The arrival of a stranger in the village of Thrush Green stirs up ripples of speculation and interest.
Not only does the village find itself paying tribute to this stranger's hero - a missionary born and bred in Thrush Green - but his presence has a dramatic affect on Miss Dimity Dean's romantic prospects . . .
As the story plays out, Miss Read succeeds in portraying village life with all its often unexpected incidents, and her unwavering eye for detail beautifully captures the character of a gradually disappearing aspect of rural English life.
Miss Read, or in real life Dora Saint, was born 17 April 1913. A teacher by profession, she started writing after the Second World War for Punch and other journals and as a scriptwriter for the BBC. She is the author of many immensely popular books, including two autobiographical works, but it is for her novels of English rural life for which she is best known. The first of these, Village School, was published in 1955 and Miss Read continued to write about the fictitious villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green until her retirement in 1996. She lives in Berkshire, and in the 1998 New Year Honours list was awarded an MBE for her services to literature. She died in April 2012.
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