For six dreadful months, David Corstorphine has tried to come to terms with his young wife's death, while caring for his three motherless children. Try as he may, David is unable to return to work, and his only form of solace comes from working in the garden of his parents' estate in the Scottish countryside.

Dispatched unexpectedly to New York, David's family hopes that the impromptu business trip will help him get back on his feet. But the journey proves both disastrous and heartening. David finds himself settling in comfortably among the strangers of a seaside Long Island town, and takes a job as a gardener. But it is the people he meets, the pain he confronts, and the joy he is able to once again experience that prove to be magically transformative-- and as David learns to accept his enormous loss, he is able to open his heart to love once again.

Writing with deep sensitivity to human frailty, desires and joys that readers of his mother, Rosamunde Pilcher, have come to cherish, Robin Pilcher's An Ocean Apart will be embraced by generations of readers now and in years to come.