The Immaculate Heart

A touching, superbly constructed fictional exploration of the search for love, from a bold new voice

Fourteen-year-old Maggie is obsessed with love, both trying to define it and experience it, thanks to the indifference of her adopted family. After the death of her older sister Trish, Maggie turns to her only friend, 80-year-old Bertrand, a man driven to madness since losing his sweetheart, Rose, during World War II. With her mother keeping a constant vigil where Trish was killed and her father maintaining an affair, Maggie is left alone to explore the world of Rose’s letters to Bertrand sent from a remote Scottish island where they had planned to escape the war, and share their love in safety—the love Maggie dreams of. Through the trail of letters, Maggie pursues Rose, hoping that by finding her she can prove love exists in a broken, cruel world, and find that love and affection that everyone craves.