An enjoyable, thoughtful book, which is very perceptive about the fallout from the war with the return of the men to their families and the changes in the womens roles.

The Walled Garden takes place post-WW2 in England, and explores the lives of soldiers and their family. I found this book a little hard to get into at the beginning, and slow moving, but after a few chapters I struggled to put it down. You often find books that focus on war's after-effects on the soldiers who were fighting in it, but rarely do you find a story that also focuses on the spouses and families who were left behind, and their feelings. I found this book to be beautifully written and would recommend it with pleasure.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Walled Garden is a slow burner. But stick with it as this is an immensely human story with wonderfully drawn characters and the way in which love ultimately conquers secrecy, loneliness and pain is truly heart-warming.
Our story starts in 1946 in the quiet coastal village of Oakbourne. It is to here that Stephen Rayne and Doctor Downes return. But they are deeply damaged men, unable to talk about their war and resultantly increasingly distanced from their wives and families. The arrival in the vicarage of George Ivens who seeks to bring comfort to his parishioners initially looks like another battle lost. But, he perseveres and ultimately plays a key role in re-uniting the families.
This is a beautiful story of the strength and resilience of ordinary people who have had to face extraordinary circumstances. Every reader will empathise with these characters but Alice [Stephen's wife] is undoubtedly the heroine of the novel. Desperate to recrate some normality in her life she takes on the task of single-handedly restoring the walled garden which had reverted to an overgrown wilderness during the war years. It's re-emergence as a beautiful space where she finds quiet contentment is a metaphor for how restoration can bring healing and, in turn, healing can bring peace. Something that, by the end of the novel, we find repeated with Stephen, Dr Downes and George Ivens.
The pain of the characters' respective backstories, as they are gradually revealed by Sarah Hardy, is both tangible and heartrending. This is writing of the highest quality and the slow pace of the opening section, I would argue, is entirely justified in that it succeeds in seamlessly drawing the reader back into that early post war world where ordinary people suffered deep trauma - all too often alone
So accept the pace of this novel and don't be embarrassed by the gentle smile that shall play on your lips by it's conclusion. Such moments are to be treasured.

The Walled Garden by Sarah Hardy is a story about the aftermath of the Second World War and the men who survived but came back home with invisible as well as visible scars. And the women who had to live with the scarred men who came back.
Jonathan and Jane, the doctor and his wife and Stephen and Alice, the landed gentry and his wife and the rest of the village, who survived a war and then had to learn to live in peace.
I found this a fascinating insight into life after the war and how people had to learn how to live in peace. An interesting perspective and a really good read.
Highly recommended

This was a heart breaking story of the effects war had on the survivors and their families. The struggles to overcome their fears and go back to living a normal life again. Some really good charachters and the storyline showed such compassion and redemption. It made me feel sad but also uplifted. Very moving story!

Well this book was a surprise, one of a handful of books that I have really enjoyed reading recently. The story is set at the end of the Second World War and deals with the difficulties faced by two of this villages men trying to return to some form of normality and the impact they have on their families. Written with delicacy and understanding no blame is attached to the journey these families take. Definitely recommended.

1946 and whilst the country struggles to repair itself after the end of the war, in the small Suffolk village of Oakbourne that seems impossible. At the big house, Alice finds her husband returned a changed man, pushing her away and not wanting to engage with a decaying estate and wife who just wants to love him. The local doctor, once a promising surgeon but now disabled and suffering tremors whose children are scared of him. The local curate, excused the war because of an illness that will kill him sooner rather than later, falling in love with a married woman. At the centre is Alice, a woman who life is exemplified by the desolate garden she so desperately want to restore.
In the author blurb at the end of this book, Hardy describes some her inspirations as being writers of slow-burn novels and this is evident here. The book just pulls the reader closer and closer in and is wonderful in that way. Characterisation is great, each damaged person is revealed slowly and the secrets of the men are heartbreaking. Whilst the ending seems almost trite it actually works really well and I felt emotionally invested throughout.

‘For some of us peace is going to be as hard as war itself.’

- A powerful and emotional historical fiction debut
- Post WWII 1946 and focuses on the return from the war and rebuilding their relationships, community and the walled garden.
- Set on the Suffolk Coast
- Themes include love, the trauma of war, survivors guilt, human resilience, the class system and gender roles.

I am a huge Historical fiction fan, the majority of my reads are from this genre. The gorgeous cover certainly drew my attention (swipe to see!).

I really connected with The Walled Garden. My family are from Suffolk and both my grandparents served in the war. My Grandad never quite recovered, physically or mentally.

