A quiet contemplative novel, imbued with a strong religious spirit of brotherly love which -- before the book closes -- makes for a somewhat cloying sense of the story losing itself in sweetness and light. I liked the first part, in the boy-meets-girl story of a young fish peddler and an untutored, frightened girl and of a marriage that found deepening roots in love and faith -- the setting the Maine coast and the inland district ""west of the hill"", back in the '80's. The pattern of the story itself follows a slender thread as Molly determines that somehow the cleavages between people of different backgrounds, nationalities and religions must be cemented in common cause of humanity. How she works towards this end -- and the triumphant conclusion will find an answering note in readers of the one-time Grace Livingston Hill clan. Oddly enough, this lacks the essential humanity that balanced While the Angels Sing.