Flatlands is a homage to Paul Gallico's classic short story The Snow Goose. 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. Slowly, he introduces her to the wonders of the natural world and its enduring power to heal.

"Precise in its historical detail and admirable in its evocation of the large skies and isolation of its setting, this is a moving study of an unlikely friendship and the healing power of the natural world" - Sunday Times, Best Historical Fiction

"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 voices, and grace" - Guardian

"A story full of grace and light" - Le Monde

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

"A compelling story... ingenious and heartfelt" - Perspective Magazine

"Does an excellent job of conjuring the consolations that can be found from withdrawing into nature, where the changing of the seasons and the routines of the wildlife offer their own companionship... Hubbard's Lincolnshire Fens are imagined in all their bleakness and beauty. In the process, she reveals the depths of feeling that can be found in even the flattest places" - The Tablet

"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" - The Literate Quilter

"I absolutely loved this... It has whizzed its way up my favourite books of the year list... The writing is delicate, lyrical, pastoral" - bookphace

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

"Praise for Sue Hubbard's previous work:" - .

"Beautifully written and wholly knowledgeable... A triumph of literary and artistic understanding, a tour de force: masterly, moving" - Fay Weldon

"A beautifully-written meditation on love, loss and grief" - Irish Independent

"Gently absorbing ... Wistful but never morose" - Daily Mail

"Gorgeous... A haunting read" - Star Tribune