All Our Beautiful Goodbyes
In 1946 on Sable Island, about 300 kilometers off Nova Scotia’s coast, twenty-one-year-old motherless Emma aspires to attend university in Halifax. There is a shipwreck on the island’s sand bar, and Emma, her father, and others help to rescue the sailors and their good-looking Captain Oliver. Emma falls in love with Oliver, but he soon sails away from the island. Shortly thereafter, a veterinarian, Logan, arrives to study the wild horses that roam on the small crescent-shaped island. He is also handsome, and Emma’s love is rekindled for Logan. But Logan has a dark past, and Emma is again left heartbroken.
In 1995, in England, young Joanna is grieving the death of her grandmother when her grandfather, Oliver, informs her about Emma, the woman he’d once loved and left behind in Canada. Joanna is stunned by this revelation and travels to Nova Scotia to learn of Emma’s whereabouts.
This engaging novel contains such details of Sable Island that it virtually transports us onto that sandbar surrounded by a fierce ocean. It feels as if it was written by someone intimately familiar with that region. Hence, it is no surprise to learn in the author’s note that Julianne MacLean, a Nova Scotian native, did a project on it while in elementary school and has visited there. Life on the remote island with sparse vegetation, and where the nearly 500 wild horses outnumber humans, is maintained with provisions by a monthly supply ship from the mainland. MacLean has thoughtfully included an extensive list of references and information sources. Readers wanting to learn or perhaps even visit the island should find it helpful. Utilizing this gem of a location dramatically enhances the appeal of this heart-wrenching historical romance, filled with multiple goodbyes. It stands well among other novels with similar themes. Highly recommended.
