Up With the Larks

Having given up a high-powered job and the lifestyle to match, Tessa Hainsworth had no idea how hard she would struggle when, full of optimism, she fulfilled her dream of moving to rural Cornwall with her young family one September. Within months, she is almost ready to return to London, tail between her legs: her husband is still out of work, her children are struggling in a cold, damp, tumbledown house and the family is running out of money - fast. But a chance encounter in the local post office leads her to accept the unlikeliest of job offers.

Up with the Larks charts Tessa's turbulent first year with the Royal Mail, and her transformation from outsider to 'Posh Postie', adopted Cornishwoman and much-loved member of her new community.

She starts in the bitter darkness of midwinter, faced with the perils of the Christmas rush, a van with a mind of its own and a host of unfamiliar routes, local characters - and their animals, large and small. But, day by day and month by month, she meets and learns to love a wonderfully colourful cast of characters until her second Christmas in Cornwall is entirely different from the first, as the community goes out of its way to thank her with small gifts and other tokens of their affection.

At last she feels Cornwall is home.