Book 2 of The Island Duology
After the love of his life is murdered by her husband, Manolis Vandoulakis flees the island of Crete to mainland Greece where he starts working on boats in the harbour. He tries to forget Anna but can’t. One of his work colleagues becomes close to his landlady and when the two emigrate to Australia, Manolis decides to go with them. In this new country, he finally finds love again.
Maria Kyritsis and her husband have adopted her sister Anna’s daughter Sofia and raise her as their own. In fact Sofia doesn’t know about her mother’s death or about her father who is in prison for murdering her. Maria decides to visit Andreas in prison, to find out more about his motives and in a way to forgive him.
Maria’s had a hard life: her mother was banished to Spinalonga and died there, and then she herself was sent to Spinalonga for having Hansen’s disease as well. After she was cured, her sister Anna was murdered by her husband Andreas. Maria put off her marriage to Nikos as she didn’t feel like she could leave her father alone after all these tragedies. However, Nikos takes a job in the local hospital and the two do marry (and adopt Sofia).
Though Manolis is a flawed man, I couldn’t help but like him in this book. In the previous book he is portrayed as a filanderer, but in this one it appears as though he really loved Anna.
Maria is fighting for Andreas’ rights – even though the man murdered her sister, she does think that the hygiene and general circumstances in the prison leave a lot to be desired. The prison guards think their wards are scum, and by extension the people who visit them are too…
I enjoyed the book, though I’m not the biggest fan of Victoria Hislop’s writing style. The story of Maria and Manolis, however, is good.
Read for the ReaderHaven Reading Challenge 2025
Prompt 21: features a culture/religion different from your own
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
