Laura Spence-Ash's debut novel, Beyond That, the Sea, weaves a tapestry of intimate relationships that span the Atlantic in the decades after World War II. At the novel's center is Beatrix Thompson, whose parents, Millie and Reg, make the heart-wrenching decision to send her, at age 11, across the ocean to escape the Blitz in London. Bea lands with a well-off family, the Gregorys, who live near Boston and spend summers on a private island in Maine. She becomes close to the two boys, William and Gerald, and her bond with them and their parents--deep and complicated--will endure.
Spence-Ash gives voice to multiple main characters, writing in brief chapters told from their perspectives: Bea, Millie and Reg each have their say, as do the Gregory parents, Ethan and Nancy, and their two sons. This narrative style allows Spence-Ash to share different facets of the same incidents, such as Bea's arrival in Boston, her parents' choice to send her away, the adjustment period for the Gregorys as Bea becomes part of their lives, and the eventual wrench when she returns to London. The novel spans multiple decades and continents, but also captures small, intimate details: the muffins Nancy makes for breakfast, the wildflowers in the cemetery near the Gregorys' home, the orange rowboat always moored at the dock near their house in Maine. Spence-Ash traces Bea's maturation from a shy, scared girl into a more confident young woman, who eventually builds her own life and career in London, but never forgets her family across the pond. Meanwhile, Bea's mother, Millie, grapples with her complex feelings about the Gregorys and the important years she missed, as she struggles to build a relationship with her adult daughter. Each of the boys, as they grow into men, are also deeply affected by their memories of Bea.
The war itself lives in the novel's background; its carnage is the catalyst for Bea's time in the U.S., but its details are emphasized less than the characters' day-to-day experiences. In later years, Bea and the others build new relationships and discover new passions, but are still bound by those years spent together during the war. When Bea finally returns to Boston, she finds both the reliable love of a family who consider her theirs, and some unexpected insights into her formative years with them.
Quietly stunning, with finely drawn characters and vivid descriptions, Beyond That, the Sea is a gorgeous, elegiac, novel about loss, family and the complexity of love. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Laura Spence-Ash's gorgeous, elegiac debut novel follows a young woman whose life and love take her across the Atlantic during World War II.