Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early review copy.

I have loved reading books by lLiz Fenwick’s books. I feel this may be her best yet.

I could not put the book down, and at the same time I didn’t want it to end.

It was so beautifully written and had brilliant characters, which keeps you hooked to the end.

I highly recommend this book.

Wow!! What an amazing brilliant book!! It fair took my breath away with the intelligent writing, and true stories woven into the creative story portraying how women contributed in the Second World War efforts.
Merry works in secret offices in central London with maps when she is sent home to Cornwall as her mother has disappeared. Home is a farm on the edges of Helford River where the war has still affected change in her home community, and where the skills she has accumulated over her life come to her advantage to further help the war effort.
Fascinating, charming, intriguing and totally captivating, this book is an absolute gem!!
Gripping from the first page to the last, the book and characters are still with me! I had to celebrate the ending with a true pink gin last night!
The love of Cornwall and London from Liz Fenwick comes through, as does the history of where women were in society before the war. This was such a pivotal point of our heritage.
Empowerment, love, passion, and so much more!!
I totally loved this book!!
The best Liz Fenwick book by far!!! Hugely recommend this one!!!!
Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for the early read!

There's a lot of potential and some compelling parts. On the general level I found Meredith a bit too-much (gorgeous, geography don at Cambridge, and so on) and some parts were a bit too repetetive.
It's not my cup of tea but i think a lot of people will love it
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Due to formatting issues I was unable to read this book. Every page had extra words throughout the text making it extremely difficult to get into the story.

I’m giving it 4 stars as it didn’t feel fair to penalise the author for a problem that wasn’t their fault!

This was my first book by this author but it certainly won’t be my last. It contained everything I like in a novel- romance, a plot set in World War 2 and a strong female protagonist.
Meredith Tremayne is a cartographer with a Phd from Oxford and a wartime job working for Ian Fleming in the secret service using all her mapping skills.
When her widowed French mother goes missing from their Cornwall home, Fleming sends Merry down to the coast to investigate and also to look into a group of his men who are performing missions transporting goods and people to and from Brittany from Cornwall. Merry wants some field experience and this seems the perfect opportunity.
Merry meets Jake Russell, a handsome American Lieutenant, and despite her resolve to put her career first she gradually falls for him.
I found this a very interesting read, and although a slow burner at first it suddenly became a real page turner as I was desperate to find out what would happen between Merry and Jake.
I found it sad that an academic woman living in the 1940s would be forced to choose between her work as a lecturer and her personal life- if a woman married that was the end of her career and Merry was having to choose despite being every bit as intelligent as all the men around her.
I loved the descriptions of Cornwall, obviously a place the author is very well acquainted with and it really made me keen to visit again to see some of the scenery and places described so well..
This is a story which is both heartwarming and tragic as Merry and Jake are living through a terrible war where no one’s future is certain.
Thanks to NetGalley and HQ for my advance copy.

It has great potential, but I must admit I got bored part way through as the heroine seemed to be having the same conversation with different characters, and due to severe formatting issues resulting in missed text, or the publishers name randomly appearing in a sentence, it made the story hard to continue reading

I am not a great map reader - in fact, I'd say it's the one job I willingly hand over to whoever is nearest me in the car, however, this book drew me in from the first page. Merry is whip smart, strong and making a difference in a mans' world. This is a glorious historical read for summer and I didn't want it to end.

Thank you to the publishers for my advance galley copy.

Didn't finish. Not what I expected from this author, usually love her books. This was boring, repetitive and not engaging at all. Gave up at 30%.

Another wonderful Liz Fenwick. I love everything she writes and can’t get enough. So excited to see what she writes next. Never disappoints.

I have read and loved all of Liz Fenwick’s books, she is one of my favourite authors and this book is her best yet. Once again a story I couldn’t put down but really didn’t want it to end. The story stayed with me long after I’d finished. Beautifully written with wonderful characters and an impelling story. I loved it! I wish there were more than 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book

As I began to read this book I was so excited. One of my favourite genre to read is fiction based on true stories from the 20th C. In addition, I studied geography and geology and I just love maps and in particular cartography. The role Merry has in this book would have been a dream for me, although I'm sure I wouldn't have had her bravery!
I loved this novel and will be one I won't forget for a long time. I'll be looking out for more works by Liz Fenwick.

Professor Meredith (Merry) Tremayne was a Cambridge geography professor and map expert until she was drafted to the Admiralty to help with the war effort. When her mother goes missing from their home in Cornwall her enigmatic boss Fleming sends her to Cornwall to look for her, but also to assist two teams of special forces training in the area and to report back to him on why they seem to be a perpetual loggerheads.

Whilst investigating her mother's mysterious disappearance, Merry becomes close to an American called Jake who has voluntarily taken Canadian citizenship in order to fight, leaving behind his former career as a journalist. However, Merry chose her career over love and marriage years ago and she doesn't see herself changing that decision, not matter how attracted she might find herself to the impossibly good-looking man.

Soon Merry realises that the Admiralty are planning an invasion of France, and her map=making skills will be essential to that effort, helping to pinpoint exactly how and when the offensive should begin, what sort of sand is on the beaches, what sort of footwear the soldiers should have, high tides, underwater rock formations etc.

I would have enjoyed this book far more if I hadn't found Merry to be an extremely irritating character. She was both devastatingly beautiful and incredibly talented, with an irritating habit of repeating herself over and over again about how we don't read maps, we read into them - and no, I still have no idea what that means. Also, Merry frequently tells herself and everyone around her that she will never fall in love or get married or have children which is frankly laughable when all she does is moon about Jake.

