When Melanie went out to the romantic tropical island of Mindoa, in the Indian Ocean, she was little more than a schoolgirl, both in years and in lack of experience of life. When she left only eight months later she had become a woman.
What was responsible for the change? Partly it was Mindoa itself, exotic and glamorous and utterly unlike anything Melanie had encountered before; perhaps it was the people she met - the small but cosmopolitan white colony, living together but all so different from each other.
But most of all it was the masterful Stephen Brent who brought about such a transformation in the quiet English girl - Stephen, between whom and Melanie there was such a gulf of years and worldly experience, yet against whose magnetic attraction she had not a chance to defend herself.