The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

Happy in her Edinburgh kitchen with her husband-to-be and beloved son, Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and resident of the most humane of cities, has feelings about parenthood that grow more tender daily. So when Jane, a visiting academic adopted and sent to Australia as a baby, asks for help in tracing her Scottish origins, Isabel cannot refuse. However, in these investigations, habitually upright Isabel finds herself beset by temptation: first, to count her own blessings when the unhappiness of others is all too clear. Then, the perennial temptation to suspicion – of the iniquitous Professor Lettuce’s latest subterfuge, and of her niece Cat’s weakness for the wrong man when a new assistant begins work at the delicatessen. Meanwhile, the search for Jane’s parents turns troubling, and Isabel can hardly prevent herself from interfering a little too forcefully in family secrets. As she steers a course between love and laissez-faire, Isabel succeeds in resisting all temptations but those which must be answered and, among Edinburgh’s green gardens and thoughtful inhabitants, our philosopher heroine teases a solution from every problem.