The Island

Blurb

The Island is a historical novel written by Victoria Hislop. It has won several awards including Newcomer of the Year at the 2007 British Book Awards. The book was also nominated for the Book of the Year award at the same event.
Set on the island of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete, and on the village of Plaka which lies within swimming distance across it, The Island tells the story of Alexis Fielding, a 25-year-old on the cusp of a life-changing decision. Alexis knows little or nothing about her family's past and has always resented her mother for refusing to discuss it. She knows only that her mother, Sofia, grew up in Plaka, a small Cretan village, before moving to London. Making her first visit to Crete to see the village where her mother was born, Alexis discovers that the village of Plaka faces the small, now deserted island of Spinalonga, which, she is shocked and surprised to learn was Greece's leper colony for much of the 20th century. It is here that Alexis meets an old friend of her mother's, Fotini, who is prepared to tell her for the first time the whole tragic story of her family.