The main protagonists are Alice and Stephen, Lord and Lady Rayne of the crumbling Oakbourne Hall. Stephen has returned from the war, wounded and scarred physically and mentally. I felt the crumbling Manor House was symbolic of their relationship and lives post-war. Alice throws herself into saving the walled garden, once thriving and meticulously kept by a team of gardeners. The garden is her escape, she invests hope in seeding and nurturing a new beginning. The book follows the seasons, with beautiful descriptions about nature’s cycles which were symbolic to the characters’ journey and Alice’s secret.

The book starts off slowly as you are eased into the narrative and characters but I was quickly heavily invested in the relationships. I felt this was intentional to mirror how the men took a while to open up about their traumatic wartime experiences.

The Walled Garden reminded me of a modern take on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, with many similar threads and protagonists. A thought provoking and raw, emotional read that doesn’t hold back on the realities war impressed upon us. I look forward to seeing what this debut author writes next!

Set in a small Suffolk village, just after the end of the Second World War, The Walled Garden is a slower paced, character driven novel focusing on the aftermath of war. Broken bodies and broken minds was how I thought of the men in this story. Wives and partners that had stepped up to the war effort in their own way, frustrated at having to take a back seat now that the men have returned to reclaim their job alongside those women having to cope with the loss of their children killed during battle and their husbands, survivors of a most terrible experience.

The main focus of the village is Oakbourne Hall, a crumbling, dilapidated building following the departure of the occupying Canadian soldiers. Alice Rayne and her husband, Sir Stephen face a desperate future – not only is there little money to repair the house that has been in Stephen’s family for generations but her husband, tormented by his wartime experiences is unable to articulate his mental torture to Alice and instead pulls away and retreats into the attic and into himself and is far from the loving and gentle man that Alice married.

There are others suffering similarly, including the local GP, Dr Downes, once a brilliant surgeon but who has returned from a POW camp with life changing injuries and an almost obsessive desire for change concerning social justice and equality. In constant pain, he has a kind word for his patients but his wife Jane and their children only see a frustrated, bitter and argumentative man. A newcomer to the village is Reverend George Ivens. A talented young clergyman who has been moved to the country away from the bombsites of London for health reasons.

Beautifully and sensitively written, Sarah Hardy’s evocative debut explores themes of regret, love, loss and the repercussions of war on both the survivors who returned and the loved ones left behind. It seems that everyone was just expected to pick up their lives as before and get on with it, despite the horrendous ordeal suffered. Shut out of her husband’s life, Alice finds solace and comfort elsewhere, and uses her love of nature and plants to take on the enormous task of rebuilding part of the Hall’s garden. As one of the main characters, Alice was probably the one I sympathised with the most. She was desperate to help her husband but helpless in the face of his total refusal and inability to confide in her.

I think two words sum up the book for me. Resilience and hope as these characters try to cope with a new world. It is an extraordinary debut and a story that won’t be rushed. It is at times heartbreaking and the mental anguish intense. There are many novels set against the background of the Second World War but this definitely deserves its place amongst them.

Beautifully observed and wonderfully written, The Walled Garden is the extraordinary debut novel by Sarah Hardy.

It’s 1946 and the war has finally ended. The village of Oakbourne is getting ready to welcome the men back from war, but although their bodies might have healed, the horrors and atrocities they had witnessed during this horrible conflict prove impossible to erase from their minds. Their psychological wounds continue to fester, but it isn’t just those who had fought on the battlefield who are suffering because even those who had been left behind are being overwhelmed by sorrow, anguish and despair.

Alice Rayne is married to Stephen, the heir to Oakbourne Hall. Stephen has changed so much since he went off the war and the sweet and gentle man who had gone to fight on the front line had returned home bitter and angry. The man she had married is now a total stranger whose erratic moods frighten her yet she knows that she needs to pick up the fragments of her marriage and try and save crumbling Oakbourne Hall from total ruin. As Alice sets to work, she begins with the walled garden and as it starts to bear fruit, she finds herself drawn into a forbidden love affair that could end up costing her everything…

Lyrical, emotional, heart-breaking and nuanced, Sarah Hardy’s The Walled Garden brilliantly explores trauma, despair, love and loss with depth and sensitivity. Sarah Hardy’s storytelling prowess immediately transports readers into a world of dangerous secrets and illicit passion that will keep them riveted to the pages of her fantastic debut novel.

A book readers will find impossible to forget, Sarah Hardy’s The Walled Garden cements her standing as a talented writer to watch out for.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I so wanted to like this book more, and judging by the reviews I should have, so I am probably in the minority here but I found it a little slow and very repetitive. I really liked the idea of the story and the important message it was getting across but I found the main character Alice's thoughts and dialogue very repetitive. The cover is wonderful and as I said the message behind the book is something important and original but unfortunately it wasn't for me.

I was drawn in by the stunning cover design as much as the evocative description of the emotional content.

I have read books previously about shellshock after WW1 but not so much about WW2 and the story opened my eyes to just a fraction of the trauma and suffering that the soldiers & their families experienced.

