ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Woodspring by Elizabeth Buchan

Posted on 14th April 2026 By Nicola

Woodspring by Elizabeth Buchan is published by Corvus and is out now. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy.

‘Will the war last long? People are going to suffer and will have to make sacrifices, and everything will have to be on hold. It’s horrible to contemplate
but I’m twenty-seven and I can’t help wondering if by the time it’s over it’ll be too late for me.’

Since the house was built in 1810, the Danes have lived in the elegant, light-filled rooms of Woodspring, and walked in the fields and woods that surround the house. Over the years, and through the changing seasons, it has brought shelter, solace and joy.

But now it’s 1940 and Europe is on the brink of war. Everything is about to change, and nothing will be the same again.

The next three generations of Danes will live very different lives to their predecessors, at home and abroad. Yet they know they are forever tied to Woodspring.

Love and fortunes may come and go, no one is untouched by loss… But, throughout all this, Woodspring remains a constant.

Woodspring tells the story of three generations of one family, the Dane family who have been inextricably linked to their ancestral home for over two hundred years. The three timelines are 1940, 1975 and 2005, portrayed from the viewpoints of Harry, Nell and Mia respectively.

I was drawn to Woodspring as it sounded like just my kind of book, one which tells the story of a family connected by their home. That wasn’t exactly what I got. To start with, Woodspring hardly features in two of the timelines. Harry is commando training in Scotland or on leave in London for his timeline and in Mia’s we see a Dane through her eyes with only a small focus on Woodspring. It’s clear much has changed at the estate over the generations, in the way of many large country houses, but it’s only Nell’s story that really takes us there and I would have liked more.

Elizabeth Buchan’s writing is very good, it kept me interested (particularly where the focus was on Harry and Nell) but I did feel like Woodspring had more of a bit part than the lead role that the title suggests. I also felt that the joining of the three strands seemed rather disjointed, probably because the links between the characters were broken or partially broken so they didn’t flow as well as they might.

What I did really enjoy were the descriptions of the house and its surroundings, the wartime experiences of Harry and his cohort, and Nell’s time at Woodspring discovering things she didn’t know about her family and the estate. Whilst not quite the read I was hoping for, I did still enjoy Woodspring for the transportation into the past.

Elizabeth Buchan was a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prize-winning Consider the Lily, international bestseller Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The New Mrs Clifton and Two Women in Rome. Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She has reviewed for the Sunday Times, The Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes. She is a judge for the Women’s Prize for non fiction 2024, and was also on the judging panels for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival.