Appleby Farm (by Cathy Bramley)

(Amazon UK link)

I’ve been reading books by Cathy Bramley for a few years now, and have liked them all. So I added a couple more to my wishlist last year, and was given ‘Appleby Farm’ for Christmas. I picked it up to read a few days ago, and was quickly engrossed.

Freya is the main protagonist. The story is told from her perspective, in the first person. We first meet her working in a café, training a new employee. We quickly learn that she’s been helping out a friend who had been injured, and that this is temporary. But she isn’t really sure what she wants from life. She’s in her late twenties, but hasn’t yet settled into anything long-term. 

Out of the blue, Freya gets a phone call from her aunt, saying that her uncle has fallen from his tractor and they wonder if she could come to help out for a few days. She drops everything to travel to the Lake District, to Appleby Farm. She loves the place. She spent more time with her aunt and uncle there when she was growing up than she did with her parents. 

As with the author’s other books, this is a character-based novel, with warm, likeable people and interesting situations. There’s no real tension, and no evil baddies - yet it’s a well-written story with plenty to keep it moving. Although I didn’t realise it at first, some of the characters from the author’s book ‘Ivy Lane’ reappear in this one.

Freya has a boyfriend; I wasn’t sure why he was in the novel at first, but he’s one of the folk from ‘Ivy Lane’. He seems like a nice guy, and she has met his delightful eight-year-old son. But as she gets more and more involved in the farm, she realises that their relationship can’t survive at a distance: they have too many differences in priorities. It’s not just duty that keeps her returning to Appleby Farm, she loves the location, and she feels as if farming is in her blood. 

Unfortunately the farm is quite deeply in debt, and Freya’s aunt and uncle - who are in their seventies - would really like to retire. Freya has a rather mercenary brother, who wants to make money out of the farm. So there’s a race to see if it can be saved…

I suppose the storyline is a bit too neat and tidy for reality. Freya has never been close to her parents; but when she talks to her aunt, she realises that maybe she hadn’t understood quite why she was sent off to boarding school at a young age, with holidays at the farm. So she flies out to Paris to see them, and while there’s an initial clash, she has a change of heart rather rapidly. She requests something of her father, who initially refuses - then, not long afterwards, does a complete about-turn. 

Freya has an idea for a tea-room in one of the old barns. She has no trouble at all getting the relevant permissions to convert it. She finds a convenient construction company who offer a reasonable quote and do an excellent job. There don’t seem to be any setbacks, so everything is ready for the opening, even though there were still things to do 24 hours in advance.  

Some of what she undertakes seems overwhelmingly huge, despite the assistance she finds. She seems to make instant friends and just happesnt to find people with the necessary skills to complement her own. And really nothing goes wrong. The only slight blip is the sister of one of her new friends, who is rather spiteful and jealous… but she comes across as rather a caricature, and nobody takes her seriously. 

And yet, despite the somewhat unrealistic nature of the plot, and the way everything turns out perfectly, it’s a very readable book. I didn’t really think about the unlikely nature of some of the progress until I’d finished. There’s - eventually - a low-key romance which was obviously going to happen, and it’s done nicely with interruptions ensuring that the first kiss doesn’t happen for quite some time.

I appreciate the fact that there’s nothing explicit in the book, and no bad language. I am also relieved that the farming details and scenery descriptions, while sufficient to give an overview of what’s happening, are not overtly educational, nor long enough to be dull. The conversations are realistic, and the main characters are too. 

So, if you like women’s fiction with likeable people and a gentle story, I would recommend this. Even more so if you have read ‘Ivy Lane’ and wonder what happened to some of the characters. 

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