[quotes tk]

Life in Yorkshire's town of South Riding is hard-won. A working-class man sinks worries in pub pints. A mother who can barely feed her six children finds herself pregnant again. A Methodist minister falls prey to blackmail. A wife, dying of cancer, struggles to tell her husband. A bright teenager dreams of university but instead lives in squalor, raising her several orphaned siblings. Beneath it all is a fear of another world war breaking out, while the country still reels from the last one.

This is the world Sarah Burton returns to. After years away experiencing the world, she brings bright idealism and a desire for change to a local girl's school, determined to make a difference. But the community is suspicious and entrenched in their traditions - and none more so than Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall. He stands for everything Sarah despises: a rich, titled farmer whose opinions hold unearned influence. Yet Sarah cannot help being drawn to this proud, haunted - and almost ruined - man.

South Riding is a rich, panoramic novel, bringing vividly to life a rural community on the brink of change.