Flatlands [Paperback]

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.“An enthralling novel that vividly maps the lay of a land and expertly evokes the tension of an era.”
--Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Vivid... successfully evokes the aching beauty of the bleak, watery landscape alive with bird life… A wartime parable of friendship and connection.”
--Kirkus Reviews

“A tender portrait of wartime youth [with] an elegiac, gentle quality, evoking the Wash as “a place between somewhere and nowhere, one of the last wildernesses in England”. A novel of tender quiet l“