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The Island by Victoria Hislop
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The Island (original 2005; edition 2006)

by Victoria Hislop

Series: The Island (1)

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2,011838,050 (3.76)91
The million-copy number one bestseller On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...… (more)
Member:chrissybob
Title:The Island
Authors:Victoria Hislop
Info:Headline Books (2006), Edition: Later Printing, Paperback, 496 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***1/2
Tags:leprosy, read

Work Information

The Island by Victoria Hislop (2005)

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English (68)  Dutch (4)  Norwegian (4)  French (2)  German (1)  Spanish (1)  Swedish (1)  Lithuanian (1)  All languages (82)
Showing 1-5 of 68 (next | show all)
An excellent debut novel, mainly set in the past, with the hook of a young woman finding out about her family history.

The setting is Crete, and particularly Spinalonga where there was a leper colony for many years. Perhaps the author paints too rosy a picture of life there, but there are plenty of deprivations shown, as well as the deep trauma of permanent separation from one's loved ones, if there was any sign of leprosy.

Very well written, thought-provoking and a lot of insights into a life and situation I knew almost nothing about.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-island-by-victoria-hislop.html ( )
  SueinCyprus | Apr 23, 2023 |
Took a while to get into it, but once it did I couldn't stop reading. Great book :) ( )
  theBookDevourer211 | Jan 27, 2023 |
[This is a review I wrote in 2007]

When I first picked up the book and started reading I thought the first two chapters were quite stilted and hesitant, almost as if they had been written as an afterthought, but carry on reading and you're rewarded with the main body of the story which I just couldn't put down.

Essentially the book follows the story of Alexis, who has gone to Plaka in Crete to find out about her mother's Cretan family. Begininng with Alexis's great-grandmother Eleni, trace the history through her daughters Anna and Maria in wartime Crete, and find amongst it all a history that is richly interwoven with the small island of Spinalonga off the coast of Plaka, a former leper colony.

With wonderfully rich descriptions, this is a moving page-turner - great for a holiday read, or any kind of read if you haven't got a beach holiday on the horizon. A brilliant first novel. ( )
1 vote ArdizzoneFan | Nov 14, 2020 |
8/10: An enjoyable and moving read, though I thought the modern 'bookends' to the story were unnecessary, and added little. I would have preferred the writer to concentrate on the story of Spinalonga. An appendix that gave a brief history of real-life Spinalonga would have also been very helpful. That's the problem with historical fiction that has some basis in reality. You're never quite sure what you've learned. ( )
  mark_read | Aug 13, 2020 |
The Island is Victoria Hislop’s debut novel and is set on the island of Crete. The book covers the lives and loves of a number of generations of women from one family and covers much of the 20th century. It opens in the present as Alexis comes to Crete both on a holiday with her boyfriend and to search out the story of her family on her secretive mother’s side. What she finds is a strange history of leprosy, adultery, and murder. She also finds that the women in her family have been strong, loyal and caring.

I loved the story and was intrigued by all the information about leprosy and the small community of Spinalonga where lepers were sent to live away from the general population. Spinalonga is a tiny island just off the coast of Crete, it was a leper colony from 1903 to 1957. This terrible, misunderstood disease was a living death sentence as victims were shunned and forced away from their families and homes. Considered “unclean” a leper was unwelcome wherever they went. Spinalonga was, for many, a refuge. Here they could live in relative peace, had access to doctors, and the company of others afflicted by the disease.

The story draws the reader in with it’s wonderful descriptions, strong characters and moving story-line. There were some flaws to the book mostly in the predictability of the family saga and some overload of information, but her research was excellent and I learned a lot about the disease of leprosy and fell in love with the island of Crete. Overall The Island was well worth my time invested in the reading. ( )
1 vote DeltaQueen50 | Jul 6, 2020 |
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For my mother, Mary
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A cold wind whipped through the narrow streets of Plaka and the chill of the autumnal air encircled the woman, paralysing her body and mind with a numbness that almost blocked her senses but could do nothering to alleviate her grief.
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The million-copy number one bestseller On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...

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