About this item
On the Galápagos Islands, the lives of two women - a century apart - converge in the most startling ways in a historical novel of desperate love, secrets, and deception by the author of My Last Continent.After ten years away to build a family, Mallory returns to Floreana Island in the Galápagos, and to Gavin, the mentor with whom she had a long-ago affair. Their project is to build nests to revive the vulnerable penguin population. But Mallory doesn't dare tell Gavin why she's really come back. Then she discovers old journals hidden in a lava cave - confessions of another woman who needed to disappear.In 1929, Dore Strauch left the life she knew to create a new one with the man she loved. On remote Floreana they're beholden to no one but each other. Until the arrival of strangers, settlers in their paradise.
About the Author
Midge Raymond is the author of the novels and and a short-story collection, , which received the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in , the magazine, , and many other publications. Midge is also the author of , co-authored with John Yunker. She has taught writing at Boston University, Boston's Grub Street Writers, Seattle's Richard Hugo House, and San Diego Writers, Ink. Midge lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Visit her online at and "FLOREANA is a beautiful, unexpected, and powerful novel about the fragility of life and love in its many forms - a book that is all at a once a riveting theory on an unsolved historical mystery, a close character exploration of love and loss [that] tackles the themes of motherhood and the innate desire to nurture and be nurtured, the pain of unfulfilled expectations, and the simple beauty and tenuousness of nature. A powerful and totally unique book. Not to be missed!" - Samantha Greene Woodruff, bestselling author of THE LOBOTOMIST'S WIFE and THE TRADE OFF"In the 1930s, a set of murders straight out of Agatha Christie took place on Floreana Island. Raymond's novel toggles between this old story and a new one, proposing a plausible solution to this enduring mystery. Is this what really happened? Who cares! Raymond's novel is riveting and revelatory, a murder mystery embedded in other mysteries - of love and regret, loss and redemption, and how we can manage to hold on to the parts of this beautiful world that were never ours in the first place. " - Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of BOOTH and WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES"FLOREANA is a stunning and deeply layered murder mystery, historical novel, and environmental love letter all in one. Midge Raymond beautifully and seamlessly weaves the hidden lives of two women, a century apart, as they negotiate the fragile terrain of the Galápagos Islands along with their own troubled psyches ... A haunting tale for our times. " - JoeAnn Hart, author of ARROYO CIRCLE and HIGHWIRE ACT "Who knows what happened on Floreana Island in the Galápagos in the 1930s? In this suspenseful and immersive novel, Midge Raymond offers a possible series of events leading up to infamous awful fates of a few of the settlers, as well as telling an equally compelling contemporary story. Come for the disastrous love affairs, stay for the careful depiction of efforts being made toward penguin conservation. Much like the fantasy of desert island life, FLOREANA offers a rich bounty of attractions. " - Alice Elliott Dark, author of FELLOWSHIP POINT and IN THE GLOAMING"FLOREANA masterfully weaves together the tales of two women who escape to the same faraway island almost a century apart. Both storylines feature deeply buried secrets, yearning, questions about what people owe to those that surround them, and the profound need for connection and purpose
