Gods Acre - blog tour

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God’s Acre by Dee Yates

About the author

Born and brought up in the south of England, the eldest girl of nine children, Dee moved north to Yorkshire to study medicine. She remained there, working in well woman medicine and general practice and bringing up her three daughters. She retired slightly early at the end of 2003, in order to start writing, and wrote two books in the next three years. In 2007 she moved further north, to the beautiful Southern Uplands of Scotland. Here she fills her time with her three grandsons, helping in the local museum, the church and the school library, walking, gardening and reading. She writes historical fiction, poetry and more recently non-fiction. Occasionally she gets to compare notes with her youngest sister Sarah Flint who writes crime with blood-curdling descriptions which make Dee want to hide behind the settee.

About the book

As the drums of war begin to beat louder on the continent, and life becomes more dangerous in cities, seventeen year-old Jeannie McIver leaves the comfort of her Aunt’s house in Glasgow, to head to the wilds of the Scottish Uplands to start life as a Land Girl.

Jeannie soon falls in love with life on the busy Scottish hill farm, despite all of its hardships and challenges. She feels welcomed by the Cunningham family who value and cherish her far more than her own rather remote and cold parents, and the work is rewarding.

She even finds her interest piqued by the brooding, attractive Tam, the son of the neighbouring farmer, and a sweet romance between them slowly blossoms. But even in the barren hills, they can’t avoid the hell of war, and as local men start disappearing off to fight at the Front, Jeannie’s idyllic life starts to crumble.

Those left behind try desperately to keep the home fires burning, but then Jeannie makes one devastating decision which changes the course of her and Tam’s lives forever.

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2EDltZO

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2Wc37aB

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2UdSxh8

iBooks: https://apple.co/2NQoD0D

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EXTRACT

2. Tam

September 2001

Tam opened the door of the cottage and sniffed the air. He took a cautious step outside, feeling the frozen ruts of the mud uneven beneath his feet. He scowled. Why hadn’t he dug potatoes from the ground yesterday, before this hard frost set in, making the salvaging of this late crop a difficult, if not impossible, task? He hesitated, but then, with a sigh of resignation, plodded to the small outhouse tacked onto the end of his cottage. If he didn’t make the effort, there would be no dinner. Lifting his fork from the two nails that held it clear of the mud floor, he swung the metal bucket off the ground and made his way with slow steps to the vegetable plot.

The familiar smell of brassicas greeted him on his arrival at the bottom of the garden. Sinking his hand deep into his trouser pocket, he retrieved an ancient, bone-handled penknife and sliced through the stem of a hearty cabbage. He wiped the knife on his trousers and paused, looking at it, his hand on the blade, before folding it into its sheath and dropping it back into the fluffy, soiled depths of his pocket. He stood a long moment, gazing unblinking down the valley side, where, below him, the burn from the village fed into the river. When his eyes began to water with the cold, he wiped the sleeve of his jacket across them, picked up the fork from its resting place against the trunk of the cherry tree and jabbed it into the ground, levering up the soil in unyielding lumps to reveal the firm creamy potatoes beneath.

When the bucket was half full, he stopped abruptly. With a swift intake of breath, he clutched his hand to his chest, his face creased with pain. He remained motionless, knowing from experience that this was the quickest way to disperse the discomfort. He should have known better than to have left the relative comfort of his house on a day such as this. After a few minutes, the tightness ebbed away like a tide on the turn. He stood a minute longer, unwilling to risk too soon a movement, his eyes turning again to a perusal of the field and the tinkling burn below his garden. At last, he bent, picked up the remaining two or three potatoes and threw them into the bucket, where they came to rest with a clang and a thud.

His walk up the slope of the grass was slower than the outward journey and by the time he reached the shed he was panting for breath. Always methodical, he hung the fork back on the nails and shut the door, picking up the bucket again and carrying it to the cottage. Neighbours would have suggested he leave the potatoes in the shed until needed. But why give the mice the opportunity of feasting on his dinner before it had even reached his plate? He stepped into the entry, wiped his feet on the rough mat and shut the door firmly against the cold.

Beneath a shelf that ran the length of the kitchen hung several pans, ancient and blackened with use. Tam unhooked one and steadied the heaviness of it with his hands. They had been his mother’s, these pans, and, for all he knew, her mother’s before that. He filled it with cold water, placed it on the wooden draining board and began to peel the potatoes. It was quiet in the cottage. The only sounds were the occasional grunt from the old man and a soft plop as another potato was added to the water.

At last he was done. He picked up the peeled potatoes and turned to lift them onto the stove when a second spasm of tightness gripped him. Letting go of the saucepan so it hit the ring with a jolt that sent water cascading over its rim and down the front of the oven, he sat down abruptly on the kitchen chair behind him. A cat put its head round the door and, strolling over, wound itself round his legs. At first, overwhelmed by the paroxysm, he took no notice of it, but as the pain once more ebbed away, he bent down and fondled the creature’s neck.

‘Come to look after your old friend in his hour of need, have you, Tabitha? Aye, at times like these, it’s good to have a woman about the house, so it is.’

The cat gave an answering purr, rubbed herself against Tam’s boots one more time and walked sedately to her bowl.

‘Oh, so it’s milk you’re wanting, is it? I didnae think it was only to show me love and affection that you were here.’

He reached for an enamel jug that stood on the table, sniffed it out of habit and, with a shaking hand, began to pour a small amount into the cat’s bowl. The milk slopped over the edge onto the lino and the cat obligingly began to lick up the spill, before starting on what was in her dish.