Once, Upon an Island - Paperback

A sixteen-year-old girl, Olivia, who feels guilty about her younger brother's death. Her mother, Evelyn, a glamorous artist. Travis, the charismatic owner of the Pink Fancy Hotel. A mysteri-ous Czechoslo-vakian widow, Sofiya. A sojourn on St. Croix, a tropi-cal island. Two love affairs. Secrets. Nazis. Ravensbrück concentra-tion camp. Conflict, jealousy, kindness, tenderness. A res-cue and a resurrec-tion. All woven together in a haunting work of liter-ary fiction set in 1966.

"An engaging and well-written story of a young woman discover-ing the nuances and mysteries of human relationships, love, and adulthood. Set on a beautiful Caribbean island and peppered with references to charac-ters, places, and events there, I felt like I was a confidant and witness to the emotions and experi-ences of a friend. Egan found an excellent balance between the voice of her young narrator in the time period and the perspective from years later."-Lisa Cantrell, administrator, "St. Croix Memories"

"The novel is a heart-wrenching treatise of teen angst and relation-ships damaged by trauma, set in the beautiful Virgin Islands. It gently portrays how chance-met friends can help us to deal with adversity."-J.A. Lordi, writing as Tinker Marne, author of Sunken Treachery

"A major work. All of the primary characters deserve their own novels."-Dr. Helga Schier, former executive editor, Random House