Foxden Acres by Madalyn Morgan is a book about the landed gentry turning their estates over to arable land. This means that pastures, meadows, and the like would have to be tilled and crops planted. Since the grooms and boys working for the estate were conscripted into the army, navy, or air force, that left women to do the work that men used to do.

The Dudley family worked for the estate as grooms. Mr. Dudley was the stablemaster and Tom, the only son, worked with him. There were four girls. At the beginning of the war, Bess had studied to be a teacher, Margaret married a serviceman, Claire joined the WAAF, and Ena was the youngest and not able to join yet.

The Foxden family was the estate owner and James was the only son. Bess had been in love with James all her life and now that she was older she hoped that they would be a couple. Instead, James asked her to organize the estate and the Land Girls who were assigned to them. It was a daunting task, but Bess was prepared for it.

I enjoyed reading about these families and the hardships that went along with living in England during the war. The young people fell in love but were never sure if their loved ones would come back from the war. This was a lovely story, but bittersweet also. This is the first book in a series by Ms. Morgan and I hope to read the other stories about the Dudley girls.

The author did a brilliant job of capturing the time period in this novel. The characters and plot were also well written. This was a great piece of historical fiction!

I enjoyed reading this book. It kept me interested because there was facts mixed with fiction. Characters were real and believable but I was sad at end of book. Would recommend this book to read.

This was a satisfactory novel about love, loss, renewal and the powerful role of the women's land army in World War Two. Bess Dudley wants to become a teacher and works hard to achieve her goal and lives in Ms McAllister's lodging along with Miss Armstrong and Molly, where they are all very close. Her father and brother are groomsmen to the wealthy Foxden family of Foxden Hall. Bess and James Foxden, who is Tom's friend have known each other for a long time since they were children. Bess has been in love with James for a longtime, but the war is looming and once it is declared, both she and James go their separate ways. James enlists in the RAF and Tom goes into the Army, and is involved in the Dunkirk operation, and his feelings when he returned briefly on leave were post traumatic. Because of the evacuation of schoolchildren, Bess is made redundant and accepts James's invitation to turn the farms of Foxden into arable land, as well as keeping an eye on and taking care of the convalescent hospital. Bess, along with several ladies join the land army and began to cultivate and harvest crops and take care of agriculture by haymaking and milking the cows and driving the tractor to name a few, with the help of Mr Potter and the housekeeper. The Land girls worked very hard to produce fresh food and work the land, whilst farmers enlisted in the military. The majority of the Land Girls already lived in the countryside but a lot of them came from London and the industrial cities of the north of England. I loved the camaraderie of the countryside and how during wartime, people were kind and decent enough to help each other out in times of crises. Just before the onset of World War Two, Bess finds herself in a harrowing situation and doesn't feel worthy and pure after it, and struggles to tell James her true feelings towards him. This is further complicated by the fact that James's female companion and potential suitor Annabel Hadleigh comes into the picture. Although Bess doesn't take too kindly to her at first, the two women eventually become very close friends after working together in the land army and the hospital. Annabel becomes a great chracter. And because of this, Bess feels guilty about her relationship with James because both the Foxden and Hadleigh families hope for a potential engagement between James and Annabel. There are of course misunderstandings when it comes to James and Bess, which I felt could have been resolved if Bess actually listened and sort out the situation earlier. However, quite abruptly, this issue is resolved nearing the end, when Annabel has eyes for someone else very close to Bess. But fate in war, is not very kind to James and Bess and they sparingly see each other-to be honest I couldn't feel that invested in their relationship due to the frequent time constraints, as well as their interactions. They enjoy a very fleeting happiness together but left it a bit too late in my opinion. But nonetheless, what they had was could have been something more real and authentic had they developed their relationship more strongly within time. I loved the Dudley family, especially, Thomas Dudley who supported Bess in her dreams. The ending was quite sad and very abrupt as Bess resolves to move on from her suffering and hopes to start again and that happiness was quite unexpected and confusing . But it does makes you wonder how the people who fought on land, sea and air and the people on the homefront, struggled to find peace within themselves amongst the horror and devastation they suffered during the war. The air raid scenes were realistically portrayed and people scrambled to find shelter when they heard the sirens during The Blitz. The Goldman family and their three children, as well as servants were very good to Bess but the way her ordeal was dealt with was too quick and didn't feel realistic enough for me, and others as they also struggled to escape the horrors of Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany and come to England. Overall, this was a good, satisfactory novel. A lesson I learnt from this book was don't leave important things left unsaid regardless of what others might think, because in the end, you could regret it your whole life long. It is important to let people know they matter to you.

NB. The 11+ was introduced in 1944 (not in 1939 as stipulated) when it allocated children to Grammar, Technical and Secondary schools according to their abilities and preferences. It was a bid for equality in the 1944 Education Act.

