Rob Cowen is the award-winning author of Common Ground, selected as a ‘Book of the Year’ in the Times and featuring in the Guardian’s Top Ten Readers’ Choice. After moving from London to a new home in Yorkshire, Rob found himself on unfamiliar territory, disoriented, hemmed in by winter and yearning for the nearest open space. So one night, he set out to find it – a pylon-slung edge-land, a tangle of wood, meadow, field and river on the outskirts of town. Despite being in the shadow of thousands of houses, it felt unclaimed, forgotten, caught between worlds, and all the more magical for it.