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A Novel
A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this breathtaking saga, an epic story of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian's servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.
Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she'd never before needed.
Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.
"Goodman writes with fluid beauty, deep empathy, and an emotional undertow that pulls you in and holds you from the first page to the last. [This] sweeping page turner is at once historical and modern, intimate and epic, personal and powerful." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Though the story drags in places and the ending is a bit too pat, Goodman brilliantly depicts Marguerite's courage ... It's a rousing portrait of an undaunted woman." —Publishers Weekly
"A shocking story, made all the more stunning by the fact that it has its roots in true history." —Jodi Picoult, author of By Any Other Name
"What a gift this novel is: vast, lush, feminist, and brilliantly crafted. Allegra Goodman is one of our finest writers." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
This information about Isola was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo © Keller & Keller
Allegra Goodman was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1967, but grew up in Honolulu. She has been writing prose avidly since the age of seven.
Her first book, a collection of stories titled Total Immersion, was published in 1989 on the same day that she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. While pursuing her Ph.D in English at Stanford, Goodman also wrote for The New Yorker and completed her second book of stories, The Family Markowitz, which quickly became a national bestseller. The Family Markowitz was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 1996 and was the fiction winner in the First Annual Salon Book Awards.
Her novels to date are: Kaaterskill Falls (1998), Paradise Park (2001), Intuition (2006), The Other Side of the Island (2008) and The Cookbook Collector (2010). Her short story...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Allegra Goodman's Website
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