Reeling after her mother's death and her own cancer treatments, London artist Rebecca is at loose ends. Sorting through her mother's unopened mail, Becky finds a letter from an elderly cousin she barely remembers, a woman in Cornwall who seems to be in danger of losing her home. Impulsively, Becky hops a train to Penzance, to find Cousin Olivia Kitto--a tough old bird--in hospital and hiding more than a few secrets. Jane Johnson (Court of Lions) deftly weaves together Olivia's experiences as a young woman during World War II with Becky's present-day journey of discovery in her sixth historical novel, The Sea Gate.
As Becky begins exploring and renovating Chynalls, Olivia's enormous, dilapidated family home, she finds more questions than answers. Who is the artist behind the exquisite paintings hidden in the attic? What are the real motives of the surly (and overpaid) housekeeper, Rosie, and her grown sons, who Becky catches lurking around the house at odd hours? And what is the origin of the finger bone Becky finds in a tunnel leading from the house to the sea?
Having piqued her readers' curiosity, Johnson begins another narrative, set in the 1940s: that of Olivia's experience as a teenager, left nearly alone at Chynalls while her father fights overseas and her French mother does mysterious war work in London. The appearance of several prisoners of war in the close-knit, all-white village, including a blond Austrian airman and a young Arab man from North Africa, will have devastating consequences for Olivia and her neighbors.
Meanwhile, in the present day, Becky tries to piece together the story of Olivia's life while wrangling local tradesmen, overdrawn bank accounts, her whiny ex-boyfriend and the resident (highly profane) parrot, Gabriel. Along the way, both women learn to step into their bravery, standing up to cruelty and threats at great cost to themselves.
With its atmospheric setting, fast-paced dual narrative and vividly eccentric characters, The Sea Gate is a juicy novel perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Daphne du Maurier. But it's also an unflinching look at racism and sexism in England during the Second World War, a bittersweet love story and a tribute to unexpected courage under fire--both from its protagonists and its other characters. Olivia guards her secrets closely, but the novel's conclusion contains several satisfying reveals. Readers may want to catch a train to Cornwall (though without the parrots and finger bones) after spending a few hours in Johnson's lushly rendered world. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Jane Johnson's atmospheric sixth novel explores a house of secrets on the Cornish coast.