C
Clare Leslie Hall
Clare Leslie Hall is the author of "Broken Country," a selection for Reese's Book Club. She writes fiction that explores complex family dynamics and societal issues.
Broken Country
Synopsis
Dorset, 1968. Beth Johnson is a farmer's wife, and a good one. She and her husband Frank work their sheep farm alongside his brother Jimmy, in a marriage built on steady affection and on the things they have agreed not to say. Chief among them is Bobby, their nine-year-old son, who died in an accident two years ago.
Then Gabriel Wolfe comes home. Beth loved him for one incandescent summer in 1955, when she was seventeen and he was the boy from the manor, bound for Oxford and for a life she could not follow him into. He is a successful novelist now, back at the neighbouring estate with a young son of his own, Leo, a boy just old enough to stand where Bobby should be. When a gunshot on the farm brings the two households together, the past Beth has kept buried begins to surface, and in a village this size everyone is keeping score.
Clare Leslie Hall's third novel moves between 1955 and 1968, and toward a courtroom, where a murder has put someone Beth loves on trial. A Reese's Book Club pick and a New York Times bestseller, Broken Country is a novel about first love and long marriage, about grief and the private arithmetic of a life, and about how little it takes for a settled world to come apart.
Vibe
Genres
Characters
Beth JohnsonProtagonist
A farmer's wife in Dorset and the novel's narrator, pulled between her marriage to Frank and Gabriel Wolfe, the man she loved at seventeen.
Gabriel WolfeSupporting
Beth's first love, now a successful novelist, returned to the neighbouring estate after years away.
Frank (Broken Country)Supporting
Beth's husband, a sheep farmer: steady, reliable and devoted to the land and to her.
Leo (Broken Country)Supporting
Gabriel's young son, close in age to the boy Beth lost, and drawn to her.
Jimmy (Broken Country)Supporting
Frank's brother, who works the family farm alongside Beth and Frank.
Audie Award (2026)Goodreads Choice Award (2025)She Reads Best of Award (2025)
Frequently asked questions
Is Broken Country part of a series?
No. Broken Country is a standalone novel, and Clare Leslie Hall's third book. She published her earlier novels Him and Mine under the name Clare Empson; both have since been reissued under the Clare Leslie Hall name as Pictures of Him and Days You Were Mine.
When and where is Broken Country set?
In a farming community in Dorset, in the south-west of England, across two timelines: 1955, when Beth and Gabriel meet as teenagers, and 1968, when Gabriel returns. The later strand also moves to London for a murder trial in 1969.
Has Broken Country won any awards?
It has not won a major book prize. It was chosen as a Reese's Book Club pick in March 2025 and spent 26 weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list. It was a finalist rather than a winner in the Goodreads Choice Awards, nominated in both Historical Fiction and Audiobook, and was also nominated for an Audie Award for Fiction.
Is Broken Country being adapted into a film?
Yes. A film adaptation is in development with Sony 3000 Pictures and Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon's production company. The novel has also sold translation rights in around thirty territories.