*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Warning: This review contains major plot spoilers.
Title: Foxden Acres
Author: Madalyn Morgan
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: ★★
1939 - Bess Dudley's life is filled with
possibility. As the daughter of the groom at historic Foxden Hall, she has
worked hard to secure a sought-after teaching position in London. Then, on a
visit home for the holidays, Bess reconnects with handsome and aristocratic James
Foxden, whom she has loved since childhood. There’s a new spark between
them and Bess travels to London with James’s card and joy in her heart.
The war casts a shadow over Bess's bright
future. In London, she’s confronted with the daily threat of terrifying air
raids and vicious attacks on her Jewish friends. To make matters worse, Bess's
teaching career abruptly ends around the time she discovers James is engaged to
the beautiful and wealthy Annabel Hadleigh.
Returning to Foxden Acres, Bess dedicates
herself to the war effort as a Land Girl, a far cry from the life she had
envisioned. It’s back-breaking work, but she’s surprised to find she’s becoming
friends with Annabel, despite her enduring love for James.
In a world torn apart by violence, Bess is
forced to make an impossible decision, all while keeping a dark secret of her
own. Is her love for James worth risking everything she’s built for herself
from the ashes of her old life? And without James – without Foxden – would she
have anywhere left to call home?
Foxden Acres is
the first book in the Sisters of Wartime England series from author
Madalyn Morgan. It tells the story of Bess, the eldest Dudley sister, who
leaves her teaching career in London to return home to the historic Foxden
Acres estate to manage the estate’s contribution to the war effort.
I want to preface this
review by emphasising that this review will contain major plot spoilers.
Whilst I typically try to write spoiler free reviews, it has proven very difficult
for me to effectively explore the significant criticisms I have for the book without
referencing spoilers.
To start with the
things I enjoyed about the book, I liked the chapters set during
Bess’ time in London, particularly the exploration of her life living in the
boarding house. The relationship between all of the lodgers and their landlady
was lovely and had the potential to be a great book within itself. I also
really enjoyed any chapters featuring Natalie and Anton Goldman who were
fantastic characters with big hearts. The way they looked after Bess in her
time of need, despite her being a complete stranger, was fantastic and the exploration
of their lives as European Jewish refugees rebuilding their lives in London was
really interesting. The focus on the 1930s theatre industry and the running of
a popular London theatre was also interesting.
I did also think that
the focus on the land girls and their contribution to the war effort was well
explored, despite being a little slow-paced at times. Seeing them set up a
hospital for soldiers recovering from Dunkirk was really interesting also as
was the exploration of Bess’ brother Tom’s PTSD.
Unfortunately, the
narrative had significant shortcomings, particularly surrounding the amount of
depth aspects of the story were explored in. Chapters frequently ended very
abruptly leaving things unanswered and the narrative repeatedly jumped forward
in time resulting in significant events within the plot not being explored at
all. An example of this would be the jump between Bess being asked to move back
to Foxden to manage its agricultural contributions to the war effort and then suddenly
being there. She later references having doubts about whether to return but her
thought process surrounding this and her subsequent move weren’t explored at
all. We also had examples of characters being mentioned in passing, so appearing
rather insignificant, then suddenly appearing to take on an important role in
the story. For example: Bess’ friend who was missing in action and then
suddenly appeared out of nowhere with no explanation.
Bess and James’ romance
was also incredibly difficult to root for, despite it being at the centre of
the narrative. Firstly, for the majority of the book there really isn’t this
deep love story at all and it’s merely the teenage fantasies of a young girl pining
for a man who is already in a relationship. And then when we do see a spark between
them there is constant miscommunication which gets incredibly tedious. I don’t
like miscommunication as a trope used within romance stories anyway but this
felt particularly ridiculous. We do eventually see them confess feelings and
start to pursue a relationship but, as Bess thinks James is engaged she is
actually conducting what she believes is an affair with the fiancé of a close
friend. This felt completely out of character, even if she had been hopelessly pining
for the man for the majority of the story, so I just couldn’t root for their relationship.
On top of this, (big spoiler alert) whilst I’m all for a slow burn love
story, making us wait all novel for them to get together only to kill him off
in the next chapter was ridiculous.
All of this aside
however, my primary issue with the book was the use of the rape scene which did
not feel well placed within the narrative whatsoever. I assumed when it
happened that it would play some later role in the story, such as through an
exploration of the lasting trauma Bess has as a result but this just wasn’t the
case. Aside from a very brief exploration of the days following her assault,
Bess very much carries on as normal and it’s not really mentioned again until
she’s starting a sexual relationship with James. I wondered in this moment if
we’d get the powerful exploration of Bess’ trauma that I really wanted from the
book but she practically just shrugs it off like it was nothing. This was
really disappointing and left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth for the rest
of the book. I think as an author if you are going to chose to feature a rape
or sexual assault scene within your narrative you have a responsibility to portray
it properly and with due concern to the lasting trauma an event like that can
have. Foxden Acres really did not do that and I personally think that if you’re
not going to portray topics like this properly then the plotline should have therefore
been removed from the narrative altogether.
Overall, I was
regrettably really disappointed with this novel. Whilst it did have some
strengths, and could be of interest to anyone with an interest in the history
of land girls, the significant weaknesses mean that it is a 2* read for me.
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