The war is over, but the personal turmoil has just begun...

It is 1946, and the eve of the harshest winter for a hundred years. Servicemen are pouring home from the war to a land beset by food and job shortages. As anti-Polish refugee propaganda reaches its heights, Wladyslaw Malinowski, a young verteran of Monte Cassino, attempts to start a new life on a withy farm in the middle of the wetlands. His taskmaster is Billy Greer, newly demobbed, and itching to escape to a job in London. Stella, the local schoolteacher, has been waiting for the return of Lyndon Hanley, a hero of the Burma Campaign. But Lyndon is troubled, elusive, and ultimately unresponsive. When he goes away again, she finds herself falling for the beguiling and irrepressible Wladyslaw. As the country is brought to its knees by blizzzards and coal shortages, people start to go hungry and attitudes harden. Then a death occurs on the wetlands, and it seems Wladyslaw, the outsider, will be held responsible.

'Clare Francis has produced a very fine novel indeed. The structure is taut and fragile, and her prose is impeccable. Her use of landcsape is exceptional, and captures a time and a place that has all but vanished.'

 - The Independent

'Homeland is a thoughtful, deeply atmospheric novel'

 - Daily Mail

'The characters' world envelops the reader completely'
 - Sunday Times