The Petrakis family lives in the small Greek seaside village of Plaka. Just off the coast is the tiny island of Spinalonga, where the nation’s leper colony once was located—a place that has haunted four generations of Petrakis women. There’s Eleni, ripped from her husband and two young daughters and sent to Spinalonga in 1939, and her daughters Maria, finding joy in the everyday as she dutifully … dutifully cares for her father, and Anna, a wild child hungry for passion and a life anywhere but Plaka. And finally there’s Alexis, Eleni’s great-granddaughter, visiting modern-day Greece to unlock her family’s past.
A richly enchanting novel of lives and loves unfolding against the backdrop of the Mediterranean during World War II, The Island is an enthralling story of dreams and desires, of secrets desperately hidden, and of leprosy’s touch on an unforgettable family.
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Deep, heart breaking and yet it fills you with hope. A historic account you will not soon forget. This book will restore your faith in enduring faithfulness, courage and the spirit of giving.
I think this book desperately wanted to be a non-fiction history book, but maybe Hislop was unable to find any stories from real residents of Spinalonga so was forced to write it with fictional ones. I was very interested in the story of the inhabitants of the island, the treatments used for leprosy before the cure was found, and what the eventual …
Loved how the descriptions could transport me to those places. I feel like I was there.