How To Belong

Author/Guide: Sarah Franklin

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: In the follow up to her acclaimed novel Shelter, Sarah Franklin returns to the Forest of Dean

ISBN: 978-1785764868
Genre: Fiction

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What you need to know before your trail

Jo grew up in the Forest of Dean, but she was always the one destined to leave for a bigger, brighter future. When her parents retire from their butcher’s shop, she returns to her beloved community to save the family legacy, hoping also to save herself. But things are more complex than the rose-tinted version of life which sustained Jo from afar.

Tessa is a farrier, shoeing horses two miles and half a generation away from Jo, further into the forest. Tessa’s experience of the community couldn’t be more different. Now she too has returned, in flight from a life she could have led, nursing a secret and a past filled with guilt and shame.

Compelled through circumstance to live together, these two women will be forced to confront their sense of identity, and reconsider the meaning of home.

Locations

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England - Forest of Dean
A: Lydney
B: Forest of Dean tourist centre
C: The International Centre for Birds of Prey

Travel Guide

Travel to the Forest of Dean with The BookTrail

The Forest of Dean is a central part of the novel and of the story and plays a major role.

When she leaves, her relationship with the forest is described lyrically:

“Be leaving the Forest, Jo washed out of the flow of life here, into a tributary. The waters parted to let her go, then joined back up and the relationships continued as if she’s never been there.”