Shortlisted for the British Whitbread Award 2005

This is the story of four seasons in the life of Charles Wenmoth, a twenty-seven-year-old apprentice blacksmith and Methodist lay preacher in Cornwall in 1870. Life is at its hardest; poverty is everywhere. Charles crosses and recrosses the raw, beautiful landscape, attending to the sick and helping the poor, preaching in chapels with ever-dwindling congregations. He questions his faith along the way but never quite loses it, balancing it with the pleasure he takes in nature, the light in the skies, the colors of the earth, and in his attachment to a girl to whom he is drawn by the piety and patience she maintains despite her long illness.

Inspired by the language of his great-great-grandfather's diaries and the Bible, influenced by authors as diverse as Hardy, Blake, and Faulkner, Peter Hobbs has created a first novel of breathtaking ambition and stylistic innovation, and of enormous emotional power.

"Spiritual rumination and magnificent descriptions of nature drive Hobbs's inventively written debut, a character study that credibly evokes the colloquial rhythms of its time. Over the course of the year 1870, 27-year-old Charles Wenmoth, an apprentice blacksmith and Methodist lay preacher, thoughtfully records his lonely existence in Cornwall, England. Under the 'drab unblemished skin of cloud,' the Industrial Revolution has caused local farmers to abandon their land, their faith and their families in search of more lucrative work in the mines or abroad. Charles mourns the loss of these worshippers but finds strength in his faith and its manifestations in the earthly world. He also finds an Edenic calm in his frequent visits to blind, dying Harriet French. Their conversations renew Charles's belief in himself as a good man, even as he later muses, 'sometimes it seems like I do not love the Sabbath as I should.' Fans of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead will respond to this novel, which realistically portrays Charles's struggle to feel worthy, while illuminating the larger desire to derive meaning from human existence." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Bleak, but profoundly beautiful. Hobbs is a writer to watch." Kirkus Reviews

"As in the best fiction, this book examines what it means to be human....With appeal to serious fiction readers as well as fans of historical fiction, Hobbs's first novel holds promise of great things to come — it's a real find." Booklist

Inspired by the language of his great-great-grandfather's diaries and the Bible, Hobbs creates a first novel of breathtaking ambition and enormous emotional power, as it tells the story of four seasons in the life of a 27-year-old apprentice blacksmith and Methodist lay preacher in Cornwall in 1870.

CITATION: (Kirkus Reviews, Jan 1 2006 )