Little Ruins : Rebuilding a Life

A waterstones "best biography of 2025" an iPaper best new book out in august 2025

"Beautifully written and deeply moving" Clare Balding

"An important voice" Cathy Rentzenbrink

"I devoured it in a day . . . An open-hearted book" Clover Stroud

In a remote Andalusian valley, Manni Coe sets out to rebuild a crumbling 150-year-old farmhouse. Surrounded by olive trees and on the banks of a river, it's the perfect home for his unconventional family of three. But when visitors from across the river bring tragedy, they lay bare Manni's own fragile foundations. As family bonds are tested and old wounds resurface, the rhythms of southern Spain's land, weather and work offer unexpected healing. Tender and quietly joyful, this is a heart-mending book about human connection, nature's gifts and the power of love in all its forms.