I feel that the author's detailed descriptions of the Cornish countryside and the many, many, many rowing trips Merry undertook were intended to immerse the reader in her life and embed them in the historical time. Unfortunately it was wasted on me and I felt the plot suffered because of all the extraneous details, I just wanted the prose to hurry up and do something. Also, the great input that Merry had into the invasion of France just seemed to get lost in the wittering about mice and the myriad sub-plots which didn't seem to go anywhere (eg Fleming's love life and Merry's landlady's love life, there's a much bigger one but it's a bit of a spoiler so I won't mention it). Now I get that in real life there are multiple dramas going on which may or may not be relevant to your career or love life but did they really add anything to the story (other than length)?

Overall, I would have preferred the novel to be shorter and tighter and not have all these side issues that went nowhere. I would also have liked to have learned more specifics about exactly what Merry did for all those months in Cornwall, as I didn't get a real feel for her contribution.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

A mixed bag for me. Parts I enjoyed and parts I thought dragged on a bit. All in all the storyline is good and the work of the mappers is not something I was aware of. I found it interesting as my Grandfather was a member of the Admiralty during WW2 (Industrial Chemist) and ironically was also a Holdsworth!

I was also unaware that some US Citizens crossed into Canada to take their part in the war sooner.

The authors portrayal of Cornwall and the English Channel were very good and you could really see and feel like you were there.

I found Merry to be a bit wishy washy at times. I'd long sussed before her where her Mother was. I also wondered why the need for the importance of the author and book series at the start of the book as it seemed to fizzle out and not be mentioned again?

I am grateful to have been allowed to read this early copy of the book. Other readers should note the formatting does make the read somewhat harder with the publishers name etc. suddenly popping up in the middle of a paragraph. There also appeared to be some text missing in parts so you had to guess what the author was saying!

I’ll say up front that for me, this is Liz Fenwick’s best book yet. It is just so very rich in everything; the sense of the era, the superbly described settings, the characters that refuse to leave your side.
The Secret Shore is also Liz’s first fully historical novel and her research is impeccable. Not only that, but it is used so sparingly in both tiny period details and sweeping events, it whisks you back the Second World War in an entirely credible and unsentimental fashion that never gets in the way of the story.
The entire narrative is carried by the main character, Merry, an Oxford geography lecturer recruited to help the war effort. Merry is an expert in maps and they stretch into every corner of her world; her vital work, her hobbies, and even her personal life. If there is something she cannot map she is deeply uncomfortable. Liz uses the metaphor well and it never seems overdone.
War, however, throws up the unforeseen; the unmappable, the unfathomable, the tragic, the moments of laughter and intense joy. But it is also a time of transit, impermanence, the last time of all that career-minded Merry would want to listen to her heart.
Set mainly around Liz’s beloved Helford River, this book is a treat not to be missed.

Really loved this book and didn't want to put it down. I loved the strong female characters set in beautiful Cornwall against the back drop of the war - and really interesting to think how geographers might have impacted some of the strategic decision making. Highly recommend.

Beautiful. The relationships in the tense war years between Merry’s colleagues, her housemates and her family are so well told. The conditions of the war years, the fears and the need to grab joy where it can be found are detailed and swept me along, I cried at the loss and the cold heartedness but also and that muscle squeeze at the glory that came out,

The Secret Shore by Liz Fenwick

You know your in for a great with this author , and this title is as she other books - perfect.
Dr Meredith Tremayne is a lecturer at Oxford University when she is,asked to help with the war effort to update maps.
Her mother goes missing from her home and her brother is killed when his plane is shot down.
I enjoyed reading Merry's story and her love interest in Jack Russell.
Liz Fenwick really managed to get under the skin of her characters and brings the situations they find themselves in totally believable.
Enjoyed it.

Despite started being slow in the beginning, it was quite and engaging read. I loved the writing style it seemed to have made me live vicariously through the characters. But more than that, I really loved the heroine. Overall, it’s a 4.75 stars read for me

Liz Fenwick writes so beautifully, especially about Cornwall. There is so much in "The Secret Shore" which is interesting and then there's a wonderful romance as well. At the start of the book Meredith (Merry) is working for Commander Ian Fleming (future James Bond author) using her skills as a geographer and cartographer. This is one of those wartime roles for women that is kept quiet and not publicised, but was so important. Fleming sends her to Cornwall to work with a team supporting secret agents in France. The team are told that she is there to impart her skills and determine their real needs from a map, but that is not all.

With wonderful characters and a gripping story-line this is another great read from Liz Fenwick. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

This book centres around Dr Meredith Tremayne (Merry) who is an geographer and a beautiful young lady in a world of academics.

Meredith’s mother is French and she has great knowledge of the Normandy coast.this is invaluable to the National Intelligence Division and the flotillas which ran from Cornwall to Brittany.

As Meredith is about to be deployed to the war office her mother mysteriously disappears, she returns to her home in Cornwall to see if she can find her. Becoming part of the team in the National Intelligence Division means facing many challenges and she invests most of her life to it., always trying to find out if her mother is still alive

Merry finds herself drawn to an American officer and although she tries to resist the chemistry between them she finds it more difficult than she anticipated.

This book is beautifully written and very informative as well as entertaining. The glimpses into the part mapmakers played in WW11 is not something I had thought about before. Mystery and escapism all rolled up in a romance made this a book I really enjoyed.