Poldark on Dartmoor? Local author releases debut novel

Author, Celia Moore from Longdown has released her debut novel Fox Halt Farm which her friends have dubbed ‘Poldark on a Farm.’

Celia says that her new book is romantic and powerful. Set over two decades - with dramatic countryside as its backdrop, it is an emotive read with enthralling characters but it is set two hundred years after Poldark, in 1986. The author has a compelling series all mapped out for Fox Halt Farm, a dairy farm on the outskirts of Okehampton whose survival is constantly threatened.

The novel sees Billy Mays’s family struggling to keep their family farm. Billy’s Devon home and the cows are in the danger of being sold, while Richard MarcFenn runs a thriving multinational business in London. Their unexpected meeting leads to catastrophic consequences for them, their families and their friends. This is a love story with a cast of intriguing individuals all enmeshed in secrets.

The author’s parents sold the major part of their small farm and their dairy herd when she was four years old and she watched as many of the neighbouring farmers fought to keep farms that had been in their families for generations. Celia Moore is fifty this year and she thinks her novel came out of a need to reflect on her life so far, especially the bond she feels for Devon. She has worked in roles as far apart as a chartered surveyor in London, to a climbing instructor and mountain leader in North Wales – she even cycled on a tandem bike around the whole of New Zealand but today she gardens for customers and in the winter months, she blacksmiths artisan garden items but she says that writing Fox Halt Farm is the most exciting thing she has ever achieved.

‘I have worked hard to make it just right and I hope readers will take the farm and the novel’s multi-faceted characters to heart – as I have. I hope too that when they have read this story, they’ll be waiting with bated breath for the sequel – just like me waiting for the next series of Poldark!

Fox Halt Farm is available on Amazon and Kindle (special launch price of 99p) or as a paperback from Celia directly (email celia@frub.org).