THE HOUSE AT MERMAID'S COVE

A former nun washes ashore on an English beach during World War II, and she's saved by a local viscount who recruits her into the war effort.

It’s April 1943, and 30-year-old Alice is on her way back to Ireland from the Belgian Congo when the ship she's traveling on is torpedoed. She wakes up on a beach in Cornwall, where she's rescued by Lord Jack Trewella and his trusty canine, Brock. Alice, who's been a nun since she was 18, recently left her mission trip under scandalous circumstances and doesn't want to return to the convent. She is desperate to keep her identity a secret, so she and Jack strike up a deal—they will pretend to be cousins and Jack will provide Alice with food and shelter in exchange for her help tending his farm. Alice quickly becomes entrenched in Jack’s world, helping the “Land Girls” milk cows, striking up a friendship with Merle, a woman who was evacuated from the Channel Islands and is now living in Jack’s home with her children, and getting to know the local villagers. But Alice isn’t the only one with dark secrets, and as she gets to know Jack, Merle, and the children better, she finds herself deeply entrenched in dramas both personal and political. Readers hoping for an action-packed war novel or swoonworthy romance may be disappointed, as most of the book focuses on Alice’s internal monologue; she ruminates on leaving the religious life behind, replays her time in Africa, reminisces about her adolescence in Ireland, and worries about her growing attraction to Jack and the many rumors surrounding his romantic dalliances. The schmaltzy conclusion feels abrupt and its emotions unearned, as does the local mermaid legend woven throughout the text to little effect.

A middling WWII novel for readers who prefer their historical fiction light.