Magically immediate." - Times Literary Supplement

"The Horseman is a slow but satisfying burn. As a testament to a forgotten generation of countrymen it is unsurpassed and goes very nicely indeed with a dark night, rain on the windowpane and a cosy armchair." - The Times

"Pears steadily and satisfyingly branches out, unfurling his canvas and introducing characters we want to see more of, plus a raft of unresolved issues and emotions. . . [a] beautiful and engaging novel. Bring on the second act." - Minneapolis Star Tribune

"As a coming-of-age novel, The Horseman is wise and insightful. As a love story, it is moving and sincere. And as a portrayal of rural Edwardian England, it is powerful, vivid and humane." - Observer

"[A] lovingly detailed almanac of a tale . . . a gloriously devoted poem to England's past." - Kirkus Reviews

"'The Horseman' is so soft a story, so lovingly intimate, so gently celebratory . . . . Pears doesn't wow you with incident. You must pay attention. But when you do, like Leo you will be rewarded with wisdom." - Bookfilter

"The depth of Pears's skill is how he transports us to this particular time and place, allowing us to feel as though we are actually experiencing the novel as we read . . . Bringing Leo to life both through broad strokes and in the tiniest detail, Pears makes his point in the context of an involving, propulsive page-turner which leaves the reader breathless, wanting to read more of this planned trilogy." - Curled Up With a Good Book

"Refreshing . . . even revelatory . . . A work that is dense with detail and richly evocative . . . A very impressive performance." - Jane Smiley, The Washington Post Book World on IN THE PLACE OF FALLEN LEAVES

"This is it. This is the real thing. This is whatever I mean by the work of a born writer . . . . The imaginative energy reminds me of Dickens, constantly discovering surprising quirks and shifts and dimensions in his own inventions . . . The novel is comic, and wry, and elegiac, and shrewd and thoughtful all at once. Please read it." - A. S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph on IN THE PLACE OF FALLEN LEAVES

"An engaging, well-written and original novel. Pears could write about the washing up and make it interesting." - Philip Hensher, The Guardian on IN THE PLACE OF FALLEN LEAVES

"The author is a gifted storyteller, steeped in country lore and the beauty of ordinary events. Like Thomas Hardy whose kindred spirit quietly animates these pages, he is concerned with the dignity of work, the force of destiny and the consequences of human passion." - Peter Finn, The New York Times Book Review on IN THE PLACE OF FALLEN LEAVES

"A triumph . . . sensitive, heart-warming and hallucinatory." - Financial Times on IN THE PLACE OF FALLEN LEAVES

"Piercingly beautiful, fiercely lyrical . . . Pears evokes unspoken bonds of love, a sense of community, and organic connectedness to nature in a remarkable debut, a work shot through with moments of great tenderness, beauty, and emotional power." - Publishers Weekly on IN THE PLACE OF FALLEN LEAVES

"Like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road without the apocalypse, this story will seize readers’ hearts and have them rooting for the survival of a father and his children on the run. Pears has produced another strong, sympathetic winner." - Library Journal on LANDED

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1632866935
• ISBN 13: 9781632866936
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320