Another SC/Georgia story I've read in research for an island novel I'm writing. Monroe’s story combines a plea for the conservation of the endangered loggerhead turtle with a love story set against the background of a staunch Charleston family. The story mainly takes place on the Isle of Palms/Sullivan’s Island, SC, where the turtle woman, Lovie, mother of estranged Caretta, nurses memories of a summer’s great love affair.

Caretta left home for Chicago as a late teen, furious with her autocratic and abusive father, estranged from her brother, and frustrated with what she took to be her mother, Lovie’s obsequious behaviour towards her husband. Caretta has been gone for two decades having forged a successful career but let go in a reorganization. She returns in answer to her mother’s appeals to find much more than she expected.

The story describes her gradual understanding and re-connection with her mother, her growing love for an island ecologist, her adoption of her mother’s work to save the turtles. The book not only tells a gentle love story, but connects us to the life cycle of the loggerhead turtle which deposit their eggs on the same beach where they hatched after an absence of 20 years. One also gains insight into both island and Charleston society.