The Forever Girl

Amanda and her daughter Clover live in a close-knit community of expats on Grand Cayman Island, an idyllic place to all appearances. But the comfortable island life can become stifling in hard times. As Clover falls for her first love, and allows her heart to chart her life’s course, Amanda realizes that she has fallen out of love with Clover’s father, and that her carefully mapped-out future is actually unknown territory. Through the years, mother and daughter try to navigate their chosen paths, as they are each torn between the dreams they cherish and the reality they face.

“"What may seem like an ordinary love tangle is a very rich stew of contemporary mores and a great stage for both comedy and heartbreak." -- Booklist (starred review) "Touchingly conceived. . . . In the end we see that love unfulfilled still makes a difference."”

“Gorgeously romantic. . . . McCall Smith’s writing has tons of charm and kindly wisdom.” —The Times (London)
 
“Glows with evocations of place as well as secrets of the heart—a combination this author excels at. Armchair travelers will feel they’ve visited the Cayman Islands and Scotland, in particular. . . . Life is full of surprises, McCall Smith reminds us.” --New York Journal of Books
 
“What may seem like an ordinary love tangle is a very rich stew of contemporary mores and a great stage for both comedy and heartbreak.” —Booklist (starred review)

Praise for Alexander McCall Smith:
“McCall Smith’s generous writing and dry humor, his gentleness and humanity, and his ability to evoke a place and a set of characters without caricature or condescension have endeared his books to readers.” —The New York Times
 
“McCall Smith’s novels are beautifully precise and psychologically acute.” —The Independent (London)
 
“A vivid observer and an elegant writer.” —The Plain Dealer
 
“A virtuoso storyteller.” —The Scotsman
 
“A writer who charms many readers . . . McCall Smith’s characters are well-drawn and alive.”  —Providence Journal
 
“McCall Smith’s accomplished novels [are] dependent on small gestures redolent with meaning and main characters blessed with pleasing personalities . . . These novels are gentle probes into the mysteries of human nature.” —Newsday

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served with many national and international organizations concerned with bioethics. He lives in Scotland.

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