An audio book.
Merrily Watkins attends a rather pagan celebration of apples and cider in a village she's about to be vicar of. She used to work in central Liverpool. Someone wants to revive the local cider trade. Someone shoots himself.
A few weeks later she starts work, staying at a pub with her 15 y.o. daughter Jane until the vicarage is fixed. Her late husband, a lawyer, had ended up with many criminal clients and had gone off with another woman.
15 years before, Lol (Merrily's age) was the songwriter of a band. He had a mental breakdown - his hero is Nick Drake. His music is being rediscovered. There's pressure on him to restart the band. His partner Alison has left him for Bull-Davies, a local landowner. She trots passed on a stallion daily. Lol helps at Lucy Devonish's gift shop. She believes in myths.
Jane gets drunk on sweet cider with bad influence Colette and is close to being raped. The organist is amongst those who fancy Merrily - the cassock's exciting.
At an inquest the earlier shooting is considered to be an accident. In the 1600s Wil William, suspected of being gay and of putting a bad spell on the apple crop, was found dead in the orchard. A local gay playwright wants to stage a play in the church to celebrate him. One of Bull-Davies's ancestors was a judge then. He's against women vicars.
They move into the vicarage. There's a mysterious, detached, 3rd floor. Merrily sees her husband's ghost. Jane seems to fall under Lucy's spell about ancient mysteries and Traherne.
Colette disappears after a booze-up in the orchard. Lucy's found dead- a moped accident. Lol and Merrily become friends. Alison tells Lol that she's Bull-Davis's sister in law.
The play is performed, the actor Stefan weaving in local history, engaging the audience as if it's a sceance.
Jane takes cider to the orchard hoping to summon up Colette. She's picked up by a young farmer who she thought was staid. He takes her to the cider barn. She finds Colette's body there. Merrily deduces that Wil was a woman in disguise and Bull-Davis is trying to cover up that his ancestors were gay.
PoVs are rather porous. There's quite a mix of genres - serious character analysis, supernatural funny business, rural social issues, and vicar of Dilby stereotypes. Scenes are sometimes interlaced - I didn't think it would work with audio books, but I had no problem.
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