The Secret Shore by Liz Fenwick

 

The Secret Shore by Liz Fenwick.

Published 11th May 2023 by HQ.

From the cover of the book:

As one of the Navy’s most skilled mapmakers, Merry knows the very lives of men far away depend on her work in the War Office.

But when a family crisis draws her back to her beloved Cornwall, Merry finds herself working alongside an enigmatic American officer on secret operations spanning the rugged coasts of Cornwall and Brittany which she knows so well.

But not everything is as clear as the maps she draws. As rumours and suspicion swirl around her family, Merry is increasingly drawn to Jake, despite the defences she’s built around her heart. It’s a dangerous time to fall in love when there is everything to lose as the tides of war are rising…

The award-winning author Liz Fenwick returns with a glorious, sweeping novel full of intrigue and passion.

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1942. Dr Merry Tremayne has been drafted from Oxford to work at the War Office. Her skills make her one of the Navy's most skilled map makers, but as an attractive woman, it is a constant battle for her to convince her male colleagues that she is so much more than just a pretty face. However, Merry knows she can make a difference to the lives of the men fighting far away, and she is no shrinking violet. She is fortunate to be working for Commander Fleming, a man who knows only too well how brilliant and fierce she can be, and how to make the most of her skills.

When a family emergency calls Merry back to her beloved Cornwall, Fleming arranges for her to be seconded to a project undertaking secret operations between Helford and Brittany. His reasons are murky, but working on the ground helps Merry to understand exactly how she can make her maps more useful to the men putting their lives on the line. Her local knowledge, determination, and intelligence make her a valuable asset to the team too. Her new mission brings her in to contact with American Officer Jake Russell, a man like no one she has met before. Although she feels herself drawn to him, she is unwilling to swap the future she has fought so hard to carve out for herself for marriage and motherhood. 

War is a dangerous time to fall in love, and Merry is sure that the defences she has built up around her will hold strong, but in these perilous times, there is also a lot to be said for making the most fleeting moments. Merry is determined that her head will rule her heart...

The Secret Shore is a gorgeous and sweeping novel that flips between wartime London, Cornwall, and Brittany, bringing in everything that marks Liz Fenwick out as the accomplished writer she is. Every setting in this book thrums with deliciously evocative vibes that bring time and place alive - especially when it comes to her beloved Cornwall.

Inspired by tales of the bravery of the small teams of men who risked their lives in night operations between the Cornish coast and France during World War II, keeping lines of communication alive, dropping agents in French territory, and bringing air crew back home to take to the skies once more, Fenwick spins her magic to craft a spellbinding novel. 

Amid the storylines that shine a light on the secret operations that made so much difference to the course of the war, Fenwick waves the banner for the women who also toiled tirelessly, and sacrificed much, in support of the war effort - only for their contribution to never be acknowledged, or for the rewards of their hard work to be brutally taken from them. Merry accurately represents the face of many women whose efforts went unrewarded, but she also portrays the hard choices women who wanted to follow a career were forced to make at this time. In a double whammy of inequality for the women who made such an important contribution on the home front, Fenwick examines the effect of the bitter pill they were forced to swallow war was over too.

Everything weaves together seamlessly to make a story that carries you on a tide of emotion, especially when it comes to the love story of stolen moments of passion that lies at its heart. The whole novel resonates with the awareness that lives must be lived to the full in precious fleeting moments between the horrors of war, and that taking a chance on love holds its rewards even when happiness can be snatched away at any time. And Fenwick beautifully conveys how the forced intimacy of people thrown together forges bonds that last a lifetime. My heart both soared and bled for many of the characters that appear in these pages. It makes the situations that Fenwick describes so much more powerful by knowing that so many of their stories are based upon real people too. 

I cannot tell you how much I loved this book and the characters within it. It enthralled me from start to glorious finish with Merry and Jakes' story; sent me down multiple rabbit holes about secret missions on both sides of the Channel, and the painstaking preparations for D-Day; and taught me about the importance of maps and the stories they can tell. Superb!

The Secret Shore is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to HQ for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Novelist, wife, mother of three, slave to two cats and dreamer turned doer....

Award winning author of The Cornish House, A Cornish Affair, A Cornish Stranger, Under A Cornish Sky, The Returning Tide, One Cornish Summer, The Path to the Sea, The River Between Us and the novella A Cornish Christmas Carol. She lives in Cornwall with her husband and spends her time wrangling two mad cats, plot walking, reading and procrastinating on social media.

The Secret Shore is out on 11 May 2023 and she’s now writing the next book.

Her books are available in Dutch, Germany, Portuguese, French, Estonia, Norwegian, Danish, Turkish, Swedish, Latvian, Serbian, Czech, Hungarian, Italian and Finnish.