"When I first started to read this book, I was hooked by a beautiful, fresh image: 'Words run around the island like quicksilver and as they run they change their shape.' And before I knew it I was in the story of A Treasured Island because it had a quality I demand from every story, that it be readable. You won’t be able to put it down." Kathleen Tudor, author of Getting Away and Professor Emeritus of English, Saint Mary’s University

These reminiscences of a Come-From-Away about life on a Nova Scotia south shore island, among the descendants of its first settlers, will enthral anyone who has ever dreamed of living on an island. Bittersweet and poignantly funny, the stories run the gamut from ghostly tales to gardening triumphs. Along the way, the author lets us in on memories of a life lived in many countries, both geographic and of her extraordinary mind.

Rachel Anne Maxwell was born in India in 1919 of British parents and educated in England, France (Sorbonne) and Edinburgh University. In 1940, she married Canadian Ian David Maxwell at Edinburgh. After the war they moved with their two young children to British Columbia, where they produced three more offspring. They lived on Tancook Island from 1972 to 1996. While living in France, Rachel had written for local newspapers, and in Canada she resumed her writing, contributing stories to CBC Radio and various publications. In her words, she has been "scribbling ever since."