Weed Memorial & Hollander Branch Book Discussion via Zoom: Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: They send their 11-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America, where she will live with another family for the duration of the war. Bea arrives in Boston and becomes part of the lively Gregory family and before long, life with the Gregorys feels more natural to her than life with her own parents back in England.

As Bea relaxes into her new life, 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.