Wow...this book is just engrossing from the get-go. I've read it about four times and I still want to read it again. Lucy answered an ad for a "wife" and spent a year on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Her story reads like the "Survivor" series should have. It's not only her daily accounts of life and surviving, it's a facinating look at relationships and human nature. You'll root for her long after the book is done!

A fastinating book on trying to be a modern Robinson Carusoe, or TV Survivor. Since this is Lucy's book, Robert comes off looking like a total jerk. So its amazing she didn't kill him early on. Also it was Robert's idea, do the island, get the girl and write the book. From reading the book, it's Lucy who plants the garden, learns to fish, talks to the natives, and keeps Robert alive so with Lucy actually writing the book I hope she made a fortune.

The other cool thing was how hard it was to find an unoccupied island to do the test on that you could also survive on. Turns out if you have water and decent soil, people already live there! This shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was to me. I should have figured that in the last 1000 years people of the South Pacific would have looked at all the islands, and stayed on the ones that supported life. So much for the Swiss Family Robinson dream life. It's actually much closer to the Tom Hanks Movie "Castaway" life.

Anyway its a good arm chair adventure read.

Lucy Irvine is a survivor in the real sense of the word. She survived a year on a tropic island in a "marriage" from a personals ad for a "wife" by a writer who wanted to write a book about the experience. Lucy falls in love with the island. This is a wonderful story of their trials and triumphs. I read it years ago and it still stands in my mind as a great read.

Lucy Irvine is enlisted by the strong-willed Diana Hepworth, who has been living on Pigeon Island for the past 40 years, to live for one year on Pigeon Island and write her story.
Lucy, not one to be pushed around herself, takes her three sons to the island and records Diane and Tom's story of sailing around the world for ten years and then settling on Pigeon island to raise a family in paradise.
The book is a combination of Lucy's year on Pigeon Island with the Hepworth's experiences there. She pulls no punches, presenting the bad with the good. Photos are included of the family, the local islanders and Lucy and her sons. It's a fascinating story and very compelling reading. Her dreamy descriptions of the warm water and sun made me long for the sea. I was under the book's spell until I could finish it.

Having had the experience of 3 weeks on Pigeon Island in 1996, I read the book with fascination. It certainly brought memories back. I wish I could have added my stories for background information. I found the book very real and very sympathetic to the individual personalities. I can also vouch for "Lucy getting it right". Well done.