The theme of the book had a lot to commend it. The era is particularly interesting when there are two generations involved in the horror of war and shortages. The imagery is excellent and reflects the era perfectly. I felt it had so much going for it and then it collapsed. It was sketchy in parts, the characterisation flimsy and it was over-detailed in other parts. The show was too lengthy and detailed - I lost interest. It didn't move the plot on in any way. The rape didn't seem credible - more semi-consensual and cringe-worthy in its handling - stuck in as a sensational secret? Although the worse for wear with drink & from a sheltered background I think Bess was too smart to have been so stupid. She would have recognised Dave as damaged, a manipulator, a predator, an opportunist and at least distrusted being led down a stinking alley. What did she think he was going to do? Bess is a flighty kind of character. Although sacrificing so much and working so hard to be a teacher she gave it up too readily in my opinion, having been in a similar situation myself many moons ago. Even allowing for the school's evacuation and her crush on James. I enjoyed parts of the story but felt it needed considerable editing. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

I'm not going to review this book at Goodreads or Amazon because, in my opinion, it's not ready for publication.

Why?

1. Telling instead of showing. Let your characters speak for themselves. There's a wonderful opportunity at the beginning of the book, when Bess and her friends go out to celebrate earning their teaching certificates, for us to get to know everyone better. Instead of writing out the scene you tell us they talked about their hopes and dreams. Why not write the party scene? This is done repeatedly throughout the book.

2. Characters not acting in a way that is consistent or believable.

When Bess is raped, you tell us that Natalie put Bess in a taxi afterwards. Natalie is a very compassionate and perceptive woman who rescued a young girl in trouble at a train station. You're asking the reader to believe that she just put her disheveled and beaten up young friend into a taxi and sent her on her way? Alone? There's no way she would have sent Bess home in that condition.

And speaking of rape, why? This book is almost too sweet and simple and then...WHAM! A horrific rape from which our heroine seems to recover in no time at all. Was this just a device to separate Bess and James? Weren't the class differences and a world war enough to ensure a multitude of difficulties?

What happened to Bess? Teaching was everything to her and she just gives it up to go home. She refused one suitor so that she could teach. Was that just an excuse to get rid of him because she only wanted James? All that scholarship money spent on a girl who had no real interest in teaching.

3. Motivation is lacking. Why does Bess love James? We don't get to know him well enough to believe that what she feels for him is anything more that a school girl crush. A rescue scene from childhood isn't enough. By the way, the ending falls flat .After all the pain and suffering, why not let James live? Why would Bess marry that other guy? Pity? Family pressure? He was there? It doesn't fit the true-love-conquers-all trope you've set up. Girl was hopelessly in love for over a decade; let her be happy. Give the readers their payoff.

4. Conscription. Bess expects to be drafted right away, but conscription of women didn't begin until the end of 1941, and as a female teacher she wouldn't have been eligible for conscription. There was a shortage of teachers during the war as the male teachers joined up or were drafted.

5. The hams and other food from the Goldmans at Christmas. How in the world did they get three tinned hams? In London? Unless they used the black market, it wouldn't have been possible and the Goldmans were not the sort of people to do such a thing. One ham I would believe.

Speaking of Christmas, a house like Foxden, situated so close too more than one airfield, would have had some sort of party for the men stationed at those airfields. If not at the house, then in the village. People were amazingly kind and generous to those in uniform. It was a point of pride. Yes, they would have picked up those guys from the ditch and brought them home, but there should have been a servicemen's party already.

Also, where did they find new shoes and a coat for Charlotte? Rationing was worse after the war and mass observation diaries show that there wasn't much to buy even if you had coupons. One of the most difficult items to find was children's shoes.

6. Awkward or unclear scene transitions. It's a bore but you need to tell your readers that a person is walking from one place to another. When starting a new scene tell the reader that time has passed. Do this at the beginning of the new scene, not several paragraphs later.

7. Missing bits in the narrative. When Bess is getting ready for Margaret's wedding, you tell us she isn't dressed. There's no scene of her getting dressed later on. Did she go to the church in her underwear? There are multiple instances of this sort of thing. Yes, you need to tell us. Or better yet, leave out the unnecessary minutia. Which brings us to.....

8. Far too much description. Anything that doesn't move the story along, give new information about a character or is a necessary plot point, should go. This includes the 11 or 12 paragraphs describing the acts Bess saw at the theatre. Even Jane Austen had to ruthlessly chop down her stories.

9. Why am I being so mean to you? Because your story is a good one! It just needs a ruthless editor to be successful. You seem to be torn between writing an epic saga and character driven historical fiction. Choose the latter, that's where your story is at it's strongest. Good luck to you!

Thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest review
I read book 6 first and was so intrigued I knew I had to start at the beginning and a real roller coaster of a book the sad times of war the highs and lows,romance this book has it all totally fantastic 5*++ book

I have really loved this book a tale of love and war,Bess is a lovely girl who has a good heart but one night in london changes her.She finds that after a short time working as a teacher she must change her job so she goes back to Foxden to oversee all the changes to Foxden Hall.I can highly recommend this book well worth 5*