Twelve-year-old Clara lives on an island that visitors call exotic - but there's nothing exotic about it to Clara. he loves eating ripe mangoes off the ground running outside in the rainy season and going to her secret hideout with Gaynah even though lately Gaynah hasn't been acting like a best friend.

The only thing in Clara's life that's out of the ordinary is her memory: a hurricane hit last summer and now she can't remember anything that happened that season. Sometimes things come back to her in drips like a tap that hasn't been turned off properly. Other times her mother fills in the blanks. When Clara meets Rudy newly arrived from England her memories slowly start to return and the pair embark upon a summer neither will ever forget.