Snow Island (Tenth Anniversary Edition) by Katherine Towler

On Snow Island, a remote community off the New England coast, sixteen-year-old Alice Daggett struggles to come to terms with her father’s death while managing the family store. George Tibbits, a loner in his forties and owner of the island’s twin houses, returns each year in an act of homage to the women who raised him there. While George tries to make peace with his troubled past and Alice befriends the twenty-six-year-old who tends the island lighthouse, both characters learn the hard lesson of what it means to love. This tender tale about the power of place and memory plumbs the depths of two unique and uncharted lives. As the country is drawn into World War II, George and Alice find their fates shaped by events that occur far from the island home that defines them.