Les Filles de Hallows Farm

Land Girls #1

by Angela Huth, Christiane Armandet (Translator), Anne Bruneau (Translator)

Octobre 1941. Trois jeunes filles volontaires se retrouvent dans une ferme isolée du Dorset pour remplacer les hommes partis à la guerre : Prue l'effrontée, coiffeuse à Manchester ; Stella, la romantique, qui se croit amoureuse d'un enseigne de vaisseau ; Agatha, l'étudiante rêveuse de Cambridge. Leur intrusion bouleverse la vie des fermiers - et notamment celle de Joe, leur fils, réformé pour raisons de santé et très officiellement fiancé à Janet qui travaille dans une usine d'armement. Dans cet univers rustique déroutant, Prue, Stella et Agatha nouent entre elles et avec leurs hôtes des liens compliqués et intenses qui dureront toute la vie. Le décor d'une campagne apparemment paisible peut favoriser les jeux ou les feux de toutes sortes de passions.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, World War II, Historical, War, British Literature, Romance

556 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Daughter of actor Harold Huth, english novelist Angela Huth married journalist and travel writer Quentin Crewe in the 1960s and with him had a daughter. She presented programmes on the BBC, including How It Is and Why and Man Alive.

She also writes plays for radio, television and stage, and is a well-known freelance journalist, critic and broadcaster. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

She has been married to a don, James Howard-Johnston, since 1978. They live in Warwickshire and have one daughter, Eugenie Teasley.

Reviews

[Alana/MiaTheReader]

I thought I'd love this book. I hated it. I give it zero stars. The overall tone of the book was totally inaccurate. Huth imposed a college co-ed dormitory lifestyle of today onto characters and situations from the 1940s. The amount of "shagging" going on was ridiculous. Beyond the historical inaccuracies, the amount of time spent in the secondary characters' thoughts was jarring and unpleasant. If Huth had stuck to developing the three main characters and kept their actions in line with other literature of the period, this could have been a great book. Unfortunately, it is loathsome. And the original Land Girls think so, too. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/wo...

[❀⊱RoryReads⊰❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable but very much centered on romance rather than the events of the era.

[Kyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable but odd book... two of the characters felt like they were sprinkled in at the last minute and the romance aspect often seemed quite forced - I think the story would have flowed more naturally without - but I put down the book feeling like I really got to know the characters and that's always a positive experience.

[Shirley Revill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Recommended.

[Mmars · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historically, the story's premise is intriguing. Otherwise, the book was rather average. The personalities of the girls and their actions were not unusual or unpredictable, as was the romance. Fast and easy read. Definitely needed more depth for my tastes.

[Lanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this one up at the thrift store, excited because I am obsessed with BBC's "War Time Farm" show. This was a good (if somewhat long) read about the girls in England who went to work the farms while the men were at war. Entirely too much 'shagging' for my tastes, though.

[Steph Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. Lovely characters and a good old fashioned story of love and its difficulties amidst duty during the war. And interesting to read all about Land Girls too. Sweet book all round.

[Alayne Emmett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this so many times and enjoy it but, I have to say I do prefer the film. The book is quite slow and can be laborious at times. Having said that it's an interesting story about life during wartime on a farm.

[Beachcomber · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been good - a chance to shine a light on a group of women too long overlooked. But it doesn't. Instead it delivers caricatures of characters - a shrewish wife of the farm manager, conveniently dispatched to an insane asylum just before the end, by which point you'd really had enough of her. Taciturn and hard working farmers. A randy young farmer's son who is rejected from signing up due to asthma, but is apparently fit enough to do hard labour on the farm and shag two of the land girls. Three young land girls - Ag (short for Agapanthus... no really 🙄), who the farm manager privately calls the holy one. Stella, who sings and dances like an angel, and Prue, the raging nymphomaniac who'll sleep with anything masculine even if she's lost interest, unless she has another guy lined up. Ag judges Prue for sleeping with one guy, only to later approach the man and say oh by the way she's in love with a guy she's not sure knows she exists, but just in case anything does happen in the future, she wants to have some "experience", so could he be so kind as to deflower her.

