I had a difficult time getting into the story. Daphne du Maurier has long been a favorite author of mine, but The Loving Spirit is not one of her better books. It's about a woman who becomes unusually close to one of her sons. She loves the sea, and wishes she had been born a man so she could sail. The story is set in the late 1800's in England. She passes her love of the sea onto her son, and he in turn lives his life devoted to her. The book spans several generations, and covers many branches of the family tree. Keeping the characters straight was difficult at times. The story ends in the 1920's with the granddaughter, and her love of the sea.
