Amanda and her husband, David, feel fortunate to be raising their son and daughter in the close-knit community of ex-pats on Grand Cayman Island, an idyllic place for children to grow up. Their firstborn, Sally, has always listened to her heart, deciding at age four that she would rather be called Clover and then, a few years later, falling in love with her best friend, James.

But the comforting embrace of island life can become claustrophobic for adults, especially when they are faced with difficult situations. At the same time that Clover falls in love with James, Amanda realizes that she has fallen out of love with David . . . and that she is interested in someone else. While Amanda tries to navigate the new path her heart is leading her down, Clover finds, much to her dismay, that James seems to be growing away from her. And when they leave the island for boarding school—James to England and Clover to Scotland—she feels she may have lost him for good. As Clover moves on to university, seldom seeing James but always carrying him in her heart, she finds herself torn between a desire to go forward with her life and the old feelings that she just can’t shed.

Through the lives of Clover and James, and Amanda and David, acclaimed storyteller Alexander McCall Smith tells a tale full of love and heartbreak, humor and melancholy, that beautifully demonstrates the myriad ways in which love shapes our lives.

I picked this book up from the bookshelf at the Ridgewood Coffee Company in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

Alexander McCall Smith's gentle and slow style does not work all that well when romance is supposed to be the theme.

This book has been sitting around for weeks all wrapped and ready-to-go. It finally made its way to the post office with me today.

I hope that you enjoy this book, maranlin.

Received this book in the mail yesterday from tabby-cat-owner. Thank you so much for sharing your book with me. I have read many of Alexander McCall Smith's series books and enjoyed them. I look forward to reading this one too.

This story plodded along a bit and seemed to take forever to wrap up. However, it kept my interest enough that I continued to the end. I have to say that I much prefer the series books written by Alexander McCall Smith and I have read several of those. I enjoy his light-hearted approach and tongue in cheek humour which did not show itself in this book. I did find it interesting to read about life in the Cayman Islands which I knew little about.

Left beside a lamp post in the parking lot.
Released for the 2019 Tick Tock Challenge & the 2019 NJABBIC Challenge (week 42: person facing away from the reader).

To the finder of this book: I hope you enjoy reading this book. Please keep it or set it free when you're done. If the book is of no interest to you, please release it into the wild for someone else to find and enjoy. I hope you will make a journal entry so its journey can be tracked and to let me know the book has been found. You can remain anonymous if you wish, but if you join BookCrossing, you are in for a great experience and I do hope you will use me, Maranlin, as a referring member.