Let’s start by saying ‘I absolutely loved this book’.

It is set in both Trinidad and Tobago and also London. But the main narrative happens in the Caribbean. I wanted to look up all the places as I read about them, but the story was so compelling that .i didn’t want to stop and search.

Dawn is the only daughter of a Trinidadian white family who have made their money in business selling fruit juices. At 16 Dawn makes her great ‘mistake’. She gets pregnant from a one night stand with a tourist and her family arrange for her to have the baby adopted. The rest of the story describes the effect this has on her life.

I felt all the characters were fully rounded and believable. Dawn herself, who narrates the story, is like someone you might know. She is self aware, she does her best to make her life a success, and on the outside at least she succeeds.. But marriage, career, children, apart, she still has a deep secret and a sad void in her life. So she does her best to find out what happened to her first baby.

I loved the writing, I felt very involved in Dawn’s story, and could hardly wait to read some more as I wanted her so much to heal. The descriptions of life in Trinidad are fascinating. There are tensions in the history of this island, and there are changes that. affect her family. The matter of fact way that they accept new dangers such as having to be careful while walking a few yards on the beach, and to have locked gates as well as houses, really brings home the reality of how easy it is to lose an easy and comfortable life style.

The book brings these social and cultural changes into the story but keeps well to its central theme ; the ties and bonds of motherhood.

Look forward to reading more by this author.

A rather sad story of a mother who has built a life with two beautiful sons, but longs for the baby daughter she gave away when she was a girl. There is a dramatic description of how her family in Trinidad had her smuggled to Venezuela to secretly give birth and leave her baby with the nuns there. Having trained as a doctor in the UK and her marriage to a fellow medic fails she keeps trying to find her daughter. There are lovely descriptions of her family's life in Trinidad and Tobago where she often comes to visit.

A teacher once told me: good storytelling is building a wall with bricks, without anyone noticing the construction and/or the individual bricks. That's this story. It never feels constructed.

A beautiful book, told from the perspective of Dawn Bishop, born and raised in Trinidad where her family has worked hard and has become a household name. A teenage pregnancy after an encounter not even worthy of the name one night stand, is not in the family’s books and so Dawn travels the perilous sea to Venezuela to grow big and give birth there.
Life goes on as was, afterwards. So it seems, but not for Dawn.
We meet teenage Dawn through the eyes of 58 y/o Dawn, living in the UK, now divorced, two sons. It’s her voice, her memories that take us through her past and current. At 16 Dawn didn’t focus on any details that might, at 40, or at 58, help her find her daughter.

I loved the voice, the change of times, the growing up, how all characters evolved throughout time.

I received an eARC from NetGalley in return for my honest opinion