The Oceans Between Us: A gripping and heartwrenching novel of a mother's search for her lost child during WW2

Gill Thompson

Mar 2019 · Review · Narrated by Jane Collingwood

About this audiobook

Inspired by extraordinary true events, this remarkable debut novel reveals the enduring power of love and the strength of the human spirit in one woman's quest to find her son, and a little boy's dream to be found.

For readers of The Letter by Kathryn Hughes, Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, The Throwaway Children by Diney Costeloe, Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly and Remember Me by Lesley Pearse.

Molly. Found wandering injured and dazed after an air raid on London, she remembers nothing of who she is. Except that she has lost something very precious...

Jack. His mother disappeared in the bombing. As he waits in the orphanage he knows one day she'll return for him. But when the opportunity of a golden life is dangled before him, and it's clear his mother's gone, aged nine he boards the SS Asturias, bound for Fremantle, the Outback - and Bindoon Boys' Town.

Kathleen Sullivan. Trapped in a repressive marriage. When the young English boy, undernourished and wary after the brutalities of the Christian Brothers' Outback farm, comes to live with her and her civil servant husband in Perth, she sees in Jack the son she was never able to have. But are they both too damaged to piece together a family?

A powerful, moving story of broken families and mended lives, told with care and compassion, The Oceans Between Us is a riveting, heartwrenching and ultimately uplifting novel of a mother's fight for justice and a boy's fight for survival.

About the author

Gill Thompson is an English lecturer who completed an MA in Creative Writing at Chichester University. Her novels THE OCEANS BETWEEN US and THE CHILD ON PLATFORM ONE were both digital bestsellers and have been highly acclaimed. She lives with her family in West Sussex and teaches English to college students.