Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Broken Country is an addictive 20th-century historical love story told through the eyes of the main character, seventeen-year-old Beth Kennedy. The story opens, and we’re told something terrible has happened, but not what it is.

The reader is then transported back to 1955 when neighbouring teen Gabriel Wolfe arrives home from school for a break before he starts university, and Beth meets him for the first time.

Beth soon realises she is a country girl with simple pleasures and goals, but big dreams, while Gabriel is used to extravagance and riches. He erects an elaborately decorated tent beside the picturesque lake at Meadowlands which becomes their meeting place, and their relationship builds until he is all Beth can think of.

Over the summer holidays, Beth and Gabriel spend as much time as possible together, and when his parents go away for a week, the couple become more daring; they fill their days with games of tennis, swimming in the lake and sunbathing naked. They make love in every room of Meadowlands and Gabriel makes Beth promise not to leave him at the end of summer.

But Beth hasn’t met Gabriel’s mother who is a force to be reckoned with and doesn’t hide the fact she thinks her son can do much better than the local farmer’s daughter. When Gabriel starts university, his mother pushes the divide wider and then when Beth finds out he slept with another woman, she leaves him and runs into the arms of childhood friend Frank Johnson and doesn’t see Gabriel Wolfe again.

Then years later, he arrives back at Meadowlands and the village is awash with whispers and gossip. Beth can feel herself being drawn to the man who betrayed her all those years ago. Even after ten years the connection between the two of them is instant. She knows an affair is wrong, that people will get hurt. But what she doesn’t know, is that her choices will have devastating consequences, and now her husband is on trial accused of an unthinkable crime and her life has become a public scandal.

Broken Country was a heart-breaking story about the choices we make and ultimately the consequences we suffer as a result of misplaced loyalties. It’s a highly recommended read!

Reviewer: Carole Brungar

Hachette