Kaytee Cobb

And that knowledge develops into feels when their underhanded relationship or their under the table relationship is discovered.

All three of those characters, Marguerite, her nurse Demien, and Auguste, her clerk turned beloved, are marooned on an uninhabited island, left to survive the elements with only what they can carry from the ship.

And that's where the story begins.

Yes.

Right.

So we're like, oh, we're getting to know like a privileged young girl in the French countryside.

Oh, there's a boat.

Right.

No, that's not what this story is about.

Continuing my recent uptick in historical fiction reading, I picked this one up with Katie on my plane ride to Paris, and then I finished it before it was time to head home.

I couldn't stop reading this story, which is newly out in paperback.

So it was time to finally read the galley that the publisher gave me two years ago.

That's how NetGalley works for me, guys.

I'm sorry.

Isola is, as the title implies, a story of isolation.

That's the core word there of survival and resilience.

It is based on a true historical figure who's only briefly mentioned in French history, but in very different contexts.

Her story is mentioned with one ending and another, historically, but they don't make sense when you read them together.

Allegra Goodman took those two little nuggets of history and decided to explore the juxtaposition through her novel.

One story told by her ruthless and conniving guardian, and one told by Marguerite herself.