When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family’s summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day. T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He’s almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn’t bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family – and a stack of overdue assignments – instead of his friends.
Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.’s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Adrift in shark-infested waters, their life jackets keep them afloat until they make it to the shore of an uninhabited island.
Sharonne’s review
Wow – simply wow. I picked this book up on Saturday morning last week and I could not rest until it was done. It was so descriptive and wonderful to follow. I could smell the smells of the island, the food, even the rats. I could imagine how it felt to be stuck on a teeny tiny island somewhere with no one looking for you. I felt the angst of the teacher who was resisting the love that she felt. I was amazed when I read Tracey`s description of how the book came to be and her perseverance to overcome the publishing world. It was quite reminiscent of the Anna and T.J.`s struggle to survive on the island. I liked how she switched voices between those two to really make it easy for me to get to know the two characters. I will admit that I was bothered at first by the relationship between Anna and T.J., simply because she was hired on as his teacher. But truly I can say, I got over it. I wondered how I would feel if I was stranded on a desert island. I won`t give anymore away because you need to read it yourself. I thought this was a great vacation read and a great read for anyone on a rainy day. I highly recommend it.
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