In a village there are no secrets. As head of Fairacre's two-class school, Miss Read's every deed is subject for speculation, and she is inevitably involved in most of her neighbours' concerns.

Her first novel recounts the ups and downs of a year in 1950s' Fairacre with the clear-sighted tolerance, sharp observation and gentle irony that makes her so enduringly popular. From Miss Clare's failing health to the new infant teacher's budding romance and Mrs Pringle's never-ending complaints, from the everyday wonders of nature to the often less wonderful behaviour of the villagers, very little escapes Miss Read's notice...

A Carleton Hobbs Award Winner, Carole Boyd has worked extensively in radio drama and features and is famously known as Lynda Snell in The Archers . In 1998 she won an APA Audio Award for The Land Girls and British Talkie Award for The God Of Small Things . In 2001 she won an SWPA - Spoken Word Publishers - Silver Award for Middlemarch . Carole has also read two Rebecca Shaw titles for Orion.