Penelope Todd

I'd read and enjoyed Penelope Todd's memoir "Digging for Spain", but I wasn't sure whether I would like "Island". It's a literary historical romance, not a mixture of genres I would generally read.

But I'm glad I did, because once I got into the story, I enjoyed it a lot. It' set on an unnamed quarantine island in late colonial times in New Zealand - I have visited Quarantine (now St Martins) Island in Otago Harbour, and the island in the book does seem a lot like that. (In fact, I think the story would have been stronger had the location and its surroundings been explicitly identified, and the fact that they were kept unspecific frustrated me at times.).

Still, that's a minor niggle. The three main characters, and a variety of minor characters, are well-delineated, and the plot becomes increasingly gripping as a major epidemic hits the island. I also enjoyed the way Penelope Todd handles the ending - the resolution is hinted at rather than fully described, but the reader is left to draw their own conclusion.

Especially considering that it's well outside what I would normally enjoy reading, I liked "Island" a lot. Recommended to fans of romance, historical fiction, and good writing.… (mer)