SPOILERS!!!
Libby finally goes to find Juliet, who has taken over the bed and breakfast that her father used to run. Juliet is single and focuses all her energy on her business. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want a husband and a family. Actually, she is a frequent visitor of dating sites, but so far she hasn’t dared to take the first step. When Libby turns up unexpectedly, Juliet is thrown but can’t stop to talk to her because she is too busy. Libby goes, promising to return. Now Juliet wonders why Libby has returned to Australia when she swore she would never come back. I think something happened between the two sisters, and I have the hunch that the bone of contention was a man, Andy. We know that Andy is dead as Libby saw his grave when he was visiting her father’s tomb in the cemetery, and we get the impression that Andy and Juliet were very close. Now Juliet thinks that Libby is back to claim her part in their father’s bed and breakfast, which Juliet has been struggling to keep afloat all these years. So she is already thinking about ways to buy out her sister’s share.
The book then takes us back to 1901 and the ship that shipwrecked at the beginning of the novel. We are introduces to Isabella Winterbourne and her husband Arthur, who were Mark’s relatives. Isabella is a very miserable woman since her baby died when he was just fifteen days old. It has been three years, but Isabelle is still grieving. Her husband Arthur is an insensitive man, and Isabella is lonely in this marriage, which we gathered was arranged by his respective fathers. The couple are on their way to Australia as the Winterbourne family, who are jewellers, have made a mace for the Australian government as a commission from the queen.
On the ship Isabella keeps company with the captain’s wife, Meggy. Yet, Isabella makes a mistake and embarrasses the woman in front of the first mate, Mr Harrow, and from then on the woman is openly hostile, telling her husband that Isabella’s obsession with her son is unhealthy. The captain tells Arthur that she should get rid of a bracelet that Isabella keeps as a reminder from her son, and when Isabella hears them talk, she decides to remove and hide it in the chest where Arthur has the mace. Then Meggy finds Isabella in a compromising situation with Mr Harlow when the two of them were talking about their losses, Mr Harlow’s late wife and Isabella’s son. At some point they hold hands, and Meggy sees them and tells Arthur, who goes to his wife seething. It is at this point that Isabella plans to escape from her husband and travel to America where her sister lives. We know that the ship sank, and I wonder if Isabella had anything to do with it. In the prologue we also saw Isabella dragging a chest on an island, so this means that she survived. So what did she do after that? Did she find her way to America or did she remain in Australia? I don’t know if Libby will find out something about Mark’s family. In the modern parts it is 2001, so Isabella can’t be alive, but maybe there are some descendants, a child she had later on or a grandchild.
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