The author of the best-selling and universally adored No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series now gives usThe Forever Girl, a novel about love and following one’s heart, and the unex­pected places to which this can lead us.

Amanda and her husband, David, feel fortu­nate to be raising their son and daughter in the close-knit community of ex-pats on Grand Cay­man Island, an idyllic place for children to grow up. Their firstborn, Sally, has always listened to her heart, deciding at age four that she would rather be called Clover and then, a few years later, falling in love with her best friend, James.

But the comforting embrace of island life can become claustrophobic for adults, espe­cially when they are faced with difficult situa­tions. At the same time that Clover falls in love with James, Amanda realizes that she has fallenout of love with David . . . and that she is in­terested in someone else. While Amanda tries to navigate the new path her heart is leading her down, Clover finds, much to her dismay, that James seems to be growing away from her. And when they leave the island for boarding school—James to England and Clover to Scot­land—she feels she may have lost him for good. As Clover moves on to university, seldom see­ing James but always carrying him in her heart, she finds herself torn between a desire to go for­ward with her life and the old feelings that she just can’t shed.

Through the lives of Clover and James, and Amanda and David, acclaimed storyteller Alex­ander McCall Smith tells a tale full of love and heartbreak, humor and melancholy, that beau­tifully demonstrates the myriad ways in which love shapes our lives.