Ten things I’ve learned about love, by Sarah Butler

Alice is the youngest of three daughters and, unlike her more traditional and successful sisters, has not quite found her place in the world.  She’s the odd one out in the family and barely remembers her mother, who died, when Alice was four, in a car accident while driving to pick her up at a ballet class.  An adventurer and a bit of a nomad, she is called home from Mongolia because her father, a prominent doctor in London, is dying.  Daniel, a failed artist, is more than a nomad – he is homeless and has been living on the streets for years.  The one thing that he holds onto is that he has a daughter out there somewhere, and that daughter is Alice.  Told in alternating chapters, each of which begins with a list of ten things (“Ten things I will say to my father,” “Ten places I’ve spent the night,” etc.), we gradually learn about Alice and Daniel and the nature of family relationships and love as they draw closer and closer to meeting each other face to face.  256 pp.