Island Fiction

Celebrate the holidays with New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan’s Christmas Island Collection, featuring two novels—Christmas on the Island and Christmas at the Island Hotel—two romantic and festive tales set on a charming island off the coast of Scotland.

New York City, 1928: Ellen and Lucas Lyman have made a heart-wrenching decision to leave their beloved Amherst Island behind in search of a new life. The island was once the home of their hearts: where they had met as children, become friends, and over time found love.

Journalist Charlie Cates has always believed in facts, in what can be proved - her career depends on it. Which is why she has never truly accepted the supernatural visions that guide her to children in danger. After her work on a high-profile missing-child case brings unwanted fame, she reluctantly flees to the lush Big Island of Hawaii with her best friend, Rae. Determined to avoid her disturbing visions, Charlie begins writing what seems to be a harmless interview of a prominent volcanologist. But soon, she's haunted by dreams of a local girl who went missing six weeks earlier.

Perhaps the greatest story of piracy and the search for a fabulous buried treasure ever penned. Meet this cast of extraordinary characters brought vividly to life by the voice and interpretive skill of Benjamin Luxon: once one of Britain's leading international singers, now turning his considerable talents to the spoken word.

A call for help from a former colleague leads Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch and his girlfriend Stacey Stevens on a sea kayaking trip to a research station far off the coast. Stacey spent summers interning on the island, a sanctuary for endangered seabirds, and they are shocked by the atmosphere of tension they encounter when they come ashore. The biologists are being threatened and stalked by a mysterious boatman who they suspect is trespassing on the refuge late at night.

Claire Doheney, recovering from a serious illness, agrees to house-sit an oceanfront mansion on Chappaquiddick Island in Martha's Vineyard. The New York book editor hopes to find solace, strength, and sufficient calm to finish a biography of the iconoclastic psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich. The last thing she expects to find is love. Then she meets a mysterious man the locals call the Hermit. No one knows his real name or where he lives. To their mutual surprise, they discover that they share a passion for cooking.

Charlotte Madsen's whole world came crashing down six months ago with the words, "I met someone else". Thirty-seven, recently divorced, and childless. That's Charlotte when she disembarks from the plane in Getaway Bay. She wants to get away, that's for sure. She thought the best way to do that was to buy a run-down house overlooking the bay, knowing she'll need all her fixer-upper skills to get it in shape. Which is just fine. She's hoping as she overhauls the house, she'll get a life makeover too.

With buried treasure, treacherous buccaneers, a young hero, and Long John Silver, the one-legged villain, Treasure Island remains one of the most popular of pirate adventures.

Dr. David Lawrence has spent the last two years atoning for his sins and recovering from the devastating breakup with Gansett Island golden girl Janey McCarthy. As the island's only doctor, he's had ample opportunity to show his fellow island residents that there's more to him than the guy who disappointed Janey so profoundly. Now if only he could find a way to forgive himself, he might be able to move on with his life without the woman he'd expected to love forever...

Orla and Kate have been best friends forever. Together they’ve faced it all - be it Orla’s struggles as a new mother or Kate’s messy divorce. And whatever else happens in their lives, they can always look forward to their annual weekend away. This year, they’re off to Lisbon: the perfect flat, the perfect view, the perfect itinerary. And what better way to kick things off in style than with the perfect night out? But when Orla wakes up the next morning, Kate is gone.

Passionate about conservation and fleeing an argument with her mother, newly qualified London vet Charlotte Walker has taken up a fellowship on the tiny South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. She can claim the best of reasons for this year in paradise—What better motivation than to save a species?—but the reality is more complex. For Charlotte has secretly come to believe that she has her own connection to this remote and eccentric community, and she is finally determined to solve the mystery that has dominated her life.

Welcome to Sullivan’s Island, an idyllic beachside town just outside Charleston, South Carolina. This serene, unspoiled sanctuary offers tourists a picturesque taste of the lush Lowcountry while the locals enjoy a laid-back, small-town lifestyle. Amidst an eclectic mix of newcomers and natives, lifelong resident and social maven Tallulah Wentworth’s legendary monthly dinners have united an unlikely group of women into the very best of friends.

Karana, a Ghalas-at Indian, lives peacefully on the island with her tribe until the arrival of a Russian otter-hunting ship. In spite of the deal the Aleutian hunters make with her father, the Ghalas-at chief, in the end they prove treacherous, killing most of the tribe. Karana's younger brother, Ramo, is all that is left of her family. Fearful of the Aleuts' return, the remaining Indians decide to move to another island, and are offered safe passage by some friendly ships. But as Karana boards the ship to leave the island forever, she is unable to find Ramo.

When Alice’s father dies after a tragic hit-and-run, his death stirs up unanswered questions about her childhood. Who was her mother, why did her father never speak of the past, and why can’t she remember anything before the age of seven? But when she receives an anonymous letter containing a photograph of a refurbished gothic guesthouse surrounded by water, and an invitation to stay, old memories fight to resurface. Alice has visited before. She is certain of it.

Becca has embarked on the most important mission of her life. On a whim, she rents a beach cottage on Palmetto Island for the summer. Help comes in an unexpected friendship with the young woman next door. Hannah has three months to plan her dream wedding. While she's eager to marry the man of her dreams, she finds the logistics of combining households and the details of organizing her event overwhelming. When she learns of a new friend's crisis, she drops everything to come to her aid.

Joe Cantrell, owner of the Gansett Island Ferry Company, has been in love with Janey McCarthy for as long as he can remember. All this time, though, Janey has been dating or engaged to doctor-in-training David Lawrence. When things go horribly wrong between David and Janey, she calls her “fifth brother” Joe, one of the few people in her circle on the mainland. Janey decides a few days with Joe is just what she needs before she goes home to face her family with the news of her broken engagement. Will he take advantage of this opportunity to show her what they could have together?

Gansett Island midwife Victoria Stevens loves taking care of people, in her job and in her personal life, especially when it comes to her boyfriend of one year, sexy Irishman Shannon O'Grady. Fueled by combustible chemistry, her relationship with Shannon has been H-O-T from the first night they met. But she's begun to wonder whether theirs is destined to be a short-term fling or possibly the love of a lifetime.

Candy Quackenbush's adventures in the amazing world of the Abarat are getting more strange by the hour. Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, has sent his henchman to capture her. "Why?" she wonders. What would Carrion want with a girl from Minnesota? And why is Candy beginning to feel that the world of Abarat is familiar to her? Why can she speak words of magic she doesn't even remember learning?

Jane Hawkins lives on a floating space port where she tries to help her mothers run a failing inn. Every day she watches starships land from far-off places, bound for exotic adventures. But a new occupant under their roof is about to change everything. His name is Villem Osteonides. More machine than man, he's crewed aboard ships that sail through the universe faster than light. And he has a secret that will change Jane's life forever.

In the second volume of her Northern Trilogy, Sarah Stonich reassembles characters that endeared Vacationland to so many fans: Retired union miner and widower Alpo Lahti is about to wed his charming and lively bride, Sissy Pavola, but, with Rauri unaccounted for, celebration seems premature. Alpo's son Pete struggles to find his straight and narrow, then struggles to stay on it, and even Sissy might be having second thoughts.