A SEMI-BIOGRAPHICAL story of life on a small North Yorkshire farm during the Second World War has been released.

Edna Hunneysett’s book, Greener Beyond the Hill, is her debut novel and provides an insight into growing up on a farm during the war.

Edna, grandmother to 20 grandchildren and two great grandchildren, was born in 1940 and spent her childhood on a remote farm on the North York Moors. She attended a convent boarding grammar school following which, she worked for the Inland Revenue. She married in 1961 and had eight children.

From 1977 to 1991, she worked part-time at a BBC local radio station and later went on to gain an arts degree and then an MA.

In 2014, Edna and her husband returned to the moors and now live in Mickleby.

In her book, the rural mystery centres around Mary, wife to hard-working Tom and mother to three small children. As she struggles with her ever-increasing family, stark living conditions, poverty and loneliness, Mary is drawn to the company of the handsome and convivial Jack Netherfield.

The neighbouring farmer flatters Mary and spoils her children, causing friction with the often absent Tom. As events plough even darker furrows, family secrets are overturned and relationships are changed forever.

Edna will be signing copies of her book at Danby Christmas Fair in Danby Village Hall on Saturday, November 18 from 10am to 4pm and Sunday, November 19 from 1pm to 4pm.

She will be at Glaisdale Christmas Mini Market in The Robinson Institute on Saturday, November 25 from 10am to 12noon and Guisborough Book Shop on Saturday, November 11 from 11am to 1pm. The author will also be at The Whitby Book Shop on Saturday, November 25 from 2pm to 4pm

Copies of her novel are available from the publisher Chipmunkapublishing.com; Amazon; or ordered through book shops.