Tamsin Miles
MY BOOKS
Wildwood Farm
ISBN: 179317914X
Wildwood Farm is the first book of the Wildwood Farm series. When I wrote it, it was purely for the joy of getting the characters out of my head and see them come to life on my laptop screen.
For many years I had dreamed of opening a large horse and dog rescue, so this is where the idea for the farm came from.
The rewilding idea came from an article that I read about Knepp Castle, who gave
up trying to make money out of soil that took more and more cajoling to yield anything. Now, ten years later, it is lush and beautiful, and supports many endangered species of bird and insect.
I'm afraid that I had to apply a lot of poetic licence to the timeline on the farm, as it would have been terribly dull to read that nothing would happen regarding regrowth for many years to come. I hope any rewilding purists can find it in their hearts to forgive me.
Storm, who is the main character, came about as an amalgamation of me and who I would like to be – all the good bits of her are what I want to be when I grow up (I’m 45, fat chance!). The other characters evolved as I was writing them, so consequently changed a lot during the editing period, as I got to know them so much better as I was writing the book.
I hope you enjoy it, I can honestly say that I was immensely proud (if somewhat bereft), the day that I wrote "The End".
Wildwood Horses
ISBN: 1794229051
Wildwood Horses is set six years after Wildwood Farm, and Zoe is grown up and a professional eventer.
The whole idea for the book started from watching a documentary about Indian Marwari horses. As soon as I saw the wonderful horses, I knew that I had to create a scenario where I could incorporate one. Given that there are no Marwaris doing eventing, I suspect that I stretched the truth there, although it is true that they are superb dressage horses and have fabulous stamina, so I thought "why not?".
Two of the main characters underwent major personality changes whilst I was writing, as it simply didn't flow. For example, Ian started out as a brash, spoilt American, but I struggled to give any depth to the character.
If you want to try and figure it out, all the horses are based on real horses in their respective field *names and identities have been changed to protect the innocent*.
That's really all I can say, without giving away any of the plot, which annoys me, as I'm terrible at keeping secrets.
Hart Farm
ISBN: 1798227363
I wrote Hart Farm shortly after I finished Wildwood Horses, as I had changed the farm so dramatically in the second book, that I couldn't stop myself going back to start updating. For example, the expansion of the farm and the retired racehorses turning up.
I think that, out of all the books, I had the most fun researching this one, as I spent many an afternoon watching the racing on the television. As with Zoe's horses, I have based every horse on a horse who is actually racing, and thoroughly confused a friend, who popped around to find me yelling the wrong horse name at the television.
I also have a, now not so secret, love of renovating homes, which I thoroughly indulged myself in in this book. It may have been somewhat helped by repeats of The Property Brothers being shown.