A stunning reimagining of the Snow Goose. This is a very special read, one that leaves a lasting impression - as powerful as the original, yet very much stand alone. Thoroughly recommend.

A beautiful novel set in the time of war with an atmospheric feel. It is about a girl Freda and her life written in a nostalgic fashion in her old age. Very immersive and engaging with beautiful writing. Reminded me of 'All the Light We Cannot See' by Anthony Doerr. Definitely recommended!

This is a beautifully written novel of two young people thrown together by war and nature and sadness. A young girl uprooted from her London home, a young man adrift due to his pacifism and longing for an emotional home. The last pages included some of the best writing I've ever read. This was not an easy book, but a stunning and important one. Perfect for historical fiction lovers and those who want to learn about the hardships at home during WWII.

’I was twelve when I was sent to that cold place. I could never have dreamt that anywhere so lonely existed. In my mind’s eye it was always cold, though I arrived in September. A hot day, the sort of day for picnic not a war. From the stuffy train we could see gangs of women in the fields dressed in old sun bonnets and aprons, weeding rows of potatoes and stacking bundles of hay.’

’But still, what stays with me are the winter flurries of sleet over the tidal estuaries. The whalebone coloured skies and frozen tidal creeks. The eerie honking of wintering geese as they lifted their strong muscled necks and angel wings in the mist above the reed beds and frosted fields. Hands and toes chapped raw with chilblains. No, after Bethnal Green with its crabbed back-to-backs, its soot-blackened tenements, bustling markets and noisy pubs, I could never have dreamt that such a place existed.’

’Now I’m old. My life mostly behind me. I don’t expect anything else much to happen. I live each day as best I can. Try to be positive, despite the sciatica. Inside, I’m the same person I’ve always been. That’s the thing. The heart remains unchanged. It’s just the body that ages. But the longing remains. The longing for those moments all those years ago in that place where sea and sky met.’

In 1939, as the war is unfolding, children are being evacuated from the cities to areas which the enemy is less likely to target. Freda ends up in the Fens with Mr. and Mrs. Willock, where Freda is expected to care for their son, work for what little food she is given, and to be subjected to Mr. Willock’s desires.

Not long after she arrives in the Fens, she finds a goose whose one wing appears to be hanging at a strange angle, she reaches out to touch it, but the goose hisses at her, but she knows she can’t just leave it there, and so she heads to the lighthouse to see if she can get help. When she knocks, she tells the man about the goose, and he follows her to where the goose is. As they talk about the prospects of the goose’s recovery, a bond begins to form.

A bond is formed between these two, as a conscientious objector he is considered somewhat of an outsider, someone who doesn’t really fit in with his family, or with a country at war, and she is definitively an outsider, a child far from home.

This is a breathtaking, quietly lovely story of the impact of war, the lifelong memories shared of a brief moment in time, and the bond of friendship. This is one that I won’t forget.


Pub Date: 13 Jun 2023


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Pushkin Press

It had all been so short and what had it been for? What difference had he made?
from Flatlands by Sue Hubbard

What do we leave behind after we are gone? Are we like the ripple when we throw a stone into still water–a quick disturbance that flashes into nothingness?

Say you are a young man with strong ideals, someone who never fit in. And you discover peace and serenity living close to nature. Say you befriend a girl who is separated from her mother, unprotected and mistreated. Say you show her things she never knew–poetry and art and how to care for the wounded. Say you do one courageous thing, and it brings death. Was your life without meaning?

We all stand on the brink, he thought, with our toes hanging off the edge of the world.
from Flatlands by Sue Hubbard

At eighty-seven years old, Freda marvels at how old age crept up on her. “Wrinkles have a way of making you disappear one line at a time,” she thinks, but she is the same, her heart is the same. To make sense of her life, she sorts through the ephemera that are “tangible evidence of what really happened.” As a girl, Freda was evacuated from London during WWII. She was small and plain and unclaimed until taken by a poor family, a family that worked hard just to survive, a family without the luxury of love.

Freda worked at the worst jobs, endured cold and hunger, and finally abuse. Then, she met Phillip. He lived at the abandoned lighthouse, spent his days in manual labor and his evenings making art and reading, listening to his gramophone records. Philip showed Freda concern and care, and taught her about the world, art and poetry. He had been at university, talked theology with the Inklings, loved two beautiful people, a brother and a sister. But he had no faith, was a broken man, and hated the violence of war. A conscientious objector, here along the flat lands of the fens, working on the land with his hands, he had discovered peace.

The writing is stunning, twisting my heart so many times in its words. The marshlands beautifully described, the character’s inner lives flayed open with great sensitivity. The novel asks the great questions of life, and it affirms the healing power of nature and art–and love.

I was surprised to read that the novel is a retelling of Paul Gallico’s children’s story The Snow Goose; I remember reading it and many other novels by him when I was a teenager, fifty-some years ago. And that Gallico was inspired by a real person and place.

This is a real gem of a novel.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.