Little Ruins : Rebuilding a Life

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

The Corner is a place where birds with broken wings will come to heal.

Looking to begin a new chapter after years on the move, Manni Coe and his partner take a risk and buy 'The Corner', a crumbling but beautiful 150-year-old farmstead tucked into a remote valley in Andalusia, surrounded by olive trees. It's perfect for their unconventional family of three: Jack, Manni and his youngest brother, Reuben.

Secluded from the village by a river and in awe of the extraordinary Spanish landscape, Manni watches their land teem with mountain goats and wild boar, red deer and seasonal swallows. He begins to feel that this might be the place where each of them will find their peace.

But nothing is ever so simple. Though their hilltop village offers food, fellowship and guidance, many visitors bring their own problems and troubled pasts over the river. While Manni and Jack work to afford rebuilding The Corner, who will care for Reuben in the way that he deserves?

And as Manni starts to realise that the scars from his childhood - kept hidden for all these years - might not have healed at all, a single, terrible event threatens everything the three of them have spent so long building together.

From landscape and poetry to family and friendship, Little Ruins is a heart-mending exploration of human connection, nature's gifts and the power of love in all its forms.