THE break-up record is one of rock and country music's great traditions.

If Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks is always held up as the zenith, then there is a new contender from the female perspective, Gretchen Peters' Burnt Toast & Offerings.

Written post divorce, it is the most personal album yet from the Grammy-nominated Nashville singer-songwriter, whose songs have been recorded over the past 20 years by Etta James, the Neville Brothers, Neil Diamond, Bryan Adams and country queens Bonnie Raitt, Patty Loveless and Trisha Yearwood.

Gretchen returns to Britain this month - she will play Pocklington Arts Centre on Wednesday - on the back of last summer's album release, and the tour reunites her with the country where she had a "midlife epiphany" in 2004. On tour "somewhere in the UK, " she decided she had to take control of her life.

Accused of having a midlife crisis, Gretchen said: "Hell yes, I'm having a midlife crisis. Midlife is when people should be reassessing. By the time you've reached that age, you've realised that it ain't endless. It's going to end.

And it's going by faster and faster.

So, by god, make the most of it."

Making the most of it meant a new start, divorcing her husband of 23 years, who was also her manager, her booking agent and her producer.

"Risk is very important in life, " says Gretchen, who divorced two years ago. "Divorce can be terrifying, but there's no growth without risk.

"Then making this album was extremely cathartic, working with some people for the first time and others I'd worked with for a long time, but it was my first album without my husband there. It was my first solo flight, and I was scared and thrilled at the same time - and that's when you know there's no other way to be."

The album title, Burnt Toast & Offerings, is a line from one of the songs, Breakfast At Our Home.

"It just pretty much popped out at me as the title. It's one of those things where you just know that it's right, " says Gretchen.

"I think what did it for me is that it married the domestic, mundane aspect of the end of a marriage with the spiritual, the burnt offering. That's what I liked about it because, on one level, it was very down to earth, but it was also spiritual, and that was the bigger picture."

Making the album has felt like a "big left turn" for Gretchen.

"Often what feels like the scariest thing is the right thing, and for me that was getting more personal. It's a record that I was aching to do. The sound is exactly what I was going for, because I knew it had to be a lot less polished, " she says.

Nashville albums are often given finesse, but Gretchen wanted more honesty in her music.

"With life experience, you don't worry about things so much, and what you do worry about is putting your songs out there rather than whether the recording is perfect, " she says. "When you're young you want to prove yourself, but as you grow older as a songwriter, you want to be authentic."

As a result, Gretchen's comingto-terms album is truthful in lyrical content and in its musical settings.

"I'm never going to be a really gritty artist, that's not who I am, " she says. "I'm not going to be Lucinda Williams, but there's a breathing space that you can hear on this album, and as you become more confident about your ability to sing and play live, you become less afraid of recording just like that, rather than using studio tricks."

Gretchen first toured Britain in 1997 and her live itinerary has continued to grow.

"I was more at ease with myself making this album because I've done a lot more touring and I'm more comfortable about sitting in a room performing to people, " she says.

"When you go through the changes that life presents to you, it does put everything into perspective. I'd just been through the divorce, and by comparison, recording the album was a piece of cake? though writing the songs wasn't."

Her tour will feature only Gretchen and Barry Walsh, her long-time musical partner on keyboards, accordion and glockenspiel, and maybe mandolin if she accedes to his request to add to the tour luggage.

"It'll be a very intimate show, just the two of us, and I'm seriously considering having a section where people can ask for songs they want to hear, even if I can't remember all the words.

"I've been over to Britain so often that I think of my audience as old friends, and I'm sure they'd forgive me."

Gretchen has plans for "another regular album", and a couple of other projects, too. "I'm keen to do a Christmas record, but it's so daunting because the Christmas songs are so well known, " she says.

Remember your own advice, Gretchen: there is no growth without risk, so start writing.

Gretchen Peters plays Pocklington Arts Centre on Wednesday at 8pm. Tickets: £18 on 01759 301547.