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The Vets at Hope Green: Part Two
The Vets at Hope Green: Part Two
Mar 6, 2026 8:13 PM

Author:Sheila Norton

The Vets at Hope Green: Part Two

PART TWO of a serialised novel - a heartwarming and inspiring story about living the simple life and the joy of animals.

Working as the receptionist at her local London vets, Sam dreams of escaping to a quieter life in the country. Spending time with her Nana and her lovely but elderly dog Rufus has sparked something within Sam, and all she wants is to start afresh. But her boyfriend Adam is in London, and something tells her that it won’t be an easy conversation.

But then something happens that makes her going-nowhere receptionist job seem much more appealing: she finds a little stray cat called Ebony, in need of love and nurturing back to health. Faced with a dilemma, she must choose between her heart’s desire and the little ball of fluff burrowing her way into Sam's heart…

Is it possible to have it all?

Note: this is part two of a four-part serialised novel. The full length paperback will be available in June.

Reviews

A gentle tale, in a lovely setting, a thoroughly enjoyable read

—— Katie Fforde

Such a heartwarming and engaging story, with a wonderful setting in Hope Green ... It’s a charming and heartwarming book, that will bring a smile to every reader’s face

—— Cressida McLaughlin , author of The Canal Boat Cafe

A charming read. Made me want to move to the country and buy a cottage with roses around the door

—— Sarah Morgan

It was a truly lovely read with delightful characters, both human and animal and I'm dying to know what happens next to Joe, Sam and their family and menagerie

—— Phillipa Ashley

Like a plate of hot-buttered crumpets and a mug of tea - warm, comforting and utterly delightful!

—— Annie Lyons , author of The Choir on Hope Street

An uplifting read, full of warmth and wonderful characters; four-legged and human!

—— Daisy James , author of The Runaway Bridesmaid

Anyone dreaming of escaping to a rural life is going to love this. Pups, paw prints and piglets! A purr-fect curl-up read for country lovers!

—— Jane Linfoot , author of The Little Wedding Shop by the Sea

The funniest person in the world

—— Caitlin Moran

This book is very, very funny. Stibbe has a fine eye for absurdity, and her writing has an unforced charm. [And] there is real darkness here, which makes the humour shimmer all the more

—— Independent on Sunday

Lizzie's voice is convincingly childlike but also confidently witty . . . What is most moving here - and what makes the book most similar to Love, Nina - is its celebration of the happiness possible within the family. Stibbe's feat is to remain unsentimentally barbed while subtly and triumphantly demonstrating the value of the kind of understated love found within the strangest and least obviously functional families

—— Telegraph

Fans of Love, Nina will not be disappointed. Amusing, the writing is never less than accomplished

—— Daily Mail

This densely populated coming-of-age story (for both mother and children) has retained and even expanded on Stibbe's signature antic charm ... The appeal of Stibbe's novel lies less in plotting than in the way she shades a sequence of comic vignettes with seriously sad undertones. It's not too much of a stretch to conclude that Man at the Helm, with its jauntily matter-of-fact social satire, wouldn't be out of place on the same shelf as Cold Comfort Farm and I Capture the Castle

—— New York Times

This tour-de-force follow-up to Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a celebration of the extraordinary in the everyday, and Baume’s prose elevates the ordinary and finds inspiration in the strange.

—— Irish Times

[B]eautifully drawn … Baume’s writing is lyrical and immensely readable … [S]he is, in fact, the everywoman of her generation.

—— Scotland on Sunday

There’s an effortless profundity to Baume’s writing that never once draws attention to itself but rather quietly reminds you how terribly sad the world can be.

—— Dante Magazine

As tender and luminous as her debut.

—— The Mail on Sunday

Baume’s writing is lyrical and immensely readable ... [her] portrait of a conflicted young woman is heart-wrenchingly real on every page.

—— Yorkshire Post

A refreshing take on the genre, a semi-autobiographical retreat novel about finding something to live for not in nature but in art.

—— The Skinny

With this inventive and fascinating new novel Baume proves that she is the master of describing the intense poignancy of solitude within a noise-drenched world.

—— Lonesome Reader

Baume achieves the feat of making a book about depression, alienation and other cheerful subjects deeply absorbing and, ultimately uplifting. She does this through the elegant lucidity of her prose, the sharp truth of her insights and the wry humour that arise from her character’s associative mind.

—— Literary Review

A masterclass in the power of prose that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt lost.

—— i paper

Baume’s writing is distinguished by remarkable precision and lucidity

—— Daily Mail

A fast-paced, ambitious, hallucinatory mystery

—— Publishers Weekly

Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose

—— Literary Review

Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.

—— Penguin

Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force

—— Rachel Kushner

Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation...

—— Mirza Waheed

Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating

—— Bernardine Evaristo

Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists

—— Independent on Sunday

Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them

—— New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

—— Cressida Connolly , The Spectator

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

—— Mark Damazer , New Statesman

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

—— Simon Heffer , Daily Telegraph

A novel offering more hope

—— Daisy Goodwin , Daily Mail

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

—— Ann Treneman , The Times

Masterly

—— Anna Murphy
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