Though Berriwood is a fictional village, it is imagined in a very real and beautiful area of the world on the edge of Bodmin Moor in the wild and rugged county of Cornwall, England.
Berriwood Village
The community is small, the kind of place where ordinary people live everyday lives, where everyone knows everyone… or, at least, they think they do.
When I began writing book 1 in this series it wasn’t a series at all. The idea for The Palaver Tree sprang from my own experiences both in England and Africa and those related by others. As a young woman moving from rural England to the very real wilds of central Africa the contrast was huge and there was a lot to see and learn about life from some very different perspectives.
The story is entirely fictional but the sentiments and the spirit of Africa are related as I found it, wonderful and courageous, corrupt and dangerous… And entirely unforgettable.
In creating the village of Berriwood, this quiet, Cornish community, I got to know and understand some of the characters well, even those that featured only briefly in The Palaver Tree. My curiosity was piqued and I wanted to go on and explore more of the individuals who made up this little world. And so the Berriwood Series began to take shape.
The Palaver Tree (Book 1)
In this first book of the series, Ellie Hathaway leaves behind a life of comfort in Berriwood when she takes up a volunteer teaching post in Africa.
Following a personal tragedy, she is looking for a new beginning and when she is offered a job in an African school, it seems like the very opportunity she needs. But things are not what they seem and Ellie could never have envisaged how much her life would change or what dangers she would face. Nor could she predict that the trail of destruction, caused by a man she had trusted, will lead all the way back to the sleepy village of her birth.
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Beneathwood
Book 2 in the series features Beryl Carroll, the Berriwood village postmistress. Beryl is not a native of Berriwood but she has lived there all her married life and is proud that the locals count her as one of their own.
But, although Beryl came to Beryl when she was young she has a history that she has left behind. The secret is so unbearable that even her husband Gordon, who has know her since their schooldays, has no inkling of its existence.
After living ‘above the shop’ their whole lives, moving into Beneathwood, the delapidated but beautiful old house, seemed like a retirement dream-come-true. Beryl knew how much Gordon loved the old place and she was sure they would only find happiness there. But she was wrong, they also found the past..
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Books under construction!
The Devil You Know (Book 3)
Pete Duke’s drinking is a problem and it’s getting worse. Sometimes Caroline thinks of leaving him, just to get some peace, some relief from her husband’s never-ending complaints and his worryingly bad temper. She has tried talking to him, tried helping him, but he won’t listen. Every resolution is broken before it sees the light of new day.
Just when Caroline wonders if she can take much more, Pete’s twin brother, Nathan turns up and he has problems of his own. In wanting to help him Caroline’s old feelings for Nathan are rekindled. She sees how concerned he is for his wife, how loving and she is disgusted by what Pete has become.
Happenstance
This may be book 4 or book 5 but it will be the last in the series and will go back to tell Tiffany’s story.
In The Palaver Tree, Tiffany was very young, very naive; she believed everything her older lover, Gabriel, ever told her. But with a new start in Berriwood, a job managing the village bakery, and a new boyfriend, she is determined to lead a better life…
Until the day she went back to London to see her mum, and she saw something, entirely by chance.
Wendy Unsworth 