specialists in local books and authors inc. Hardy & Fowles

Kit Berry hits the big time with series set in a mysterious Dorset community

Like Thomas Hardy, Kit has drawn on real Dorset places and customs to create a series of books that’s taking the country by storm, one reader at a time. The Stonewylde Series is like nothing you’ve read before – and doesn’t fit any known genre. Set in a walled-off estate hidden away in the heart of deepest Dorset, the books portray a seemingly idyllic life. The modern alternative community are self-sufficient, growing their own organic food and using ancient crafts and skills. But there’s another darker side to this rural paradise, where the old ways are still followed and the eight festivals are celebrated in a great stone circle.

Until recently, Kit Berry worked as a teacher in Weymouth and her sons attended Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester. But after work, she began to pen a novel that rapidly grew into a series of five books and eventually this took over her life. She started small, setting up her own publishing company and selling the first book Magus of Stonewylde to friends, family and local shops. Then the word began to spread – people of all ages discovered the Stonewylde Series and soon fan mail was pouring in.

Kit remortgaged her house and printed the second book in the series, Moondance of Stonewylde. She was taking a huge gamble as the publishing world is cut-throat and almost impossible for an amateur to break into. But all along, synchronicity played its part and things happened for her at just the right time in the right place. Readers started to promote the books themselves, ensuring a massive presence on the Internet. Kit began to get enquiries from shops keen to stock the titles, until it’s come to the point where the Stonewylde Series is available in hundreds of book stores throughout the UK.

Now the USA are clamouring too. Kit went to the Book Expo America in New York in June, and returned with a deal that will put her novels onto American book shelves as well. She’s been listed in the American press as the fourth most likely author to have written "the next Harry Potter". But these books aren’t about wand-waving and flying broomsticks. There’s magic and intrigue, love and mystery, although everything is centred around the earth energy of Dorset and the power in the landscape itself. Dorset readers will recognise some of the places in the books and will wrack their brains to work out – where is Stonewylde?

Kit left Dorset recently to live with the love of her life in Reading, but she misses the beautiful county terribly. The Book Shop was one of her very first stockists and are offering £1 off if both Stonewylde titles are bought together. Kit will be running a competition to win a free copy of the third book, Solstice at Stonewylde, due out in October.

See more details of this exciting and very different series on www.stonewylde.com - read the reviews and find out why Stonewylde has attracted such a cult following amongst men, women and teenagers alike.

......................................see if you can spot her hidden body on the front cover of the first book!