Pembrokeshire author Thorne Moore knew she wanted to be a writer from the age of five, but somehow careers in libraries and running a restaurant along with obtaining degrees in History and Law all got in the way. Undaunted by all that life has thrown in her way, Thorne achieved her ambition, publishing her first novel in 2012, with five more in rapid succession and a further three in the pipeline. Now, she writes full time in her old farmhouse home, near Eglwyswrw.

Thorne’s first novel ’A Time for Silence’ (Honno Press, 2012), set in the fictional farm of Cwmderwen, was inspired by a derelict cottage in the fields near her Eglwyswrw home (see picture below right). That book went on to become a UK Top Ten Bestseller, intriguing fans across the world with her story of a dark Pembrokeshire family history, and has remained high in the charts ever since.

Fans of this first novel have asked Thorne for more details of the family depicted, and now, eight years on, she has written The Covenant, a prequel that explains how John Owen of A Time For Silence, father, farmer and master of Cwmderwen, came to be the man he was.

Pembrokeshire has been a huge inspiration to Thorne’s creativity. “History is so close to the surface and the present sits very lightly on the past,” she commented. “There’s a sense of isolation, especially in the north, but it also embodies a tension, between the people rooted in this area for centuries, with their own culture and language, and the incomers from a different world.”

A central theme of Thorne’s work is psychological mystery. She sees her books as ‘domestic noir’ rather than traditional detective novels. “They all have a detective of sorts,” she says “but they are amateurs unravelling a mystery. Families are the perfect material to work with because what interests me most about a crime is everything that led up to it and all the consequences that flowed from it. Home is where the hurt is.”

Properties are also central to her plots as in A Time for Silence and The Covenant. “I do fixate on houses,” said Thorne, “and I see them as absorbing something of the people who lived there. I let the house reveal its secrets.”

Her latest novel, The Covenant is published by Honno Press, ISBN 978-1912905232 and is available as paperback and e-book.