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About The Book

What does a London-based single mother do on her holidays? With a couple of weeks unexpectedly free and no chance of going away, Jane Shilling decided she would pursue a childhood ambition and learn to ride. A teacher -- Mrs. Rogers -- was easy to find. What she hadn't reckoned on was that Mrs. Rogers was a master of foxhounds. So began Jane's odd, late-blooming affair with foxhunting: the beginning of a passion that was to take her back to the scenes of her childhood and transform her life in ways that were unexpected, often enchanting, and frequently uncomfortable.
The Fox in the Cupboard is a vivid account of discovering a hidden, beautiful, and frequently comic world of horses and hunting in a small corner of England. It is a book about searching for the place where you belong, about embarking on an adventure at the very point in your life when you thought it was too late. It is also the story of a journey between the shifting worlds of town and country, childhood and adulthood, and a chronicle of the extraordinary characters the author met along the way.

About The Author

Jane Shilling is a columnist with The Times (London) who lives in Greenwich, England, with her son. She hunts with the Ashford Valley.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atria Books (November 7, 2006)
  • Length: 336 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781416543466

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Raves and Reviews

"Wonderfully evocative...A hymn to the English landscape in the great and tender tradition of English pastoral writing."

-- Philippa Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl

"A funny, touching, and graceful memoir."

-- Michael Korda, author of Horse People

"Jane Shilling has my unreserved admiration for the grace with which she writes, for the humor with which she describes the difficult journey towards becoming a competent rider....This is a book I shall want to read more than once."

-- Miranda Seymour, The Sunday Times

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