Twelve short stories set on an island off the coast of Maine celebrating island virtues in all their realistic, humorous, and tragic aspects. One meets the sturdy permanent residents like Ben Whitefield, who runs the local ferry; Bennett Sims, crusty propietor of the General Store; Eleanor Loring, the Calvinistic piano teacher; Nick, the quirky gas station owner; Maurice Pelletier, town mortician, who knows all; and Grace Hamilton, the B & B owner with a mystery; plus the fascinating summer visitors like Jenny, Patrick, and Harpo Curtis, whose lives criss-cross many of these stories; Hartley Skeuse, the musical prodigy from Philadelphia; and amorous librarian Austria Noon, who pursues Patrick Curtis via Dr. Samuel Johnson, Mozart, Federico Fellini, and June Allyson's beef stew. Through birth, marriage, death, in all kinds of weather, including a rousing hurricane, Spanish Island comes vividly to life in all its Spartan beauty through Kenvin's prose.