The Sea Before Us

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The Sea Before Us
Sarah Sundin
Revell

 In 1944, American naval officer Lt. Wyatt Paxton arrives in London to prepare for the Allied invasion of France. He works closely with Dorothy Fairfax, a "Wren" in the Women's Royal Naval Service. Dorothy pieces together reconnaissance photographs with thousands of holiday snapshots of France--including those of her own family's summer home--in order to create accurate maps of Normandy. Maps that Wyatt will turn into naval bombardment plans.

As the two spend concentrated time together in the pressure cooker of war, their deepening friendship threatens to turn to love. Dorothy must resist its pull. Her bereaved father depends on her, and her heart already belongs to another man. Wyatt too has much to lose. The closer he gets to Dorothy, the more he fears his efforts to win the war will destroy everything she has ever loved.

The tense days leading up to the monumental D-Day landing blaze to life under Sarah Sundin's practiced pen with this powerful new series.

     Why do Sarah Sundin's book always have to be so good? I say this because I'm running out of ways to describe how great she is at character development, how effortlessly but accurately she crafts her historical settings, and how relateable her characters are--even characters like The Sea Before Us's Dorothy and Wyatt, neither of whom are much like me at all. Maybe it's not so much that I find them relateable, then, but more like despite their flaws, I find them endearing. That's good, because when it comes to mistakes, these characters certainly made some. But they learned from them, and learned from them well- which is what I like to see in my stories.

     When it comes to historical fiction, it might surprise you that World War 2 settings are not my first choice. But that doesn't matter here: the plot, characters, and writing style all suck me in. (There's a reason that I own every single one of this author's novels!) This one was an excellent addition to my shelf.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

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