Two books, Beyond That, The Sea, by Laura Spence-Ash, and Foster, by Claire Keegan, that I happened to read one after the other, both deal with a young girl who is sent away from home to be cared for temporarily. Both lovely, quiet books. Foster, by Claire Keegan, an Irish writer, tells of a girl in rural Ireland who is sent to distant relatives while her mother is pregnant with another baby. It is short, really a long short story, but quite moving, as the girl experiences loving care that she has never known.
Beyond That, The Sea tells of a young girl in London at the start of the war who is sent to live with a family in America, and ends up staying there for five formative years. The story is told from multiple points of view, each very short chapter from a different character, but all in third person. Again, this is a quiet book but I found it captivating. Almost a character study of each of the main characters. In the end, looking back, I was not sure I really believed the story completely, but I was so taken with it that I completely suspended my disbelief, the mark of a good story. And in the end, what Spence-Ash gives us is a subtle but convincing study of relationships, and how those relationships grow and change over time as the characters themselves grow and change.
Dorothy Howe Brooks 