Freda is evacuated to the area around The Wash in Lincolnshire. She is lonely and abused in her host family. Phillip is a sensitive young man who is a conscientious objector living in an abandoned lighthouse. The two find each other when caring for an injured goose and together make decisions about their future.
This story is loosely based on the Gallico story 'The Snow Goose' and the life of Peter Scott but is wholely fictional. It is a very emotive tale which handles big issues with sensitivity. However the love for the landscape is written in every word and really focuses the story.

Beautiful and brilliant! Flatlands has been a lovely read.

The writing of Sue Hubbard is vivid, touching, peaceful and calming yet impactful.

Set during World War II and in the Fenlands of eastern England, Flatlands is the story of twelve-year-old Freda and a young man, Philip. When the war is about to start, as part of Operation Pied Piper children are evacuated from the city, and Freda who is from East London ends up in Lincolnshire, to live with a couple who are heartless and abusive. She meets Philip, who is from Oxford and has objection to join the war, comes to the Fens to work for a local farmer and starts living in an abandoned lighthouse.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Pushkin Press, and Sue Hubbard for allowing to read and review this delightful novel :)) My overall rating is 3.5 stars and I have rounded it up to 4.

Flatlands is a slow paced novel that's incredibly meaningful and empathetic, following the life of a girl called Freda as an evacuee during WW2.

To be completely honest I wasn't very interested in the first third of the book. I found it to be very slow paced, switching between the past and the present. I also feel as though the setting was very descriptive/specific, to the point where it could lose someone who's unfamiliar with the whereabouts of cities or places in England.

This has nothing to do with the actual book or plot itself, but the formatting of the download was just really off putting with no speech marks for dialogue or anything. I have no idea if it was intentional or not, but regardless, I'm not a fan.

My interest however did grow just before Book 2 starts half way through when Philip and Freda are brought together by an injured goose. Their friendship is really wholesome and it reminds me of an older brother looking out for his younger sister. Philip worried about her a lot and they were both united by their loneliness and their lost sense of belonging.

Philips character was also really interesting and portrayed well. His inner thoughts and turmoil were fleshed out and felt real, I loved reading it. I did wish that there was more of that for Freda though, she had really grown on me and I would've liked more of her.

A tale of friendship in the wild Fens during World War II, this story also raises some uncomfortable questions about the non-existent safeguarding or checks in place for evacuated children.
The narration is part first person as Frida recalls her billeting as a young girl with the Willocks in Lincolnshire and part third party as Peter avoids draft by staying in an abandoned lighthouse. When Frida finds a goose, wounded on one of Mr Willocks’ poaching outings, they come together to nurse it back to health.
Like the marsh landscapes conjured up, their lives are bleak and I came away from the end with no uplift and a sense of unfulfilled potential.

This book left me feeling akin to the title of flat. It’s a novel of reminiscence that drifts back and forth between time zones and the two main protagonists, Freda and Philip . A slow moving but thoughtful and empathetic book set in marsh lands of Lincolnshire, starting with the evacuation of children from London at the outbreak of war, of which Freda is one.

The book gave some good descriptive details of the landscape and the lives of the local people at the outbreak of WW2. It’s only when half way through the book that the two main characters are finally brought together when caring for an injured albino goose. Freda, in her golden years, recalls her childhood as an evacuee and her friendship with Philip. The telling of Philip’s role in the Normandy landings and evacuation of the troops from Dunkirk is very readable and harrowing. A short, well written and sympathetically handled novel. My review of this novel increased as I read further, reaching the point when I just had to know how it ended.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Pushkin Press for this advance copy