The Long Way Home

A stolen locket. A buried past. A girl caught between two worlds.

On the island of Dominica in 1889, Rose enters the world already marked by loss. Abandoned at birth, raised by an adoptive family, and never fully accepted by either side of her mixed heritage, she longs for belonging, for truth, for a place to call her own.

When she meets Raphael, a young sailor with dreams bigger than his circumstances, Rose feels her world begin to open. But nature has its own plans, and a violent hurricane scatters everything she hoped for.

Working for the wealthy widow Elise La Fleur brings Rose comfort and purpose — until Elise’s beloved locket disappears and Rose is blamed, stripped of the life she had begun to build.

As Rose searches for answers about her birth, long‑hidden truths begin to surface — truths that tie her to the locket, to the family she never knew, and to the future she never expected.

The Long Way Home is a powerful story of identity, first love, and the secrets that shape generations. The third instalment in the Island Secrets Series.

Follow Rose’s journey today.

With love and support and an absolute passion to become an author, I decided to take some creative writing courses which eventually led to a Creative Writing MA at Brunel University.I've loved to write and make up stories since I was a child and find a wealth of characters and plot ideas coming to me with regularity. It's not to say that all of these ideas are any good but every now and again an idea won't leave me alone and I have to just go for it and write that story.My first book series, called Island Secrets, all began with an idea I had to bring a fictious world to life based on my mother's stories about life growing up in Dominica and then coming to London in the late 1950s.I was so shocked and surprised to have my debut novel, Holding Paradise, published by Indigo Dreams in 2014. That sparked a series of short story ideas, which led to a novella and now a four book series. I re-worked and updated a 2024 version of Holding Paradise which became book 1 of the series. I'm currently working on a new book series and hope to publish the first of them in 2025.I moved from London to the English countryside with my musician husband where I teach vocals and lead a local choir. I also write under the pseudonym, Rosa Temple, writing contemporary fiction and published by HQ Digital and Simon & Schuster UK.