Back of Beyond (Paperback or Softback)

Life in the wilds of the Welsh Marches, surrounded by nature and beset by harsh challenges

Subtle shades of landscape and light changing throughout the year; ravens tumbling overhead and returning swallows gathering mud to build their nests …. all woven into a humorous yet heart-rending account of life interwoven with nature.

This tale of running a bed and breakfast in the Shropshire Hills, reveals a learning curve of mistakes and challenges set against the ever-present beauty of the natural world, until the cruel intervention of motor neurone disease darkens the idyll.

An inspirational affirmation of life and intimate engagement with nature which reveals its own complex and powerful character. Small cameos of wild things are sharply observed, written with real love and illustrated with exquisite drawings.

Living with the Covid pandemic, climate change and deteriorating health, — not to mention an unforgettable kaleidoscope of two, four and six legged guests — each episode of this rural life is faced with wry humour, courage and resourcefulness, deepening the sense of life’s value.

Those who care for the natural world and our environment will warm to this profoundly moving story.

Frances Brand lives in Shropshire among the glorious countryside of the Marches where ravens can fly quickly over the border into Wales.Frances is a former journalist who changed career when the internet was hitting regional papers; she began a new writing career and opened the doors of her hilltop home to paying guests. Love of the landscape and the natural world in all its beauty and harshness forms the backdrop to her work, providing both inspiration and characters. Latterly she was editor of a farming newspaper, working closely with farmers and others involved in agriculture. She knows at first hand the problems and vicissitudes of farming in the 21st-century in a claustrophobic rural society, as depicted in her first novel Thorns. The elevated location of her small farm was also key to the theme of a second novel, Adam's Ark, which imagined the impact on the landscape and community of extreme flooding caused by global warming.