by Jodi Picoult
First published 2021
Diana O'Toole has her life mapped out perfectly. At twenty-nine, she works as an associate specialist at Sotheby's, chasing a promotion that depends on landing a major client. She expects her boyfriend Finn to propose during their planned romantic trip to the Galapagos Islands. Then a pandemic hits New York City. Finn, a surgical resident, must stay behind to work at the hospital. He urges Diana to take the trip alone rather than waste their nonrefundable booking. She reluctantly agrees. Everything goes wrong from the moment she arrives. Her luggage disappears, the internet barely functions, and their hotel closes due to virus restrictions. Worse, the entire island enters quarantine, trapping her indefinitely. Cut off from her carefully controlled world, Diana must navigate unfamiliar territory. She slowly builds a relationship with a local family, particularly a teenager hiding secrets, though the girl's father distrusts outsiders. Stranded on the islands where Darwin developed his theory of evolution, Diana begins questioning her relationships, her life choices, and her true self.
Genres: fiction, romance, literary-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, contemporary-romance
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Galapagos Islands, New York City
Period: 2020s
310 pages · Hardcover · Ballantine Books