1918, Canada: The First World War is over and those who have been fighting in Europe are heading for home, forever changed. Amongst the lost, the damaged and the broken, is former nurse Ellen Copley; who finds herself returning-not to her house in Glasgow, but to her childhood home on Amherst Island.
There, she feels sure, in the warm embrace of the McCafferty family, with her beloved Aunt Rose and her cousins, she will feel safe and loved. She will be able to escape the ghosts of the past and her loss and find peace.
But the island is a changed place too. The war has affected life the world over, and Aunt Rose is struggling to keep their small farmstead going. The family's only hope is asking their neighbours, the Lymans, to help. But Jed Lyman is a broken man, both physically and emotionally, and his once-adoring brother Lucas is now more distant than ever.
And as Ellen fights to save the farm, she has to ask: what makes somewhere a home? And-when help comes from an unexpected place-she wonders, has the man she's destined to love been waiting for her out there all along?
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'No matter how you look at it, the numbers don't add up'. Sighing, Rose McCafferty rose from the kitchen table and went to fill the kettle. CHAPTER 1
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(@Bookouture, 15 January 2021, 336 pages, ebook, #ARC from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed, #BlogTour 15 January 2021)
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I've loved the previous two books in this series and couldn't wait to see how it all turned out for Ellen Copley. Return to the Island is every bit as good as I hoped. Ellen is much changed from the young girl she was in The Orphan's Island. In this book, she's struggling to decide what she wants after WWI in a world much changed. The island is in her heart, but can she live there forever? Should she take up the job teaching at Glasgow School of Art? And what about her heart, who does it belong to? It's been a long time since I felt so engaged to a book and character as I have with this trilogy. I cried buckets reading this as Ellen grows and learns some painful lessons. This is a dazzling book.