The acclaimed million-copy number one bestseller & winner of Richard & Judy's Summer Read 2006 from Victoria Hislop is a dramatic tale of four generations rent by war illicit love violence & leprosy from the thirties through the war to the present day. 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 & 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 & at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni & her daughters & a family rent by tragedy war & passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island & how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...