Isla is slowly finding her feet on the quiet but charming island of Auchenmor - it's a world away from the hustle and bustle of Edinburgh but Isla is starting to see that's just what she needs.
She's got big dreams that she's determined to make come true - the perfect stylist's job, the perfect social life, the perfect everything - before hitting thirty and going back to her old school reunion. But has she really transformed herself from the shy teenage Isla who was always the butt of everyone's jokes?
And she keeps bumping into the fair-haired Finn, who delights in winding her up. He's a forester, a sculptor and by all accounts a ladies' man. So of course the island gossips are hard at work.
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[Ruth McArthur might have been eighty, but she wasn't too old to appreciate the new fashion for beards - although, thankfully, they weren't those hairy, scruffy ones that had been around in the sixties and seventies, when everyone looked like they need a good wash]***
(Pan, 16 June 2016, 119 pages, ebook from @AmazonKindle)
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I enjoyed the way Isla's story develops in this part. Despite her misgiving's, she's started to make a life for herself in Auchenmor. In the first part, Isla sees living on the island as a sort of punishment, an ordeal she needs to get through so she will be rewarded will getting her old life back in time to impress at her high school reunion. In this part, Isla has settled in at Auchenmor, albeit reluctantly. She enjoys the company of the girls who work at the salon and the salon is transformed into a thriving business. I didn't really like Isla in the first part; I thought she was a bit of an uppity bitch. She's grown on me now. I look forward to finding out what happens in the final part.
