These two young lives on a Maine island bring tears to your eyes

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.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.