Floreana | Midge Raymond

I've been to Floreana and it's incredible. On a recent trip to the Galapagos, I put postcards in the Post Office and will (eventually) deliver some as soon as I remember to take them to the other side of town. So Post Office Bay and the descriptions of the landscape, flora and fauna were familiar. Less familiar was the history shared in one of the two parallel stories in this captivating novel by Midge Raymond. Yes, it's based on a real case of a 1930s mystery, "the Galapagos Affair" where a woman and her companion mysteriously disappeared from this remote island after making quite a splash among its small group of inhabitants.

The novel takes off from that bit of history to imagine what happened when Dore Stauch (a real person) and her lover took off for Floreana to create an idyllic life. Spoiler alert: it's wasn't idyllic, but you could probably have guessed that. The parallel story is about Mallory, a penguin researcher who comes to Floreana to work with a scientist with whom she had an earlier affair. She's clearly experienced some trauma which is slowly unspooled during the novel.

Raymond's writing is lovely and the tension between the two stories makes it a real page-turner. When Mallory finds a diary kept by Dore the connections become even more intriguing. It's not a book with a sweet, happy ending but it's about loneliness, motherhood, environmental preservation and climate.

It's not perfect. There are a few story strands that don't add a lot of value, but that's nit-picking. Floreana is a great read.