It is dawn in May. A long, straight road runs between sleeping fields to the village of Lodeshill, and on it two cars lie wrecked, violence gathered about them in the still morning air. As the sky lightens and a new day begins, lives hang in the balance. Howard and Kitty have not lived in Lodeshill long. A one-time roadie, Howard has not taken to the country - unlike Kitty, who always dreamed of this life. Jamie, meanwhile, is a local boy, born in the village, but struggling to build a life there. Finally, Jack is an itinerant landworker, protestor, poet and seer, who walks into Lodeshill one spring day, bringing change. SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2015 LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016 Four-thirty on a May morning: the black fading to blue, dawn gathering somewhere below the treeline in the east. A long, straight road runs between sleeping fields to the little village of Lodeshill, and on it two cars lie wrecked and ravished, violence gathered about them in the silent air. One wheel, upturned, still spins. Howard and Kitty have recently moved to Lodeshill after a life spent in London; now, their marriage is wordlessly falling apart. Custom car enthusiast Jamie has lived in the village for all of his nineteen years and dreams of leaving it behind, while Jack, a vagrant farm-worker and mystic in flight from a bail hostel, arrives in the village on foot one spring morning, bringing change. All four of them are struggling to find a life in the modern countryside; all are trying to find ways to belong. Building to an extraordinary climax over the course of one spring month, At Hawthorn Time is both a clear-eyed picture of rural Britain, and a heartbreaking exploration of love, land and loss.