Synopsis
It would always be summer on the island...
A love story with a twist, Tracey Garvis Graves' On The Island is a US word-of-mouth
success story to rival Fifty Shades of Grey, with 1500 5* reader reviews online
(and counting!) and sales taking it top 10 in the New York Times, Wall Street
Journal and Amazon.com bestseller lists. Film rights have been optioned by MGM, with
Temple Hill Productions (responsible for Twilight) slated to produce.
When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a summer job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family's holiday home in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation: a tropical island beats the library any day.
T.J. has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He's almost seventeen and if having had cancer wasn't bad enough, he now has to spend his first summer in remission with his family instead of his friends.
Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.'s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Marooned on an uninhabited island, Anna and T.J. work together to obtain water, food, fire and shelter but, as the days turn to weeks then months and finally years, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man...
As romantic as One Day or The Time Traveler's Wife, US readers have fallen in love with Tracey Garvis-Graves' On the Island:
'If you're looking for something to fill the gap after reading Fifty Shades...here it is!' ***** Danielle
'I couldn't put this down. I rooted for this couple from the beginning' ***** Kelkeligan
'A bit Castaway, Survivor and Lost all rolled together, the minute I opened the book, I read till it was finished' ***** Michele
'I loved, loved, loved this. It was a perfect way to spend a cold Friday night stuck at home' ***** Kelly
Tracey Garvis-Graves lives in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa, with her husband and two children and writes a blog.
» Read the opening pages of On The Island by downloading the Penguin Taster here
Reviews
Customer Review: 10 August 2012
Reviewer: tigerbabe68
'This is not the sort of book I would have chosen to read just from the blurb on the back of the jacket but having received a preview copy I dived in. Anna, a 30 year old teacher, and TJ, a 16 year old boy recovering from cancer who she has been employed to teach during the summer, are on a seaplane to the Maldives when the pilot dies and the plane crashes into the sea. The jacket implies a long time on the island and a love story, which made me think this would be a bit like Blue Lagoon or the original Castaway with Oliver Reed and Amanda Donohue, but although the two obviously grow to love each other in a protective way, there is no impropriety as no physical relationship occurs until TJ is legal in all US states. There are also no cringeworthy bodice-ripper type scenes, just well-written but not sordid narrative in believable language. The book has alternate chapters written by each character and the feel and language changes accordingly, as does the thrust of each character’s thoughts, with a subtle change in how they view the island and each other as the time goes on. There is a hint of the Admirable Crichton in that sometimes the pupil becomes the teacher and the sense of how others might regard the pair once they are no longer alone on an island. I was pleasantly surprised to be carried along by the narrative and to care for the two characters as the book progressed. There were a few minor niggles like to move time along some chapters would hop from say December to April with no mention of anything in between but then it would also have been boring to have chapters of the same old things happening day after day for the next few months so it was understandable even if it sometimes made me wonder if I’d turned over two pages at once. There are enough incidents of peril, intrigue and triumph to keep the pace ticking over and the end had a few twists and turns to keep you guessing the final outcome. An ideal book for a summer read (although not on a plane!) and one which might make you reassess what you pack in your hand luggage in case you get stranded on an island. PS not a polar bear in sight! '
» Submit a reviewProduct details
Format :
Paperback
ISBN: 9781405910217
Size : 129 x 198mm
Pages : 368
Published : 16 Aug 2012
Publisher : Penguin
On The Island
£7.99
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