The Poacher's Daughter
First published by Orion Books. Now published as an e-book
ISBN 978 1 4657 0
Available for the Kindle from Amazon and on Kindle Select to borrow.
Kate was known as the poacher’s daughter in the village of Middleacre where she and her pa lived in a tinker’s caravan on the common. They all knew she was not the poacher’s real child, though few knew the mystery of how she came to be living with him. Kate herself was not sure; Josiah had told her he had found her abandoned as a baby, but was Josiah telling the truth?
He loved her and she was devoted to him and she had not questioned what he said until two mysterious men came to the village on the same day, both handsome, strong, self-possessed men, but so very different in every other way. Something was happening in the village, something important, something that would affect all their lives…
All over England in 1830, bands of agricultural labourers are rising up over enclosures, low wages, the employment of outsiders and the new farm machinery which they maintain is putting them out of work. Driven by desperation, they pull down fences, destroy threshing machines and set fire to ricks and barns. Their actions are often preceded by a warning letter signed by a mysterious Captain Swing. But no one knows who he is. Could he be one of the strangers who has arrived in Middleacre?