It Happened on St. John is a love letter to one of the world’s loveliest and most unique communities in one of the world’s loveliest and most unique places. Known locally as Love City, St. John is the smallest and most undeveloped of the three main islands of the United States Virgin Islands. The events in Wilson Roberts’ most recent novel take place months before Hurricanes Irma and Maria ripped through the Caribbean with fearsome winds and tides, tearing communities to pieces and leaving shattered homes and lives in its wake. It Happened on St. John is a tale of a community united to fight the schemes of con-artists threatening to develop an unsustainable marina in the Coral Bay section of the island. It is a tale of a community where people put aside small differences to help one another in the face of adversities. It is a tale of a community of music and music makers, artists, artisans and tradespeople, business people, of people from all walks of life. It Happened on St. John is a tale for everyone who knows life on a tropical island can approximate perfection. It is a tale for everyone who has wondered what they might find, should they reinvent themselves on a 20-square mile Caribbean land mass. It is a tale for everyone who would like to believe that most people have in their hearts sparks of generosity ready to burst into flame. It is a tale for everyone who wonders if some mysteries can ever be solved. It Happened on St. John is a tale for everyone who loves St. John, for everyone who knows someone who loves St. John, for everyone who understands what it is to love a place, any place, for everyone who understands what it is to love their community. It is a tale for everyone who understands that a beloved community cannot be allowed to perish, whether due to greed and ignorance, or due to wind, fire and rain. It Happened on St. John is the second novel in Wilson Roberts’ St. John trilogy. It is a tale of the island before Hurricanes Irma and Maria. It tells of the calm before those terrible storms, a time when people did not realize they lived in that calm, a time before the winds that rose to form Irma started with a small eddy of dust in the Sahara that blew into a boy’s face and filled his eyes. It Happened on St. John is a tale filled with characters and scenes and events that readers will not easily forget.
