When We Meet Again

Beecham’s tense American debut follows an unwed London mother’s search for her stolen newborn, who was given to child traffickers in 1943. Alice Cotton races to find her baby before the trail goes cold after her mother, Ruth, takes one-day-old Eadie to a “baby farmer” while Alice is sleeping. Ruth leaves a note, saying, “this really is for the best.” With the pregnancy a secret from the father and her book publishing colleagues, Alice had taken a leave of absence and given birth outside town. Panicked, Alice returns to London to locate the trafficker and confront her mother. She also cleverly convinces her colleagues to use a journalist’s research to publish a book on the buying and selling of children, while she uses the information gleaned to track down Eadie. Meanwhile, Theo Bloom, from the publishing firm’s New York City office, arrives to assist the London branch, leaving behind his fiancée, and a romance between Alice and Theo develops. While depictions of Alice’s weepy emotional state grow tiresome, Beecham pulls off a thrilling conclusion and elevates the story with some well-researched context on the publishing industry during the war, when demand for books was high. Fans of sentimental WWII fiction will fly through this. (July)