UNDER THE CRUCIAN SUN: A Memoir of Place -- Book Reading, Cynthia McVay and Joseph Luzzi

Environmentalist and creative Cynthia McVay sets foot on the island of St. Croix in 2018 for the first time. She arrives with an adventurous partner and her heart set on purchasing and renovating an abandoned plantation house. Things do not go as planned. By the end of the week, she has fallen in love with a skeletal wreck of a home, with iconic stone walls and midcentury lines, allegedly built by German photographer Fritz Henle. With dozens of islanders, Cynthia spends a year artfully coaxing this hidden gem back to life. (WITH OBLONG BOOKS)