No, seriously. I shit you not. The author actually says deflower at one point. And oh it's fine to judge the nympho, until it's convenient for you...

And as for the purple prose. Never one flowery descriptor of the weather/flowers/someone's hair/feelings blah blah blah when you can have three.

This could have been good. Tell the realistic story. Instead, it falls woefully short. Too long, too flowery, too cliched and too predictable. Avoid.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of three women - Prue, Ag and Stella - who served in England during WWII as land girls. Land girls volunteered to serve their country by working at rural farms since so many men were serving in the military who had previously helped farmers. These three women from disparate backgrounds lived and worked at the farm owned by the Lawrences and their son, Joe. Joe's asthma prevented him from enlisting in the military to his great disappointment. Despite their differences, these women bonded with each other and the Lawrences and shared a work ethic that impressed the family. The work was demanding and included caring for cows, pigs and chickens, all of which were foreign to city girls.

This was an interesting glimpse into WWII in the farming communities, and the toll it took. The women's love interests were a significant part of the novel, and the epilogue answered every question. I liked all the characters, and felt a particular compassion for the elderly farm hand, Ratty Tyler, at the Lawrence farm as his wife descended from ill-tempered harridan into madness.

[NATUI · Rating 5 out of 5]

I totally loved this book. I tend to like historical fiction anyway, but this book had me by the first page. I could hardly put it down and certainly did not want it to end. It may not be everyone's thing, but if you like historical fiction, this is a fabulous book.

[Gitti · Rating 3 out of 5]

England 1941: Im Krieg muss jeder seinen Beitrag leisten. Stella, Ag und Prue sind Landmädchen geworden und treten nun ihre erste Stelle an.
Auf sie wartet harte Arbeit auf einem Bauernhof, aber auch eine lebenslange Freundschaft untereinander und allerlei Vergnügungen mit den jungen Männern der Umgebung.
Angela Huth ist es gelungen den Alltag in dieser Zeit auf einem Bauernhof einzufangen. Das frühe Aufstehen, die Arbeit, die manchmal körperlich sehr anstrengend ist und nach der man auch oft nicht gut riecht.
All das konnte ich mir gut vorstellen und nach und nach sind mir alle Beteiligten ans Herz gewachsen.
Der Krieg scheint auf diesem Bauernhof weit weg zu sein, aber manchmal hinterlässt auch er seine grausamen Spuren.

Mir hat das Buch gut gefallen, es war mal ein etwas anderes Buch aus der Zeit des zweiten Weltkrieges.

[Karen Levay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I read it all the way through and pretty much liked the book and the characters. I just wonder how accurate this book was. It seems these city girls adapted really quickly to the hard work. I also question the “romance” aspect. I just doubt that all three girls would have been that active. They seemed pretty “modern”.

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read through page 122 and dropped it. WAY too much sex for my taste. The subject was interesting, women signing up for farm work while men went off to war. However, the sexual content was off-putting.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

1941 Dorset about a group of girls in the Land Girls WWII program. Audiotape also does a great job of following the book.

[Herisson08 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une belle fresque campagnarde de l'Angleterre sous la guerre. Des personnages libres et attachants.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d actually rate this book closer to a 2.5 stars. There were parts in the first half of the book that were really good. It did a sharp silly romance centred turn near the end which was a real shame considering the first 2/3 of the book had some depth. The characters were developing and then everything turned into coupling everyone up. Tying up loose ends with easy and silly (even tragically silly) ends. The switch in tone left me wondering what happened in the writing to switch tone like that. I’m glad I read it but I really wouldn’t recommend it.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another of the books I read in connection with the 2016 Read Harder Challenge -- in this case, read a book that was turned into a movie, see the movie, and debate which is better. The movie version of Land Girls is a favorite of mine, and after having seen the very different television series with the same name, I was curious about the original story and found the book.

