This is such a well written book, I really enjoyed it once I got into it.
The story of Miss White, a woman who lived in the author's village 80 years ago, a pioneer who realised her ambition to become a farmer during the Second World War, and how she worked to become accepted within this community. Nicola Chester, too, dreamed of becoming a farmer but working with horses was the only path open to her. Was it easier for women to become farmers in the 1940s than it is now? Moving between Nicola's own attempts to work outdoors and Miss White's desire to farm a generation earlier, Nicola explores the parallels between their lives - and the differences. Miss White buys a derelict farm and begins to renovate and modernize it. As ghost (barn) owls flit between these two worlds, Nicola draws connections with farming and rural life in both times, from the role of women in rural communities in the modern day to Miss White's experience in the 1940s.
The difference between the wildlife on the farmland then and now is quite frightening. Nicola is fighting to help preserve the few birds that remain, fighting against Big Business - which is what most farms are now. Living as a tenant in a farm cottage neighbouring the farm where Miss White farmed during the war Nicola finds all the information Miss White left in the record office and finds the stone that marks her burial in the churchyard.
