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by Sue Hubbard
A moving tale of unlikely friendship and the beauty of nature, set in the wild wetland landscape of the English Fens during World War II.
Perfect for fans of Atonement, this gorgeous coming of age explores the connection between Philip, a conscientious objector, and Freda, a young London evacuee housed by a cruel family.
Freda is a twelve-year-old evacuee from East London, who has been sent away at the start of the war, leaving behind everything familiar to her, to escape the expected German bombing.
In her new temporary home in Lincolnshire, Freda finds herself billeted with a strange, cold and, ultimately, abusive couple, whose lives mirror the barren landscape in which they live a hand to mouth existence, based upon subsistence farming and poaching. There, deprived of any warmth, she meets a young man - Philip Rhayader -a conscientious objector who has left Oxford and his prospective vocation in the church following a nervous breakdown.
Together they explore the wild, beautiful landscape of the Wash, teeming with migrating birds, and nurse an injured goose back to health. As they do so, Philip introduces Freda to the wonders of the natural world and its enduring power to heal.
What are you reading this week? (7/2/2025)
...y enough(!), it's available at our local library and I'll be able to get it later this week. Two others I've enjoyed and wondering if you've read are Flatlands by Sue Hubbard and Clear by Carys Davies (Scotland and Britain). I put these in my "quiet book" category - not exciting plots but wonderful characters and friendshi...
-Vicki_F
"Vivid... successfully evokes the aching beauty of the bleak, watery landscape alive with bird life… A wartime parable of friendship and connection." —Kirkus Reviews
"An enthralling novel that vividly maps the lay of a land and expertly evokes the tension of an era." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Beautifully-written, and highly evocative of the remote Lincolnshire landscape, the Second World War and the two people whose loneliness brings them together for a life-changing time... Altogether a fine period novel, full of quiet drama and sorrow at loss, cruelty and mortality." —Amanda Craig, author of The Golden Rule
"A haunting and lyrical novel about loneliness and the compensations of the natural world, art and unlikely friendships. The characters of an unhappy evacuee from the East End and a conscientious objector will draw you in as they search for some kind of peace in the wide open landscapes of the fens and the story moves them to their own inevitable crises." —Maggie Brookes, author of The Prisoner's Wife
This information about Flatlands was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sue Hubbard is an award-winning poet, novelist and freelance art critic. She has previously published in the UK three acclaimed novels and numerous collections of poetry, and was commissioned to create London's largest public art poem at Waterloo. Flatlands, her Pushkin Press U.S. debut, was loosely inspired by Paul Gallico's classsic wartime novella The Snow Goose, and will be followed by Girl in White, historical fiction about the artist Paula Modersohn-Becker.
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