It is a good old fashioned kind of read, and I don't mean that in a disparaging way. The book is about a year spent on a particular farm in England during 1941-1942 by three very different young women (the Land Girls of the title). There's Ag, a university student who's thinking of going to law school after the war, there's Stella, pining away with love (which sounds more like a crush) for her dashing Navy sublieutenant boyfriend, and there's Pru, a wild young thing whose background is in hairdressing and who looks at her new life as an opportunity to meet and have sex with as many young men as possible. We also see through the eyes of John Lawrence, the man who owns the farm on which they work, who starts out very suspicious of the usefulness of these young women but who comes to love and appreciate them, and Faith Lawrence, his wife, who encouraged him to bring the Land Girls in to help run the farm, and who pays much more attention to everything that's going on around her than people suspect. We also meet their son, Joe, unable to enlist because of asthma, engaged to a young woman he's not terribly interested in, who ends up having affairs of one kind or another with all the Land Girls, and we meet Ratty, an older man who also works on the farm and has his own troubles (his wife is a nasty piece of work who has a complete psychotic break in the course of the book) but who has his own feelings about each of the Land Girls.

The book is lavish with description and a sense of place, so that you feel you're living with the characters on the farm in Dorset, experiencing all the normal ups and downs of farm work (seen through the eyes of people who have never done that kind of work before), added to the extra stresses of the war (and there are a couple of disturbing attacks by German planes even this far from the centers of population).

The people act and react like real people, and the twists and turns of their romantic lives are far from melodramatic, but still kept me reading in eagerness to find out what was going to happen to these very endearing characters. It's better than the movie (and I really liked the movie).

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tale of unwavering friendship:

‘The Land Girls’ is a heart-warming story that shows how friendship can endure over time and destruction. Following the lives of three land girls in the second World War, Angela Huth looks at what it must have been like for them in terms of love, life, work and friendship.

The three land girls have such contrasting personalities that readers will find one who they can relate to and I think the author has deliberately done this to allow readers to immerse themselves in the story. Whilst you cannot ignore the fact this is set during the war and based on the real land girls, Huth uses some comedy to make light of what was a very bleak period. And I think it is this, and the relationship that exists between all of the characters, that makes this story so heart warming.

Following Mr and Mrs Lawrence as they adapt to having land girls is interesting to observe as the writer initially presents them as quite cold and stand-offish. In contrast, their son Joe spends the novel rebelling against what is expected of him by society and his parents and the reader can’t help but support Joe in his conquests with the girls, even if they really shouldn’t! On the other hand the reader follows Ratty, the farm’s old hand, and the changes he undergoes through working with the land girls. Whilst there is some sense of liberty at the end of the story, the reader can’t help but feel sorry for him and what he has been through.

This is definitely one to read. Whilst you know that Huth has fictionalised the story of the land girls and given it a heart – warming edge, there are plenty of elements to the story that make you sit and think about what life was like during the second World War. This will give you the escapism desired from a novel, but with the added dimension of its historical context.

[nettebuecherkiste · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deutscher Titel: Brombeertage

Während des Zweiten Weltkrieges wurden viele junge Frauen für den Landeinsatz auf Bauernhöfen rekrutiert. So auch Ag, Stella und Prue auf einer Farm in Südwestengland. Während Friseurlehrling Prue gleich nach geeignetem männlichen Material zwecks amouröser Abenteuer umsieht, haben Ag und Stella ihr Herz schon verloren. Eigentlich. Klar, dass Farmerssohn Joe sich den drei jungen Damen nicht wirlich entziehen kann.

