Our Castle by the Sea

Starred review from February 18, 2019
In this WWII thriller, Strange (The Secret of Nightingale Wood) crafts an evocative portrait of wartime suspicion and intrigue. Narrator Petra (Pet) lives with her older sister Mags, and her English Pa and German Mutti in a lighthouse cottage on England’s South East coast—a lighthouse they must paint camouflage green as Britain faces imminent war. In 1939, local authorities drag Pet’s beloved Mutti, classified as an “enemy alien” because of her German ancestry, into a tribunal to investigate her loyalties. The authorities rule to intern her indefinitely “as a matter of national security.” Divided into three parts, the narrative expertly reveals a web of rumors, doubt, prejudice, and mistrust even within Pet’s own family through unraveling secrets about Pet’s parents’ wedding, Mags’s relationship with a local boy, a trip to Dunkirk, and their Pa’s charts and logbooks, seized for evidence by the police. Strange seamlessly blends a local legend, of four girls turned into ancient standing stones on the lighthouse’s clifftop, with the larger story. A standout historical novel with a memorable protagonist, strongly sketched setting, and a compelling, twisty plot. Ages 8–12.

February 1, 2019
An English girl whose mother is German is ensnared by her neighbors' bigotry and by apparent treason at the onset of World War II.Twelve-year-old Petra lives in a lighthouse on the coast of England, so close to Europe that she can see right across to France on a clear day. When the war begins, some of the villagers--her neighbors for her entire life--behave abominably to Petra's family. Her German-born mother is accused of treason and sent to an internment camp, and though Petra is confident of Mutti's innocence, someone has been sending state secrets to the Nazis. Could it be that Petra's nearest and dearest aren't what they seem? No one in her family is acting normally. The stakes seem to rise slowly, coming to a breaking point as Petra's personal tragedies intertwine with the grim reality of the Dunkirk evacuation. The (historically accurate) increasing maltreatment of the town's German-British and Italian-British families increases Petra's sense of dislocation in her previously cozy village setting (characters are all white). Strange's deft hand with the had-I-but-known flavor of foreshadowing maintains a beautifully eerie, slightly gothic tone (occasionally at the expense of a believable 12-year-old voice).The slow dismantling of Petra's faith in her loved ones adds a delicious instability to the growing unease of this WWII thriller. (Historical fiction. 11-14)

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from March 1, 2019
Grades 5-7 *Starred Review* It's 1939, and the English coastal community where 12-year-old Pet lives has turned suspicious and hostile toward Mutti, her German-born mother, who moved to England in 1924 and married Pa, the lighthouse keeper. A tribunal sends Mutti to an internment camp as an enemy alien, leaving Pet, her older sister, Magda, and their father bereft. Meanwhile, a German plane has crashed into a nearby field, a traitorous local is cutting phone lines, and Magda is clearly hiding something from her family. Pet plans to uncover her sister's secret and also to prove her mother's innocence. When small boats are needed to rescue English troops at Dunkirk, Pa and Magda answer the call, but only one returns. Loss follows loss, but eventually the tide turns. A plot summary can only hint at the satisfaction of reading this tightly woven story with its haunting setting and memorable characters. Pet grows from a frightened child to a fiercely determined and ultimately brave individual who channels her anger with intelligence and figures out whom to trust in her suddenly dangerous world. The author of The Secret of Nightingale Wood (2017), Strange uses metaphor deftly and creates chapter endings that leave readers wanting more. A richly atmospheric historical novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)