Carly Holmes

Love Letters on the River (Hardback)

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£12

This book will be released in July 2025.

Pre-orders are charged at time of order and the book will be posted to you as soon as it becomes available.

UK postage is 99 pence per order.

The nightjar swooped from its tree and towards me, glided over my head and away into the pitch depths of the forest. It seemed to float on the air with only the merest shiver of its wings... a gauze and silk puppet in a child’s play.

Includes a dozen black and white illustrations commissioned exclusively for this publication by acclaimed local artist Guy Manning.

From a young age Carly Holmes has been in thrall to the creatures that live around us. Her childhood companion was a blind gander called Beep Beep who thought she was his wife. She nearly postponed her wedding when a pair of wrens nested in a hole by her back door and cut it very fine to fledge their chicks into an assorted audience of cats and magpies.

This collection of essays, beautifully illustrated throughout, are each of them love letters to the Teifi valley and to the river that winds through Carly’s days. The wild animals ‒ the badgers who visit nightly for peanuts; the juvenile osprey who learned to fish on the estuary across the lane; the young jackdaw she nurtured until it was healthy enough to ignore her whenever she went into the garden; the cuckoos she discovered in flagrante one afternoon on a lockdown walk ‒ are the very heart of it.

Describing encounters and missed encounters with the wildlife that surrounds the Teifi, Love Letters on the River is a lyrical, honest and tender tribute to the many creatures ‒ both in the garden and beyond the garden wall ‒ that bring joy to Carly’s life simply by existing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword

BEYOND THE GARDEN WALL:

Mating Cuckoos by Foxhill Farm
Juvenile Osprey on the Teifi Estuary
Skydancing Ravens at Cwm Gwaun
Nightjar at Cross Inn Forest
Bittern at the Teifi Marshes

IN THE GARDEN:

Runty
Tapdancing Tawny Owls
Steak Dinner for Four
Des Res
Pumpkin Eyes
The Bereft Sparrowhawk
Dawn Chorus

BEYOND THE GARDEN WALL:

Winter Barn Owl over the Teifi Marshes
Hobbies at Cors Caron
Swifts at the Watch House
Racing Swans on the Teifi
Murmurating Starlings over the Teifi Marshes
Crossbills at Pantmaenog Forest

Afterword

Carly Holmes lives and writes in a small village on the banks of the river Teifi in west Wales. She is the author of the novels The Scrapbook, which was shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award, and Crow Face, Doll Face. Her short story collection, Figurehead, was published by Tartarus Press in limited-edition hardback and reprinted in paperback by Parthian Books. She has had numerous stories published in journals and anthologies.

Encouraged by his grandfather, Guy Manning has been drawing birds since he was a small boy. He has been a window cleaner, barman, kitchen porter, lecturer and teacher, whilst having many exhibitions near and far. He became a full-time artist in 2018 when he and his wife – author Eloise Williams – opened The Art Room in Tenby: a slightly scruffy studio shop where Guy paints and sells his oil paintings and encourages future generations of artists.

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