Description
In 1865, a young nurse in Bath—revered as the “White Angel of the Baths”—finds her gift for healing tested as desire and longing complicate the life she thought she was meant to live. In a parallel narrative across the sea, British lives in Sarawak collide with the realities of Borneo, where a well-meaning landowner’s ambitions to “improve” the land are repeatedly undone by illness, weather, and the limits of control. As Jane’s journey of self-discovery unfolds alongside the fragile recovery of a naturalist and the building of a road that never quite reaches its destination, the novel explores how meaning is sought, misread, and remade through small acts and intimate choices. With Rose Tremain’s luminous, psychologically sharp storytelling, *Islands of Mercy* turns familiar themes of purpose, frustration, and the elusive rewards of art and compassion into a sweeping meditation on what it costs—and what it gives—to keep going.
Available Editions
paperback
Penguin Random House
Published Jan 1, 2020
368 pages
ISBN: 9781784743314
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Details
First Published
2020
Language
eng
Content Warnings
No content warnings identified.