Review of Beyond That, The Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

*Beyond That, the Sea* by Laura Spence-Ash (2023). Published by Celadon Books.

If you’re new here and stumbled on this blog through the mythical and magical powers of the Internet, or because of whatever the search engines decided was going to show up today when you Google something, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I made this blog in addition to my author/writer portfolio because I wanted to remember all of the books, shows, and movies I was coming across throughout the years.

I read and watch a lot, and I used to work as a professional film critic on the side when I was in graduate school. While I loved going to film festivals and ploughing through 500 pages of readings a week, on top of my regular fiction and nonfiction TBR list, I wasn’t remembering everything at the end of the day.

So I started writing little reviews and posts to keep an archive. It’s also pretty fun to return to a book or movie after a few years, then come to this website to see what I thought about it originally. One could call this a mind map, especially as you can literally track changes in the way we think throughout a set period of time through this kind of work.

Anyways, it was the Fall of 2024 when I fell into a period of unemployment that was pretty unexpected. I took a hard look at my finances and realized I had enough to take off for some time, so I did. It was such an incredible privilege to do so, especially in this economy and state of the world. I focused a bit on my blog and traveling during this time, and I would say it was so worth it.

If you liked what you read here, feel free to click around. I make a few pennies here and there from the ads that hover in the corner of your screen, so it helps out during periods like this.

One of my ways to source new books is always a simple method: I just wander the new fiction section of my local library. While I’m often focused on international literature, I’ve found that my library has been increasingly diverse, which is such a pleasant surprise. I can now find Arabic and Asian literature, for example, or Nigerian authors, on these shelves.

It was in the new fiction section that I found a copy of Beyond That, the Sea and decided to check it out based on the title. I wanted to know what exactly it was about, and the synopsis intrigued me, so then I decided to check it out. It took about a day to finish, which meant I had pretty good pace throughout.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

During World War II, a young British girl is sent to live with an upper class American family to escape the war.

The main character in this novel is Bea, and she is 11 years old when World War II begins to amp up in Europe. The war has not spread yet to the Untied States, but as her working class parents worry about her safety and bombs fall on the capital city of London, they make the executive decision to send her away from the United Kingdom. They’re working class, so they can only send her away.

They find a family willing to take her in, and she is expected to move to Boston. This leads to a lot of conflicted feelings from Bea, but when she gets off of the boat with the other girls sent away, she finds herself in the United States with strangers. They’re the Gregorys, a well-off Boston family whose patriarch is involved in education.

They have two sons, William and Gerald, and the family quickly incorporates her into their daily routines and lives. Bea really does become one with the family in this book, but as we know the war is going on back home, and her parents aren’t entirely in the clear right now. London is still being actively bombed, and they have to make money and work. They’re not rich at all.

Bea is having the time of her life in the United States, minus the fear for her parents and the homesickness. She’s also living an upper class lifestyle, with trips to New York, and getting to experience what upper class vacations look like to the family island in Maine. She also grows quite close with the boys—a little too close to one of them, if we may say so.

But the time will come eventually where she’ll have to return home, sparking new conversations and grief. The second half of the book deals with this, and we hurtle towards the elder years of these characters’ lives. While the first half of the book is slow and takes its time with her teenage years in the US, the second half is all in adulthood and moves very quickly.

One could say it moves a little bit like life in that regard. For me, personally, childhood is slow and long, while adulthood moves quickly like a spring breeze. The days blur together and rush by, even when we don’t want them to.

Overall Thoughts

I actually really liked this book! I had no expectations going into it, as I literally had just plucked it off of the shelf and read it on a whim, but I was impressed by the prose and the storytelling going on in it.

The chapters are really short and bounce off of different characters’ perspectives, so I feel like we get a holistic view of everything going on. It also makes you way more invested in each and every character—I know I was.

It’s also just a really interesting story. I haven’t done the research yet, but I want to know if this was a more common occurrence during the period for middle class workers to send their kids to the other side of the world to protect them. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a basis to this, but I want to know more.

I say go pick this one up if you’re interested in the plot, characters, or themes. I don’t know if I’ll return to this book in the near future, but I did enjoy reading it throughout.

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