978-1-956474-08-4

Pub Date: September 20, 2022

Author: Laury A. Egan

A sixteen-year-old girl, Olivia, who feels guilty about her younger brother’s death. Her mother, Evelyn, a glamorous artist. Travis, the charismatic owner of the Pink Fancy Hotel. A mysteri­ous Czechoslo­vakian widow, Sofiya. A sojourn on St. Croix, a tropi­cal island. Two love affairs. Secrets. Nazis. Ravensbrück concentra­tion camp. Conflict, jealousy, kindness, tenderness. A res­cue and a resurrec­tion. All woven together in a haunting work of liter­ary fiction set in 1966.

“An engaging and well-written story of a young woman discover­ing the nuances and mysteries of human relationships, love, and adulthood. Set on a beautiful Caribbean island and peppered with references to charac­ters, places, and events there, I felt like I was a confidant and witness to the emotions and experi­ences of a friend. Egan found an excellent balance between the voice of her young narrator in the time period and the perspective from years later.”
—Lisa Cantrell, administrator, “St. Croix Memories”

“The novel is a heart-wrenching treatise of teen angst and relation­ships damaged by trauma, set in the beautiful Virgin Islands. It gently portrays how chance-met friends can help us to deal with adversity.”
—J.A. Lordi, writing as Tinker Marne, author of Sunken Treachery

“A major work. All of the primary characters deserve their own novels.”
—Dr. Helga Schier, former executive editor, Random House