Somewhere Beyond the Sea

by Amanda James

When love begins with a lie, where will it end? Doctor Tristan Ainsworth has returned with his family to the idyllic Cornish village close to where he grew up. The past has taught him some hard lessons, but he'll do anything to make his wife happy - so what's making her so withdrawn? Karen Ainsworth daren't reveal her true feelings, but knows her husband has put up with her moods for too long. A chance to use her extraordinary singing voice may set her free, so why shouldn't she take it? Surely her past can't hurt her now? As a tide of blackmail and betrayal is unleashed to threaten the foundations of their marriage, Karen and Tristan face a difficult question. Is their love strong enough to face the truth when the truth might cost them everything?

• ISBN13: 9781781891209
• Publish Date: 3 April 2014 (first published 2 March 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 7 October 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Choc Lit
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[zooloo1983]

When I opened my kindle and read the opening pages, I thought that I was going to be in for a tightly twisted thriller. It starts off like that, but by the end of it, I found my eyes were a bit wet as it was so much more.

I love going back to my crazy town, by the Queen of Crazy Town. This is slightly tamer than her newer novels. We have both characters escaping from a brutal and somewhat fragile past. But as we all know secrets are never good, and so when Karen has a secret which threatens to destroy everything she has and loves, it makes it unpredictable to see how everything would pan out.

Not only do we have Karen’s past to contend with, but in her present, 2 characters want to destroy what she has. One, I felt, I was conflicted about, it was plausible but then at times it wasn’t. I thought there might be more to it, however when the “episode” came to its conclusion and you look at the bigger picture it did “fit” in this story. However, the other one. The other one is one of two of the vilest people ever. Mandy has 2 people in this book who could make you tremor with anger due to their disgusting behaviour. If I could climb through the pages of the book and give them a backhander I would. Luckily, Mandy has other plans for them!

I love that I am going back to the beginning with Mandy and seeing how her writing has grown. If she wrote this one now I reckon it would be darker, much darker. With the plot moving along into different stages, we see the present day, the big secret and the aftermath. It is this mudding of the three elements which set it apart for me. We don’t have a long drawn out book where we are told the secret at 97% giving us 3% to have it all wrapped up and a happy ending – ta-dah fashion. It is better, we meet Karen, her husband Tristan and their cute children Sebastian and Bella, we become entangled into their lives, then the proverbial shit hits the fan. However, this time, we are exposed quickly to the past, and a plan for the future. It is this future we aren’t sure of, and that’s when our emotions are played with!

I have to say I love the supporting cast of characters in Jenny, Michael and Emma. All in their own way a rock for this family and I would love to have them in my life. They helped really bring this story alive. The thing with this story is in this day and age, it is believable. The events in this book are something you could imagine reading in a paper and that makes it truly sobering. I did thoroughly enjoy this, and I have read some of Mandys newer works so to go back in time and start at the beginning is an adventure. She truly has grown as an author….and got blinking darker!!

[Leah]

After absolutely loving Amanda James’s first novel A Stitch In Time – a fantastic time travel novel, coming from someone who’s wary of stuff like that, should tell you all you need to know about how good the book is, I was very pleased to hear about her second novel Somewhere Beyond The Sea. I was, of course, disappointed it wasn’t a sequel to A Stich In Time (but it’s coming at the end of the year – yay!) but I was intrigued to read the novel, nevertheless. I thought it sounded intriguing, and I loved the dark cover, showing the sea and some rocks. It’s very atmospheric.

The first chapter of Somewhere Beyond The Sea throws us right into the action – introducing us to an unknown narrator, about to wade into the sea, naked no less. It’s an intriguing opening, and this narrative continues throughout the novel in bits and pieces, here are there, unravelling the story of the person in the sea, and how they ended up there, and what happened when someone pulled them out (which wasn’t their intention – they were supposed to be dead). It added an element of intrigue, of darkness to the story, especially as the person who decided to kill themselves, Bobby (as they’re named by the fella who rescues them) seems to have had quite the life, but I really liked reading about Bob and Maureen, who rescued Bobby. The rest of the narrative is told in the third-person, in the present day, where Tristan and his wife Karen have moved to the Cornish village where Tristan grew up. Karen’s agoraphobic, afraid to leave the house, until pushed (gently) by the vicar’s wife Jenny into joining their choir, but when someone from Karen’s past recognises her, her future is at risk, but can she keep her blackmailer quiet?

I thought Somewhere Beyond The Sea was so much darker than A Stitch In Time, so completely different in fact, that it’s quite hard to know they were written by the same author! What I really liked about the book was the consistent dynamic between Tristan and Karen. It was quite obvious these two really love each other, through thick and thin, sickness and health and I quite liked the fact that, unlike most men, Tristan was willing to put up with Karen’s crazy moods and unpredictability instead of just walking away as many people would. It takes a while for the novel to have some action, it’s not the most action packed novel you’ll ever read, but I liked the tale of Tristan and Karen’s love. I thought it was sweet, and even after everything came out and it was all out in the open, it was still so lovely that Tristan was willing to just be okay about it, it probably helped that he was a GP, they need a rather calming nature, I think.

I probably didn’t enjoy Somewhere Beyond The Sea as much as A Stitch In Time, but it was still a book I enjoyed. It’s a great tale of a strong marriage, and the little snippets of ‘Bobby’s’ life are interesting and well worth reading the novel for by themselves! James rather did keep me guessing throughout, and I can’t wait to read her next novel (the sequel to A Stich In Time – woohoo!!!). James is a very clever author, with many strings to her bow and she continually surprises me with her novels, they seem to always be so very, very different and that’s a rare talent!