Other editions of book The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

Happy with her husband-to-be and beloved son, Isabel Dalhousie 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, she cannot refuse.However, habitually upright Isabel finds herself beset by temptation - for instance, to be suspicious of Professor Lettuce's latest subterfuge, and of her niece Cat's weakness for the wrong man. And when the search for Jane's parents turns troubling, she can hardly prevent herself from interfering too forcefully in family secrets. As she steers a course between love and laissez-faire, our philosopher heroine succeeds in resisting all temptations but those which must be answered, and teases a solution from every problem.

The eighth delightful installment in the ongoing saga of the life and loves of Isabel Dalhousie.As the editor of an applied ethics journal, Isabel Dalhousie is usually tucked away in her editorial office, in the comfortable Edinburgh house she shares with her fiancé and their young son, and does not often meet many fellow philosophers. But while helping in the delicatessen owned by her niece, Cat, she meets Jane Cooper, an Australian philosopher who is spending a sabbatical in Scotland. Isabel learns that Jane needs to find out something about her past. Jane was born in Scotland but taken to Australia as a baby by her adoptive parents. She knows who her mother is, but her father's identity is still a mystery. Can Isabel help Jane unconver this important and potentially unsettling information? And in Isabel's own life, there is the ever-present question of marriage, and also the perennially difficult issue of her relationship with Cat, whose choice of men is as dubious as ever.

Happy in her Edinburgh kitchen with her husband-to-be and beloved son, Isabel Dalhousie 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. 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. Meanwhile, the search for Jane's parents turns troubling, and Isabel can hardly prevent herself from interfering.