A LOCAL bookshop is hosting an award-winning nature writer and novelist at an event later this month.

THE Bookery in Crediton is delighted to welcome Melissa Harrison for an evening celebrating her new novel The Given World, in conversation with Dr Michael Warren at Crediton Congregational Church on Thursday, June 25 from 7pm.

Luminous and intimate, The Given World is a powerful exploration of belonging, loss and the intricate connections between people, history and place.

Set in the ancient Welm Valley, the novel unfolds in spring, where familiar rural rhythms create the illusion that nothing will ever change.

Yet beneath this calm surface, something is shifting: the river behaves strangely, villagers share the same unsettling dream, and private crises begin to surface.

At its heart is Clare Grey, living alone in a converted priory overlooking centuries-old water meadows, whose devastating news forces her to confront her family’s past and her own solitude.

Blending keen social observation with a striking attentiveness to landscape, plants and animals, the novel has been widely praised for its sensitivity and depth.

Sarah Moss describes it as “at once warm and clever… attentive to place, plants and animals while insisting on human grace.”

Francis Spufford calls it “a brilliantly acute social portrait of English rural life”.

Melissa Harrison is a novelist, nature writer and children’s author. Her novel All Among the Barley won the UK European Prize for Literature, and her work has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and the Wainwright Prize.

She is widely admired for writing that captures the natural world with rare intimacy and emotional insight.

Dr Michael J. Warren is a writer, medievalist and naturalist, and author of Cuckoo’s Lea: The Forgotten History of Birds and Place.

Find out more from The Bookery on Crediton High Street or online by visiting: www.thebookery.org.uk.