Both historical fiction and a mystery to be solved, the novel explores the illusive concept of time, explaining that it is only through Change that we can truly see The Face of Time. Its catalyst is one of the small Gulf Islands, Bowen, and the
island’s evolution over a span of fifty years, four eras, each told through the eyes of four different children: an indigenous youth, whose dream is to become a master canoe builder; a French Canadian boy, who comes of age during the land appropriation days of the late 1800s and the early 1920s; a girl, whose family is a victim of the Great Depression of the 1920s and the disappearance of whose sister sparks a mystery that will haunt the island for years to come; and finally, through the perception of a young girl, whose family vacations on the island in its dying days as a premium tourist destination of the 1940s and 50s.