The story focusses on Stephen and Alice, Lord and Lady Rayne. Married not long before WW2 broke out, they used to have a happy marriage but since Stephen has returned home, his constant nightmares and PTSD have taken a monumental toll on them both and they are struggling to be together.

As well as Stephen and Alice, we also meet other villagers, all who have had been hugely affected by the war, whether they were fighting, left at home, or unable to fight.

The feeling that you are meant to be grateful to return alive and not talk about your experiences was palpable.

Alice finds refuge in her garden, using it as a place where she has some control. Green shoots are emblematic of a fragile hope of a better outcome for everyone.

The book was so emotionally aware, the characters were beautifully drawn -my heart ached for them all.

The Walled Garden

I found this historical fiction debut absolutely captivating from the beginning. It begins with Lord and Lady Rayne who live in the big house, Oakburne Hall, with just enough room to avoid each other as much as possible. In fact since he returned from the war, Stephen has slept in a small room in the servant’s quarters while Alice lays alone in their marital bed. She finds refuge in their garden, hoping that even in these dark post-war years some seeds of hope will grow.

‘Some secrets are too terrible to tell. And in 1946 Britain is a country where most keep silent. What you witnessed during the war, what you sanctioned, what you are still afraid of, is left unsaid. For those bitter years of conflict and separation you buoyed yourselves up on sentiment, crooning ‘We’ll Meet Again’. And we did meet again, thinks Alice Rayne, only to discover we have nothing to say to one another.‘

No one survives war unscathed and though bodies are healing, their psychological wounds run deep. Those who were left behind are just as scarred as those who left to fight. Everyone is scarred - those who fought and those left behind. Stephen Rayne was once sweet and gentle and his wife Alice truly loved him. Yet he has returned a man that she doesn’t recognised. He is bitter and angry, destroyed emotionally by what he has seen and done, holding on to secrets Alice can only guess at. She is lonely and although she hates to admit it, she is increasingly afraid of the man her husband has become, Alice is struggling to put together the pieces of her marriage and save Oakbourne Hall from total collapse. After two lots of death duties, money is incredibly tight so she begins with the walled garden and, as it starts to bear fruit, she finds the seeds of a new and forbidden love being sown.

I had so much empathy for Alice and all women who longed for the man they loved to returned, only to find their relief and joy cut short when a stranger comes home in their place. I’ve read a lot of novels set post-WW1, but not many set after WW2. The same social changes come up in 1946. People are struggling financially, at the big house two world wars have taken two heirs in quick succession and the family can’t afford to repair or develop the hall. The villagers are coping with grief, poverty and rationing, and still waiting for men who’ve not yet returned. Women have once again stepped into the breech and taken on men’s roles, giving them even more freedom and an unwillingness to be pushed back into their traditional roles. In this village, it’s not only Stephen and Alice who are suffering and as they come up against other people’s trauma the results are profoundly moving. The social change is well explored through the character of the village GP, another changed man whose longing for social justice leads to arguments with his wife and children, not to mention Stephen. Clergyman George holds so much guilt, because his ill health meant he didn’t go to fight. How can he minister to these men who’ve been through so much, things he can’t even imagine? As Stephen isolates himself more from his wife, Alice finds solace restoring the walled garden and in talking to George with whom she strikes up a friendship. He is learning about gardens and she is learning about his love of classical music.

As the friendship between George and Alice deepens, she has to think about what she wants. She has loved Stephen for so long, but his angry and violent outbursts are scaring her. George listens and appreciates her opinions, in a way she hasn’t had for a long time. When she takes a break from Oakbourne and visits her sister in London, she meets with George in a pub where his beautiful singing voice is in demand at the piano. This interlude is like a time outside of reality, where all worries and cares are set aside. With the late hour and room for George to stay at her sister’s flat will emotion boil over? In all this time, George is struggling with his ministry and his feelings for Alice. When Stephen also confides in him he has a terrible choice to make, does he guide Stephen towards speaking to his wife and saving his marriage? On the other hand, he could advise him in a way that would benefit his feelings for Alice. It’s a terrible choice to have to make, even worse he knows that his lungs are deteriorating and if he doesn’t take up the GP’s offer of treatment abroad he has only months to live. Will he follow his heart or will he sacrifice his own feelings to minister to this couple as their spiritual guide?

This is such an emotional crescendo, especially since we’re also sent back into the war and Stephen’s time infiltrating the french resistance and helping them to fight against the Germans. There, he too has to make a horrible choice in order to save someone from a worse fate. His choice haunts him, although in reality he is forced to act by his knowledge of the barbarity of the German soldiers. The Maquis hail him a hero and now want to give him an honour, setting off terrible flashbacks, insomnia and guilt. Even if he tells Alice everything, can their marriage recover? I was so involved with these characters, they were so incredibly real and full of complex emotions. I loved the walled garden as a symbol of hope for the future and Alice’s work there is an act of faith, planting her hope in a symbolic gesture to her marriage and the country as a whole. I think the most moving thing about the whole novel is that this is a war that my grandparents lived through. We are so used to seeing this generation as an example, even recently our actions through Covid and the current cost of living crisis are meant to resemble their grit and determination. I believe the famous David Cameron quote is ‘we’re all in it together’ evoking the stiff upper lip of this very generation. I think because of this nostalgic view on WW2 we forget that this generation had the same emotions and complicated relationships that we do now. This book stopped me from thinking of that generation as a whole and instead to think about individuals and what they went through, how it affected them and their families and the emotional turmoil wrought by couples being apart for years. It was Andrea Levy’s Small Island that first made me think about these issues and this novel woke those thoughts up again. No generation is better than any other when it comes to trauma, we are all human. This is a stunning debut from Sarah Hardy and I’d love to read her work again.

This was such a good book. I love historical fiction, especially when it is about eras/ situations that I previously knew nothing about and this was definitely one of those books. It was so well researched and so compelling in its narrative that not only did I love reading it but I felt that I learned too. A really enjoyable read and perfect for any fans of historical fiction.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words some text written has been typed in red and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

It always amazes me how a book that is full of sadness and the horrors of war – and, in this case, the struggles lived by both men and women in the aftermath of war – can be so beautiful, delicate and full of hope. The Walled Garden is an ode to resilience, and Stephen and Alice are memorable characters that will tug at your heartstrings.

Three words to describe it. Evocative. Moving. Hopeful.

Do I like the cover? One of the most beautiful covers I’ve come across recently.

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, this is an exceptional debut novel.

Oh this was such an emotional read! The story focuses on the post-war era and concentrates on how difficult life was to return to, for both those who had been away fighting and suffered injuries (physical and mental) and those who has suffered back at home through experiencing bombing, food and fuel shortages etc. It was lauded as a 'happy' time, a return to 'peace' but Sarah Hardy paints a very different picture with her writing. She does a fantastic job of highlighting just how fragile that 'peace' was for so many at this time. Extraordinary writing and an emotional topic. I loved it and would highly recommend to any historical fiction lover.

**Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read an advanced e-copy of this book. All opinions are my own **

The Walled Garden focuses on a small rural Sussex community in the aftermath of the second world war.  For many families the men didn't come home and those who did return were changed by the trauma of what they had seen and done. Back to normality they struggled to cope and many never shared details of their experiences with their families.

We meet Sir Stephen, a young aristocrat, who was newly married at the start of the war but once home he is bitter, reclusive and cruel to his wife.

The village GP, Dr Downes was a top surgeon before the  war, but the loss of a leg and an acquired tremor meant that he has had to scale back his career and in frustration he lashes out at his family.

Mr Ivens, the new vicar, didn't sign up due to a serious health condition and feels guilty that he didn't do his part. As his health deteriorates he hides it from his parishioners, as he knows that they are dealing with mental and physical injuries.

The women are also suffering, their men have changed and their own roles, which adapted during the war have changed once again. Alice, Stephen's wife is lonely in the big house with her husband avoiding her. She worries their dreams of having a family are over and focuses her frustration on the neglected walled garden, hoping to restore it to its fomer beauty.

This book is beautifully written and depicts an era which is often brushed under the carpet. The walled garden itself doesn't actually feature a  great deal, but perhaps is more a euphemism for a generational culture that internalised horrific experiences and tried to  carry on, rather than talking. I got a little lost towards the middle of this book but glad I persevered as it comes into its own at the end as the mens' stories are revealed.

When this book first appeared on my radar I was drawn to the beautiful cover. When I then learnt it was historical fiction, set in WWII I was very excited. I have to begin by saying that I loved the male POV we had in this story, the exploration of PTSD and the effects it had on the men and women was executed brilliantly. I did however find the story slow to get going and at points found my mind wondering. I think if you cut this down a little more then you would have a fantastic and compelling read but it fell a little flat for me.

Alice and Stephen Rayne live at the 'Oakbourne Hall, which was commandeered by the Canadians during the war. Stephen was away doing secrets things which are now the basis of his nightmares and Dr Downes the village doctor spent 5 years in a prisoner of war camp after being captured at Dunkirk. Into this mix comes the newly arrived Vicar, George Ivens, who spent the war years in the East End of London due to being medically unfit to serve.
Who will manage to adjust to the post war life?

This is a fantastic read, dark and also emotional at times, it show the resilience of people, especially the war generation who were made of legendary stuff, they broke the mood with those generations (WW1 and 2). This was a well written beautiful story which showed strength, the courage of the characters. This is a wonderful read, one I highly recommend