Juggling the lambing season with the launch of her new novel, Tia Jones is a busy hill farmer and mother of four from Montgomeryshire.

Set in two rural communities on each side of the Irish Sea, The Moss Gatherers is Tia Joness long-awaited sequel to On Open Ground published by Gomer in 2008.

Shaped by marginal land between sea and mountain, history and folklore still persist in the lives of Richard, Bethan and Simon. Bethan seems a long way away from T Coch, the family farm where she grew up, and where her eldest brother, Richard, continues to toil. She has been swept across the sea to Ireland by her exciting marriage to Malcolm OConnor, the race-horse trainer who is as full of intrigue as he is of charm.

Unbeknown to Bethan, however, there is an insult to be avenged and when she is visited by Simon, a desperate series of events is set in motion and, as so often before in the real and imagined past, it is the Irish Sea itself which will have the final say. And all the while, the moss gatherers are at work

It was the authors grandmother who first alerted her to the importance of moss gathering as she had set up regular moss collections for the British Red Cross. As the novel explains, the Red Cross worked with the Department of Health during the Second World War to produce dressings that were made from moss and this eventually led to a substantial saving in the use of cotton wool.

Tia Jones lives and works with her husband on their organic hill farm in Montgomeryshire. She has written for television and radio, and regularly contributes to newspapers and popular magazines as a freelance writer.

The Moss Gatherers is available from

all good bookshops and online retailers.

For more information, please visit www.gomer.co.uk