The Island - Victoria Hislop

...Hislop. I am reviewing the paperback format of the novel. It contains 496 pages, ISBN 978-0755309511, was first published 10/04/2006 and the genre classification is Modern Fiction. RRP £7.99 The Island is the first novel from Victoria Hislop. ==The Plot== Alexis Fielding is a modern twenty five year old woman. She has a degree in archeology and a consuming interest in the past, a trait she shares with her father, Marcus. Alexis mother, Sophia is ...
...plans a holiday to Greece, the main purpose of the holiday is to decide whether she wants to move in with with her boyfriend, Ed. Ed is a go getter and a head boy type of man, Alexis is unsure whether she really does want to live with him. She decides that she will visit Crete during the trip in order to see the village where her mother, Sophia grew up. Alexis tries to press her mother for information about her family, eventually, Sophia gives Alexis ...

brittle1906 02.05.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

I love reading, but in the last few months I've found it hard to find the time or the energy to read anything other than a newspaper or magazine. Then whilst reading the "Metro" on the way to work last month I spotted a review on this book by debut novelist Victoria Hislop. I registered that it was about Spinalonga, a now uninhabited island off the coast of northern Crete, where from 1903 to 1957 Greek lepers were banished with no hope of ever returning ...
...a lasting impression on me. The guide who took us around the island had this amazing talent for taking you back to a very difficult time and tragic place and told us several true stories. Most of the stories were sad ones, but they all gave me the sense of the courage and optimism that most of these people had. The author of this novel has a very similar gift of inspiring empathy and a vivid 'mind's eye' in her readers. The story starts with a young ...

SandyJoe 30.05.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

The young English woman Alexis plans a trip to Greece with her fiancé which will also include Crete, she asks her mother whether she'd mind her paying a visit to the village where she's from. Her mother Sofia is from Crete, but strangely and incomprehensibly, she's always been reticent about her past, an old photo of a Greek couple on her night table is the only reminder of her Greek past. To Alexis' surprise her mother doesn't evade her as usual ...
...about her family. This is the frame of the novel, Alexis finds Fotini in the village of Plaka in the east of Crete, what the old woman tells is the novel proper. I ordered the book because some years ago my husband and I spent a week on Crete and on a day out visited Agios Nikolaos, the town near Plaka, from where we could see the outline of the small island Spinalonga. I learnt from my guidebook that lepers were sent there up to the year 1957, ...

MALU 17.08.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

...read. This time, Victoria Hislop, the wife of Ian of Private Eye and "Have I Got News For You" fame, authors this book. I believe this is her debut book and has none of the satirical leanings of her husband. If that were what you are expecting then you would be very disappointed. She is a journalist in her own right, after all, so any comment on her husband is really completely unnecessary. But I thought I would point it out as it is an unusual surname ...
...Anyway lets move onto the book itself. It is a sort of saga being a kind of family history of a Greek family from a small village in Crete spread over the last century. I like researching my own family history so that puts me onside straight away even if other peoples' families are not always so interesting as this one. It begins, however, with Alexis in present day London, about to decide on major changes to her life. She is drawn to her mother's ...

imogen49 27.10.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

The Island The version I am reviewing is a paperback published by Headline Book Publishing with 373 pages.This novel is the debut novel of Victoria Hislop, wife of Ian Hislop the editor of Private Eye. Prior to her novel writing she was a travel journalist and both this book and her next novel, 'The Return' are based in foreign lands, Crete and Spain respectively. The Island is an international bestseller not sure if this was helped by he fact that ...
...their show. It also won the "Newcomer of the Year" Award at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007. Since this time it has been translated into more than a dozen languages. I was given this book by my daughter as we are going to Crete in the next couple of weeks and I do enjoy books based in places where I have been or I am going. When I read the blurb on the back I wasn't sure as it mentions it is a story around the leper colony on the island of Spinlonga ...

