Review: The Sea Gate

Jane Johnson's novel, The Sea Gate, published last month but I had been waiting for it for months before that. I saw the cover, read what it was about, and it immediately went on my Highly Anticipating list. Because this has been the year it's been, I just finally got to reading it over the last week. It didn't thrill me as much as I expected but it intrigued me enough that I just had to see how the mystery would unfold and how many secrets were being hidden.

Here's the synopsis:

A broken family, a house of secrets—an entrancing tale of love and courage set during the Second World War.
After Rebecca’s mother dies, she must sort through her empty flat and come to terms with her loss. As she goes through her mother’s mail, she finds a handwritten envelope. In it is a letter that will change her life forever.
Olivia, her mother’s elderly cousin, needs help to save her beloved home. Rebecca immediately goes to visit Olivia in Cornwall only to find a house full of secrets—treasures in the attic and a mysterious tunnel leading from the cellar to the sea, and Olivia, nowhere to be found.
As it turns out, the old woman is stuck in hospital with no hope of being discharged until her house is made habitable again. Rebecca sets to work restoring the home to its former glory, but as she peels back the layers of paint and grime, she uncovers even more buried secrets—secrets from a time when the Second World War was raging, when Olivia was a young woman, and when both romance and danger lurked around every corner...
A sweeping and utterly spellbinding tale of a young woman’s courage in the face of war and the lengths to which she’ll go to protect those she loves against the most unexpected of enemies.

I'm really not sure why I didn't fall head over heels for this book. World War II stories never get old for me so that wasn't it. I think it boils down to the way the story was told. And boy was it told. It's super slow to start and I was just waiting for the moment where all would be revealed, and I knew just how it would be done too. There was a whole section at the end where Olivia tells Becca (and therefore the reader) everything. Sure, there were some flashback scenes but it was sort of an info dump as the loose ends got tied up. 

There were a few things I did like about the WWII aspect of the novel. First, I liked that it was another insight into how the war affected those who were left behind. How did the women and children (and men who couldn't fight) look after the homes and farms with so many men away at war? We get so many war stories from the male perspective but it touched the lives of far more people than just those who were on the battlefield and the effects were felt far beyond where the battles were fought.

Olivia's mother is away for the majority of the war and I appreciated that Johnson mentioned that she had been part of the SOE. It's a part of WWII's history that isn't talked about as much because it was mostly involving women. It has shown up in a number of books in the last year or so and I am so here for it because those women were heroes who deserve to be recognized.

Finally, Johnson also touched on Prisoners of War and the prejudices that ran rampant during the war. There were clear parallels between both the flashbacks and contemporary story (perhaps too clear...like it was history repeating itself and I think that was something I struggled with) with a white woman and a non-white man having romantic feelings for each other. One of the things that showed was that things have not changed nearly enough in the years since WWII ended.

Jane Johnson's The Sea Gate didn't hit the high notes for me but I still found myself needing to know what secrets Olivia and her home were hiding and that kept me reading until the last page. 

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*