Celia Henry owns a famous B&B on Isadora Island, off the west coast of Seattle. Celia's professional expertise has turned Henry's House into a beautiful home and a wonderful testament to tradition. Her unconventional love life, however, has kept Isadora Island entertained for a generation.
Married only once and widowed at twenty-two, Celia has spent a lifetime preaching and practicing unfettered love - and as the men in her life moved out and moved on, she acquired a large extended family of children, step-children, partners and ex-partners. Warm, generous but notoriously stubborn, Celia is mother to them all, but particularly her three girls - Bethie, Victoria and Sunny.
When Sunny returns from LA with her six year old daughter in tow, coinciding with Bethie's announcement of her engagement to Wayne (much to Celia's dismay), Celia reluctantly agrees to throw a lavish celebration. To this party she must invite everyone in her over-extended family. Celia senses impending diaster, but nothing prepares her for the fallout when the family finally explodes. Somehow, she must come to terms with the past to reunite the family and transform the future.
Laura Kalpakian has written an elegant and moving story of an independent woman whose strength and humour forges a family out of an unruly tribe of steps and exes.
