Beyond that, the sea /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Spence-Ash has written the novel in eight points of view, but each character is utterly three-dimensional and distinct. This debut novel captivated me from start to finish."
--Julia Quinn, author of the Bridgerton Series

A sweeping, tenderhearted love story, Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash tells the story of two families living through World War II on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the shy, irresistible young woman who will call them both her own.

As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: they decide to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America. There, she'll live with another family for the duration of the war, where they hope she'll stay safe.

Scared and angry, feeling lonely and displaced, Bea arrives in Boston to meet the Gregorys. Mr. and Mrs. G, and their sons William and Gerald, fold Bea seamlessly into their world. She becomes part of this lively family, learning their ways and their stories, adjusting to their affluent lifestyle. Bea grows close to both boys, one older and one younger, and fills in the gap between them. Before long, before she even realizes it, life with the Gregorys feels more natural to her than the quiet, spare life with her own parents back in England.

As Bea comes into herself and relaxes into her new life--summers on the coast in Maine, new friends clamoring to hear about life across the sea--the girl she had been begins to fade away, until, abruptly, she is called home to London when the war ends.

Desperate as she is not to leave this life behind, Bea dutifully retraces her trip across the Atlantic back to her new, old world. As she returns to post-war London, the memory of her American family stays with her, never fully letting her go, and always pulling on her heart as she tries to move on and pursue love and a life of her own.

As we follow Bea over time, navigating between her two worlds, Beyond That, the Sea emerges as a beautifully written, absorbing novel, full of grace and heartache, forgiveness and understanding, loss and love.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

A young's woman's family loyalties are divided as she leaves her London home for Boston during WWII in Spence-Ash's magnetic debut. In 1940, 11-year-old Bea Thompson's parents take advantage of a short-lived program to keep British children out of harm's way during the war, and ship her to America. Bea stays in Boston with the wealthy Gregorys and quickly becomes part of their family, which includes sons 13-year-old William and nine-year-old Gerald. Nancy Gregory treats Bea as the daughter she never had, while her husband, Ethan, sees Bea as a welcome addition to the household, despite his austere manner. Bea learns how to swim at the Gregorys' island house in Maine, excels academically, and, as a teen, falls for the handsome but mercurial William. At the end of the war, Bea returns to a London transformed by bombings and copes with the absence of her father, who died from a heart attack. Torn by her dedication to the Gregorys, she tries to acclimate to life in London with her mother and new stepfather, and after finishing school and finding work as a teacher, Bea's surprised by a visit from William. The author's choice to highlight an obscure corner of history with the overseas program adds a note of poignancy to Bea's story, as her voyage took place shortly before two other ships were sunk by the Germans. As well, Spence-Ash generates a stronger emotional charge with her contrasting portrayals of the two families, whose cultural and economic differences make it difficult for Bea to find her own way. Readers will be riveted. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Booklist Review

At the end of summer in 1940, Millie and Reg made the tough choice to send 11-year-old Beatrix to a family in the U.S. as Germany intensified its attacks on England. Nancy and Ethan Gregory, along with 13-year-old William and nine-year-old Gerald, welcome Bea at Boston Harbor, and nothing will ever be the same again. With every new experience Bea shares with the Gregorys, what part of her previous life does she need to let go of? With lively characters that continue to grow and change over four decades, each providing their own unique perspective on historical events, Spence-Ash explores complex family dynamics without villains. Readers will feel the pull of new fictional friends from the first to the last page, and long afterward. Details of daily life build a strong sense of time and place in both countries and time frames further deepening this outstanding debut novelist's portrayal of her characters. Spence-Ash's first novel will appeal to fans of Pam Jenoff, Margot Livesey, and Ann Packer.

Kirkus Book Review

Domestic worlds collide when an 11-year-old evacuated from England to the United States during World War II is absorbed into a new family, reconfiguring both its equilibrium and her own. Spence-Ash's debut takes a multiperspective approach to one minor wartime decision that impacts multiple lives across time and place--from the 1940s to the 1970s in London, Boston, and on a magical island off the coast of Maine. The last is where the Gregory family spends each summer, as Beatrix Thompson will learn to do too, during the five years, from 1940 to '45, she spends with the Gregorys: parents Ethan and Nancy, sons William and Gerald. Back in Blitz-stricken London, her parents, Reginald and Millie, miss Bea intensely and argue about the wisdom of Reginald's insistence on her departure. Reginald is a factory worker with "no money in savings at all," while the Gregorys are "house-rich and dollar poor," Ethan employed as a teacher. The class divide is just one element to which Beatrix must adapt, but as the daughter Nancy always wanted and a treasured companion to both boys, her new role develops into a positive, enlarging experience for all parties in America. After the war and Beatrix's return to England, her relationship with the Gregorys begins to drift. And, with the novel's decade-spanning timeline and episodic structure, so does Spence-Ash's plot momentum. Postwar relationships, children, and deaths occur, accompanied by glimpses of tenderness and connection, but there's also a hollow restlessness to the narrative, compounded by the sketchiness of some characters, including a major one who disappears without much impact. It's the women who emerge most vividly from this delicate yet porous story that eventually yields to a predictable conclusion. A circuitous but sensitive novel from an author to watch. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Laura Spence-Ash 's fiction has appeared in One Story, New England Review, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. Her critical essays and book reviews appear regularly in the Ploughshares blog. She received her MFA in Fiction from Rutgers-Newark, and she lives in New Jersey.