Rooted Resilient

If you are falsely accused of murder, you have to make the best of it. In 2022, Peter Bodnár’s DNA test reveals mysterious relatives. He dives into obsessive research to uncover his family’s history. In 1882, a fatal pub fight forces young farmhand Gyuri (George) Bodnár to flee his homeland, Upper Hungary. He navigates his way through the cordons of gendarmes, survives the boiler room of an Atlantic-crossing steamer and tricks US immigration to find a new homeland. For some, this is the Gilded Age, but for newly arrived immigrants there is only bleak darkness: drudgery in coal mines ...

Sarah Langford had left her country roots behind to live and work in the city as a barrister. But when she found herself moving to the countryside, back to an agricultural life she had left behind, she saw farmers dealing with very different problems to those faced by her grandfather. Beleaguered with the challenges of climate change, Brexit and falling incomes, they faced accusations of ecological mismanagement from a hostile media and public. But, as Sarah looked to them to teach her about the land, she also found a new generation of farmers on a path of regenerative change.

Embark on a riveting journey through the turbulent landscape of a life shaped by adversity and redemption in "From Concrete Roots." This gripping memoir traces the author's footsteps from the early shadows of a fatherless childhood, where the allure of drugs and violence threatened to entangle him in the streets' unforgiving grip. As the narrative unfolds, witness the power of music emerging as a potent escape, providing a lifeline away from the perilous allure of street life.