Life in the 'Back of Beyond' 

     I’ve been running my home in the Shropshire Hills as a b and b for more than twenty years and now I've written a book about it — and much more. 

I used to be a journalist but I didn't stop writing when we started offering accommodation. I made time in between running the place to write two novels under the pen name Frances Brand and now Back of Beyond, which is non-fiction. 

It reveals a learning curve of mistakes and challenges set against the ever-present beauty of the natural world, until the cruel intervention of illness darkens the idyll. Above all it's about how living here induced a greater understanding of the natural world all around us. 

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 entwined with nature. Living with the Covid pandemic, climate change and deteriorating health, — not to mention an unforgettable kaleidoscope of two, four and six legged guests. 

Those of you who care for the natural world and our environment will hopefully enjoy this story. My second novel Adam’s Ark was written during the Covid lockdowns. Set ten years in the future it’s becoming increasingly topical, depicting a vision of this beautiful valley and all the low-lying land in Britain under deep floods. High ground is the only place to be safe and stranded survivors are brought face to face with reality as the world they know has gone, maybe for ever. 

I wrote it to entertain— a work of fiction but with an inbuilt warning about what could very well happen — because we all have a part to play in this. The first novel Thorns was coloured by my concern at what was happening in Bosnia in the 90s, begun at the time but put aside. It moves between war-torn Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo and the glorious landscape of Shropshire, a tangled story of love and a searing insight into the darkest aspects of human nature. Not one for the faint-hearted. The books are all available as ebooks or in print.