"Journeys are not only about places, they are also about people, and it may be the people, rather than the places, that we remember," Alexander McCall Smith writes in Trains and Lovers, a compact stand-alone novel about four people, strangers to one another, on a train bound from Edinburgh to London. As they ride through the British countryside, the foursome strike up a conversation and share stories of how love has touched each of their lives.
Andrew, a recent college graduate from Scotland, is trying to launch a career as an art historian. He tells of how he became smitten with a female coworker from a different social class and how that impinged upon their relationship. Forty-something David, an American, recounts how he met the great love of his life as a teenager when he summered in Maine. Kay, a 50-year-old woman, conveys the story of her parents' marriage and how their union changed the course of their lives--and hers--in the Australian Outback. And finally, there is Hugh, a 20-year-old Brit who once exited a train at a wrong stop and met a woman with a mysterious past who played a significant role in his perceptions about trust.
The four characters might be onboard, riding the same rail, but they are all at different stages of life. As each interwoven story gracefully unfolds, trains themselves play a part in the individual narrative arcs where the fleeting nature of love emerges as a unifying theme. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines