What drew me to Isola is its basis in historical record of a sixteenth-century French noblewoman who survived being marooned on an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence for two years before she was rescued and returned to France. Like the author, I wondered how the heck this woman survived two Canadian winters mostly on her own in the sixteenth-century. Unfortunately, we will never know the true account of Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval’s survival, but I found Goodman’s fictional account of Marguerite’s story compelling.

Marguerite was orphaned at a young age and left to the guardianship of her uncle, Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval’s, an adventurer and courtier who burns through Marguerite’s fortune and sells her estate to fund his expensive lifestyle, thus preventing her from being able to make a good marriage. Marguerite is encouraged by her faithful servant, Damienne, to be obedient to Roberval because she is quite literally at his mercy as a woman cannot do anything without a man’s permission. Roberval for his part takes a perverse pleasure in disciplining his niece when her behaviour offends him, and he makes her memorize a book of scripture so he can test her knowledge of it.

Marguerite is horrified when she learns that Roberval intends to take her on his next adventure, a long voyage across the Atlantic to Canada aka New France. She rebels against Roberval by falling in love with his secretary while on the voyage. When Roberval finds out, he is of course pissed and leaves Marguerite, Damienne and the secretary to die on an island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with minimal provisions. But it is on this island that Marguerite proves she is not a meek, obedient woman who is dependant on men. She learns how to forage for food and hunt birds and animals with a gun. She learns how to build a fire and cook. She kills polar bears and removes their pelts to keep warm.

But it is also on the island that Marguerite’s faith is tested as each loss she experiences deals another blow to her trust in God. Despite losing her faith, that cornerstone of her life, she still finds the strength to live on and hope that one day she will get off the island and return home to France.

The power in Goodman’s writing is that the reader also experiences the awe that Marguerite feels for the strange, desolate place where she unexpectedly finds herself. Even though every day is a struggle to live in a place where no man could be expected to survive, Marguerite marvels at the beauty of her island home, including the unique (and dangerous) creatures that find their way to the island in the winter and the icy waves that sparkle in the sunlight. I got chills from reading this novel, like the chills you feel when you are really freaking cold. Seriously, how did the real Marguerite survive??

I definitely recommend Isola for fans of historical fiction, as well as for anyone who loves stories about women who are stronger and cleverer than the men who try to break them.