Fiction

Helen, an attractive young widow, finds the emptiness of widowhood so depressing that she takes a leave of absence from the exclusive girls' school in Adelaide, South Australia, in which she teaches and flies to Tahiti for a vacation. Here, after forming a close friendship with a missionary family, she encounters a new way of life that temporarily lifts her from the state of depression that has plagued her. After returning to Adelaide, however, she becomes thoroughly immersed in the social whirl and a risqué romance that push the island ideal from her thinking. Later, in moments of serious self-appraisal, she rebels against her involvement in the affair and resumes her search for a meaningful life. The conflict between the quick release from loneliness and the long, uncertain pursuit of purpose makes a dramatic story. --Inside Front Cover

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English