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2026 Festival Read

Be part of Budleigh’s biggest book group Our Festival Fiction Read for 2026, Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall, is a novel that draws you in with its beauty and keeps you hooked with the quiet tension of a thriller.

Set in the Dorset countryside of the 1950s and 60s – on our doorstep – it opens with a death and unfolds into a story of love, loss and impossible choices.

At its heart is Beth, a farmer’s wife still grieving her young son, whose life is shaken when her first love returns to the village after 13 years away. Old passions and buried secrets resurface, and before long, everything is at stake. Lyrical, evocative and utterly compelling, it’s been described as “a love story with the pulse of a thriller”

REECE WITHERSPOON called it ‘a story I couldn’t put down”, and it has already become a bestseller, with a screen adaptation on the way.

‘Broke my heart then mended it again. An epic, tortured love story. Bring tissues’ – JENNIE GODFREY, author of The List of Suspicious Things.

‘I stayed up until 4am to finish it, something I haven’t done in years. It’s a page-turner, but also beautifully written’ – FLORENCE KNAPP, author of The Names.

Clare Leslie Hall will be joining us at this year’s festival on Thursday, September 24 to talk about the book and you can be part of the conversation.

Pick up your copy for just £5 (in cash) from our High Street shops – Pebble Gallery, Rowan Tree or The Treasury. Thank you to them for their support.

Tickets to attend the Festival Read and hear Clare speak will go on sale at the same time as the full festival programme – July 13 for Festival Friends and they will be on general sale on July 20. Make a note of the date – we expect them to sell out quickly!

And this September, for the first time, we’re also planning a non-fiction Festival Read. We’re just finalising the details and will send you more information once the author and book is confirmed.