catsholiday 14.07.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

At the time I went to spend my Christmas gift book tokens "The Island" was top of the paperback best sellers and that was why I bought it. The bookseller tried to put me off it, he said it was by that Hislop woman who he thought was the wife of some obnoxious T.V. critic. In fact it's by Victoria Hislop who writes travel features for the Sunday Telegraph, parenting and education for the Daily Telegraph and general features for Woman and Home. I don't ...
...thought I might have got the wrong thing; the Observer calls it a "beach book" with a heart. I don't hang around beaches in the summer reading nice books at all so I thought this might not work. The writing style is nice and easy to read. It was difficult to put down. When you realise the action is taking you to Greece's leper colony off Crete you might think there could be no adventure, romance or interest. The action takes you through the most ...

parker-munn 22.09.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

...this book in desparartion at the library having run out of books to read. A friend recommended it so while it isn't normally what I would choose I thought I would give it a go. The story is that of A young woman, Alexis who seeks to discover what her mother has hidden about her family for all her life. While on holiday in Crete with her boyfriend who she is unsure about continuing the relationship with Alexis visits on old friend of her mother's ...
...to reveal, and this is the majority of the book's content. The story begins in the 1930s with the generation of Alexis' great grandparents. Plaka is a town in a unique position - it lies opposite the leper colony of Spinalonga. As Fotini unfurls the story of Alexis' family the connection between her and the eponymous island becomes ever clearer. I could go on but don't want to spoil the story for anyone wanting to read this immensely popular novel. ...

laukez88 26.10.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

This is the book that got me back into reading. a very vividly detailed story about a young girls history. From great grandmother, grandma, her sister, the mother and then daughter. two sisters grow up without their mother, as she is on a leper island (and you learn all about her life there) and the daughters hardships, fornication, lust, loyalty, infidelity... totally gripping with a great ending. I wasnt able to put the book down and even gasped when i learned of events within the book. an excellent read with heart, and its not hard reading. lots of pages, but not hard reading. a love story too without all the muck. murder without all the who did it. despair without wanting to fall asleep. highly recommended ...

mel_savva 24.06.2008
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

...be disappointed. Set on the Greek Island of Crete and the Island of Spinalonga (north coast of Crete) which was a leper colony from 1903-1957. I am interested in family history as is Alexis who is puzzled about her Mother Sophia's family history. Her quest takes her to Crete and Spinalonga to uncover the tragic truth about her mother's family. The novel has love, deceit, life,death, happiness and much sadness. Leprosy is not an illness we hear ...
...but in the days when the book was set people were isolated from mainstream life and shunned by society . This book covers all the emotions associated with living this kind of existence and it was a bit of a tear jerker in places. It was nice to read such a well written book and the author had obviously done a lot of research. ...

Wisegirl 20.02.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

...Tesco just because I liked the front cover. Probably not the greatest method of selected stuff to stimulate the grey matter but thats how I work! This is the story of the island of Spinalonga, the Cretain Leper colony. Everything written about Spinalong as far as I can make out is true. However the writer has humanised it by giving us a survivors story to enjoy (a bit of a James Cameron's Titanic story really!). It is about a girls trip to Greece ...
...down of the leper colony which lies close to this village. There, she finds the story of her Great-grandmother and her daughters who were all inhabitated on the island and how after many years, Leprosy was cured by a dedicated team of Doctors. This book will make you cry, guaranteed. I knew nothing about Leprosy before I read this novel, now I feel I know all the characters and their plights first hand. This is Victoria Hislop's first novel and ...

Crowdpleaser 20.10.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

...one of those let downs. The narrative travels back through time to tell the story of Alexis's ancestors, giving her the answers she needs in order her gain courage to move on with her life in the present day. The plot moved fast enough to keep you interested in the absorbing story. It was marked with tragedy throughout but with enough glimmers of hope to prevent it from becoming tiring and depressing. The theme of hope adds an emotive depth to the ...

AliGrace 07.02.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop

...it comes to looking at the paperback charts in WhSmiths. This book was one that I had bought myself and also received as a Christmas present from her, and I found it very difficult to put down and she found the same after borrowing it. Normally, you can tell when you've picked up an author's first novel, but this left me thinking well after closing the last page, and made me go away and do my own research into the Island of Spinalonga. Victoria ...

bec54 04.09.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Island - Victoria Hislop