Marked Pages

This month's read is The Island by Victoria Hislop.

I began this book about a week ago and haven't been able to stop reading. Every spare moment I have, I want to turn the pages and get lost in the leper colony of the Greek island, Spinalonga. I love reading...Anything really, but fiction is my favorite because I feel like I can get completely lost in the vivid lives of these people who never truly existed, except in the imagination of the writer.

It never ceases to amaze me how richly I can picture the comings and goings in the words, how alive the characters become. Images race through my mind, and I see myself as the outsider, that I am part of the story. Though I witness it through someone else's words, the imagery is all my own. The characters are as real to me as the people around me; I cry with them, and laugh with them. I love losing myself in the story because it's the only place I can retreat without having to board a plane or ride a train. I travel through the pages...Sometimes I travel back in time, and I always travel to another place. And I'm there, in another part of the world, with people I don't know but come to love and miss when the story has ended.

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Summary from the back cover:
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...