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Wyld Dreamers Pamela Holmes #Inbetweeny

I was sent Wyld Dreamers out of the blue by Urbane Publications (thank you) and I have to be honest had never heard of the book or Holmes. The inside of the book was particularly beautiful however and noting it was due to be published in October I decided to give it a whirl.

"In the summer of 1972, a group of friends is invited to Somerset to help photographer Seymour Stratton renovate a dilapidated cottage on Wyld Farm. Over the next year the group come to regard the farm as offering them a place to be for the rest of their lives, to enjoy 'the good life'. But despite the commitment and camaraderie the rural idyll collapses.
Twenty-five years later, the group is brought together again in unexpected circumstances. Can events of the past be forgotten? Or will the secrets that are revealed devastate once unbreakable friendships?"

I immediately loved the opening chapters where main character Amy escapes the confines of her parents to spend the summer with her boyfriend and friends at the idyllic Wyld Farm - who hasn't had their first taste of freedom and never wanted it to end? Similarly Chapter Two where Amy's mother faces an empty bedroom following her only beloved daughter flying the nest is a heartbreak I will one day have to face.

I also really enjoyed reading about the group's life at the farm. My dream is to one day live on a small holding so I was really interested about Amy growing spinach and milking Daisy the cow. Don't be put off by this, it certainly isn't a 'how to live off the land' book but I did enjoy these occasional references and the setting of rural Somerset was beautiful.

Amy's increasing belief that the summer holiday was a long term thing came across as very naive, was she just trying to escape life at home? I certainly fumed alongside her when Vi was introduced! As the book developed Amy's confrontation with farm owner Seymour seemed to confirm she really was just naive which I suppose was understandable given that she was an only child, clearly doted on who used to seek solace in her mothers arms even as a teenager. A good dose of realism was certainly needed!

I did get confused at times between the boys Seymour, Simon, Gerard, Julian, David. I thought at times certain characters were slightly underdeveloped, maybe as there were so many of them? Mrs Morle, her daughter, Seymour's girlfriend, the shopkeeper.... Perhaps it would have been better to concentrate on one or two of these and really dig deep (dig! farm! get it?....I'll stop now).

I did at one point think we were heading to a murder mystery and the build up to the group leaving the farm was certainly tense, heightened by rapid paragraphs flitting in between the characters. In the end I wasn't disappointed with the reasoning behind why the group left Wyld Farm,  (much more realistic than a murder) but found the reasoning behind the inheritance much more difficult to understand.

Seeing how the group had altered during the passing of time and how the dynamics changed as the reality of running a cottage hit was interesting but the twist at the end felt a bit twee. The build up hadn't been central to the first part of the book and I felt it distracted from the otherwise captivating study of a group of people from different back grounds both as teens and as adults.

Overall it was an enjoyable read, the countryside sings from the pages and I'm pleased it crossed my path.

The link for the book takes you to Westwood Books in England's self-titled "Book Town" Sedburgh in the Yorkshire Dales and is the shop I purchased The Yorkshire Shepherdess. Written by a female farmer from a neighbouring farm it provides an excellent non fiction account of living off the land.


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