The hero Sean is only seventeen-years-old, but the serious issues he faces when he falls in love with his new class mate, Katherine, resonate also with older readers. Theirs is a complicated relationship from the start. Readers will appreciate the realistic depiction of the tortured hero's psychological struggle after the heroine ends the relationship, especially when it becomes clear that both young people remain drawn to each other anyway and struggle to regain their balance during the rest of the school year. A refreshing high school romance set in Europe, Flanders, in the early seventies of the previous century with a total lack of stereotyping, that has it all: it's witty, bittersweet, touching and rich in culture and history. The story depicts all the uncertainties and overpowering emotions that come with true young love in a most original and genuine way.

Dean Amory chronicles the hero's life through the thrills, heartbreaks, joy and despair of the final years in high school and the consecutive transition to a labour environment. Sean and Katherine fall in love the day they first meet. When the relationship becomes too serious, Katherine decides to put studies before love and breaks up. But she promises Sean she will return to him after they graduate. Sean doesn't believe this is possible. After the traumatic end of the school year, Sean tries to move on with his life, but once back in school, both young people discover that it isn't easy to be in the same class with your ex. After some time, Katherine invites him to reunite. Are second chances really possible? Can recreating the past help the young couple to create a different future? And is Sean even willing to accept Katherine's terms?

Over the years, people have commented, "Why don't you write about your life?" To write a chronological autobiography never appealed to me. Thus, I abandoned the idea until about five years ago when having morning tea with my Byzantium scholar-friend in Sydney. We were discussing some aspect of Classical Roman history when the subject of genius loci (spirit of the place) entered our conversation. On the bus back to my flat in Lane Cove, this idea kept niggling at me. Perhaps, I could write about the places (loci) in which I have lived and the effect of these on my Christian journey, firstly as a child, then as a student, wife, mother, educator, writer, and an admirer of all that is beautiful, as expressed in most music, worship in the Eastern and some Western traditions, literature, painting, people, and the natural world. The result is this book, beginning in a small country town, Cowra, some three hundred kilometres south-west of Sydney, Australia, then to a smaller island, Great Britain, where I lived mainly in Oxford and ending on yet a smaller island in Puget Sound, Whidbey, close to the Canadian border. As well as being influenced by various places, so by people. These include Fr. John Hope of Christ Church St. Laurence, Sydney as a teenager and the Lady Margaret Professor in Oxford, Dr. Rowan Williams when I first arrived in this University City. Perhaps the person who influenced me mostly was not one I actually met in person but came to know through my research. He is the divine Lancelot Andrewes who has been part of my life for more years than I can remember and whose sermons and devotions are embedded in my being. In later years, I have been grateful to the renowned biblical scholar, Fr. Raymond Brown who gave me a fresh and scholarly understanding of the New Testament. Last but not least, has been the Franciscan, Fr. Richard Rohr who has taught me the necessity of non-dualistic consciousness for spiritual growth. As much as places and people have helped to shape me, none has more than the Potter and Pantocrator who has moulded and reshaped this lump of clay constantly in my Christian journey.