Irgendwie hab ich es gerade mit Geschichten aus den ersten sechs Jahrzehnten des 20. Jahrhunderts. Insbesondere Geschichten, die sich um die beiden Weltkriege herum abspielen (siehe Downton Abbey, Wir sind doch Schwestern usw.). Kein Wunder also, dass ich zugeschlagen habe, als es dieses Buch vor einiger Zeit als Kindle-Deal des Tages gab.

Die Geschichte ist gut geschrieben, mit einer Rahmenhandlung in der Gegenwart, und auch sprachlich ansprechend. Auch die Charaktere überzeugen bis in die Nebenpersonen hinein. Ag ist die Intellektuelle mit geringem Selbstbewusstsein, Stella, die Romantikerin, Prue die scheinbar Frivole, die jedoch ein klares Ziel hat und besonders fleißig ist. Was mich ein wenig gestört hat, ist, dass der Fokus doch sehr auf den Liebesgeschichten liegt und nicht so sehr auf dem Thema “Landarbeiterinnen während des 2. Weltkriegs” an sich. Dennoch wird die Arbeit der Mädels detailliert, eindringlich und auch humorvoll beschrieben.

Mehr habe ich über das Buch eigentlich gar nicht zu sagen, es ist auf jeden Fall lesenswert. Ich habe gesehen, dass es auch eine Verfilmung mit Rachel Weisz als Ag gibt, da Rachel Weisz eine meiner Lieblingsschauspielerinnen ist, werde ich mir die DVD wohl besorgen. Es gibt auch eine Fortsetzung, über die ich mich noch nicht informiert habe. Da die Geschiche eigentlich in sich abgeschlossen ist, weiß ich nicht, ob ich mir die noch holen werde.

[Bunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't realize this was a romance until about midway through the book, when I suddenly thought, "This hero, Joe, is absolutely perfect at all times":) Then I knew I was in the land of the unreal, but I enjoyed it in any case. Sentimental, everyone always doing the right thing . . . still it was an interesting look at life on a farm in wartime England where this odd event of sending untrained girls to fill in for the help were sent, an event I'd never heard of before.

I didn't like the ending at all, and thought it totally over the top. That, however, was only a couple of pages, so it didn't ruin it for me.

[Emjy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un des romans les plus attachants que j'ai lus de ma vie. Il occupera à coup sûr une place toute particulière dans ma bibliothèque :)

[Lori Moon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never knew about this program in WW2 England, where they replaced the farm workers who had been called up with girls from the cities. It's very interesting and a great read!

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd seen a little bit of the TV series on Netflix so I had an idea of what the Land Girls were. Not my favorite book but informative in some ways.

[Linda Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Movie was better for me. I do not remember so much romance, but it has been some time since I saw it. That said, I read this in one day and left things undone to finish it.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

It could have been a great book. Instead, it has a shallow plots, poorly-written characters and there's an unbearable male gaze pretty much everywhere.

[Elinor · Rating 2 out of 5]

i was promised a book about sisterhood and it was just about everyone having affairs??

[Anyah Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Im Jahre 1941 werden die drei jungen Mädchen Agatha, Prue und Stella von der Women's Land Army auf die Farm des Ehepaares Lawrence geschickt, sie sollen hier den Mangel an jungen Männern wettmachen, die zur Armee einberufen wurden. Während Stella und Agatha die Abwesenheit von ihrem Elternhaus bereits durch einen Internatsbesuch gewohnt sind, ist es für Prue eine große Umstellung und sie wird bereits am ersten Tag vom Heimweh geplagt, zudem ist sie die jüngste der Drei. Durch einen vierwöchigen Kurs vorbereitet, finden sie sich schnell in ihre Aufgaben ein. Doch für John und Faith Lawrence ist es ebenso nicht einfach, die Mädchen als Gäste in ihrem Haus zu haben, wie gerne wären sie nur allein für sich, jedoch die Farmarbeit könnten sie allein niemals bewältigen. Dann ist da noch ihr Sohn Joe, der die Mädchen beeindruckt ...

