Dawn is a 58-year-old divorced mother of two adult sons, living in London, trying to settle into a nice middle aged life. She is a native of Trinidad with roots and family still back home. Both of her kids have grown and flown with their careers. She has a decent relationship with her ex-husband. Dawn has a job that she doesn’t love, but it pays the bills. One would imagine she is indeed well set for a good future on her own.

However, Dawn has a secret. She’d made a pact with her parents to not speak about an event that happened 42 years ago. A traumatic time for Dawn and her family, particularly given the close-knit and small island community.

At the age of 16, Dawn had given birth to a baby girl. And given it up for adoption. Dawn had been the baby of the family, a studious young girl, from a well to do, respected family. An uncharacteristically careless decision made during island carnival set her on this unexpected path. Over 40 years later, she has an emptiness in her, a longing to find her long lost daughter. She has been trying to track down the baby that she gave away so many years ago. She is haunted by the memories of that time, and this need to connect with her long-lost daughter.

I loved this story. Dawn is a super-relatable character. The descriptions of her daily life and her thoughts are detailed well. I empathized with how she deals with her co-workers, her kids, her family, and her reflections on life. I empathized with her on so many levels. Perhaps it’s because I am a middle aged woman. I find myself at a similar time of life, looking at the future ahead and considering all those life aspects. I appreciated the first-person perspective, written like a memoir. There was so much groundedness in the description of her daily life. When she described the interactions with her family and complex relationships with siblings and her parents – I understood. The island life also sounded so vivid, and the author writes of it, and about the characters, with affection.

When she describes the events from her time at 16 years of age, the novel reaches a heartbreaking level. Her later search for her daughter, who would now be in her early 40s, further elevates the story. The last passages were especially poignant and brought me to tears.

I love Claire Adam’s style of writing and have already set my sights on reading her first novel Golden Child (which apparently, I put on my to-read list about 6 years ago and totally forgot about.)

Thank you to Random House and the author for an advanced reader copy for an honest review.

A very solid 4, if not 4.5.