Islands of Time will bring tears to your eyes – many times. Barbara Kent Lawrence’s first novel, published by Maine Authors Publishing, is both profound and insightful.
Set on a Maine island, a young “summer” girl falls in love with an island boy. But summer residents are a different breed than the local folks, and the young girl and boy are driven apart. The young girl never gets over her young love for the island boy, and that affects her life in every way.
When she returns to the island, after two divorces, well, the story gets even more complicated. I will leave this there.
I found Lawrence’s writing to be engaging, with deep emotions that leap off the pages, until you want to jump in and rescue that poor girl. My wife Linda is now reading the novel, and finds it equally compelling.
Lawrence was a “summer kid” in 1948 when she fell in love with Mount Desert Island. In 1979 she became a “summer person” (her words) and returned to Maine permanently in 2015. So she knows of what she writes.
She has authored a number of other books about education, and one on eating disorders in men. Probably I better read that next!
Actually, Lawrence’s second novel, The Other Island: Ben’s Story, the sequel to Islands of Time, is up next, and I can’t wait to read it.
In the section on the author, Lawrence wrote, “Though I am from away and will never be more than a year-round summer person, Maine has nurtured me since I was a child.”
I guess I need to tell her about the Community College course that Maine comedian Gary Crocker and I have been creating, so good folks like Lawrence can become a Mainer! Actually, this novel would qualify her for that, in my mind.