In wunderschöner, harmonischer, mit feinen Akzenten versehenen Sprache und in herrlich flüssigem Schreibstil berichtet die Autorin Angela Huth die Story der Landmädchen. Sie beweist damit auf eindrucksvolle Weise, welch eine hervorragende Geschichtenerzählerin sie ist. Ich schwebe als Leserin nur so durch ihren Text und bin völlig gefangen. Der Roman erzählt nicht nur von den drei Mädchen, die zur Aushilfe in Kriegszeiten auf eine Farm geschickt wurden, sie zeichnet auch ein beeindruckendes Gesellschafts-Bild der damaligen Zeit. Die Farm ist ein kleiner Kosmos, wo nun die unterschiedlichsten Charaktere aus verschiedenen Welten aufeinander prallen. Sachte versuchen sie einander zu ergründen und zu verstehen. Dabei kochen die unterschiedlichsten Gefühle hoch, auch die Liebe.

Von Herzen gerne vergebe ich dem Buch fünf von fünf möglichen Sternen und empfehle es natürlich weiter. Ich bin froh, auf dieses neu aufgelegte Buch von einer großartigen Autorin gestoßen zu sein, wieder einmal findet eine Autorin Platz in meiner Favoritenliste. Leser, die interessiert sind, in die Gesellschaft Großbritanniens und die Zeit des zweiten Weltkrieges, werden begeistert sein und dieses Buch verschlingen, so wie ich es tat.

[Darjeelingdo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Octobre 1941, Angleterre : pour remplacer les hommes partis à la guerre et participer à l'effort de guerre , de jeunes volontaires sont envoyés dans les campagnes pour pallier le manque de bras dans les fermes.

C'est ainsi que débarquent à Hallows Farm, dans le Dorset, propriété des Lawrence, trois jeunes filles , Prue bien vite surnommée « la coquine », Stella la rêveuse et Agatha dite Ag , l'intellectuelle. Trois filles de la ville, très différentes mais qui vont très vite se lier d'amitié et apprivoiser petit à petit les fermiers, leur fils dispensé d'armée car asthmatique, et leur vieil ouvrier. Levées dès 4h du matin pour la traite, elles vont se mettre sans broncher à tous les travaux de la ferme, forçant le respect de leurs propriétaires , tout en rêvant à leur avenir et aux hommes avec lesquels elles souhaitent le partager !

Angela Huth nous dresse une peinture réaliste et poétique en même temps de la campagne anglaise, ses couleurs , ses odeurs et ses bruits au long des saisons. On vit au rythme des travaux de la ferme, pénibles mais aussi cocasses ou émouvants ( la dératisation, l'agnelage.. ) et c'est sur cette toile de fond que se dessine l'évolution des personnages pendant leur année à la ferme. Leur psychologie est bien décrite et on s'attache à ces trois demoiselles qui au fond se cherchent encore , dans le difficile contexte de la guerre.

C'est un roman plein de tendresse , de nostalgie et d'humour, et de bons sentiments aussi mais sans tomber dans la mièvrerie et j'ai pris beaucoup de plaisir à sa lecture.

Premier roman d'Angela Huth pour moi, sans doute pas le dernier . (4,5/5)

[Robin Drummond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Britain instituted the WLA - Women's Land Army - during WWII in order to ramp up agricultural efforts required to feed a population both civilian and military, amidst disrupted supply chains and manpower upheavals. Inductees received a couple months of training, were issued uniforms and sent out to perform backbreaking labor in the British countryside.

Huth's charming novel follows three 'Land Girls,' assigned to a farm which produces dairy products, eggs and food and forage crops. The young women are from different backgrounds: an aspiring hairdresser, a scholar who thinks she might appreciate a legal education and a girl who believes that her existence requires the polish bestowed by being in love. The story follows their journey as they become lifelong friends, each helping to shape the others, while they are simultaneously developing the skills and stamina necessary to keep England supplied with food.