I first read this book as a young teenager in an old issue of Good Housekeeping, where it had appeared in condensed form. To say I was taken with it would be an understatement. Not only did it inspire my first attempt at fan fiction, but I also tore the full-page picture of the main couple out of the magazine, framed it, and hung it on my wall of my room. 
 That picture remained there long after I left home, and as my own life turned out less novel-perfect than I'd dreamed, on each visit home I was seized with the notion that if I could just identify the book that picture came from and reread it, perhaps I could recapture some of that romantic idealism I had as a 13-year-old. After years of thinking this, I finally took the picture out of the frame and brought it home with me on the plane, where I got enough clues from the writing on the back of the page to identify it as this novel and find it at a library near me. 
 I was as taken with the story as I had been the first time. The main character, Miriam, is someone I can really identify with, managing to be entirely practical while still keeping her eyes open for possibilities of adventure and romance. In seeking to solve the mystery of her parents' early lives, she travels to Maine and sensibly goes about investigating things, while managing to fall in love with a great guy at the same time. I would tell you whether I liked the ending of the book, but I didn't actually finish it. Believe it or not, during the time I had this book out from the library, I met the man who would eventually become my husband, and he swept me off my feet to such an extent that I returned the book to the library without finishing it! So perhaps the feeling I always got from that picture was correct after all.