The Islanders is a young adult novel inspired by Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.

Transported from 19th century Wessex to an isolated boarding school in Dorset in the 1980s and 90s, all of Hardy's characters have been reimagined by FJ Campbell as teenagers who fall in and out of love, keep secrets from one another and grow up fast.

​Even if you know what happened to Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors, you'll adore this new version of a classic coming-of-age story.

Reviews of The Islanders

"a fantastic read"

"a great read for the older teens"

"plenty of strong characters and a great story line"
"The Islanders is an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd, transplanting the story to a British boarding school in the early '90s. It ticked all of my nostalgia boxes, so many shared cultural references of my youth! It's dripping with well-researched detail, beautiful landscapes, and the thrill of teenage romance. 
I'd describe The Islanders as a British 10 Things I Hate About You - in fact, it'd be perfect for the screen! I'd love to see a film adaptation! - so if that sounds like it's up your alley, make sure you get yourself a copy pronto."
- review from Keeping Up With The Penguins
"Loved this book! Read it pretty much in one sitting. Great plot, characters to both love and hate. Although this book is aimed at older teenagers with a cast of characters in their late teens, I am in my mid forties and really enjoyed reading it. It helped that the plot was set in the late eighties and the narrative contained a healthy dose of cultural references - it really transported me back. The characters were timeless though - who hasn't known a Beth or a Livvy or hasn't fallen in love with a Milo or Zack? All in all a cracking read!"
"The Islanders is a story set in a remote boarding school in the countryside following the intriguing life of popular Beth as she struggles to see what is in front of her all along.
Having always been fascinated by stories set in boarding schools, I was gripped by the story from the first chapter and was desperate to follow its twists and turns to the conclusion.
I loved No Number 9 for its lovable characters and for FJ Campbell’s capable and humorous story telling. This book was no different and is a fantastic read - I would definitely recommend it."
"This is perfect read for older teens who love a bit of humour, fun, and romance."
"I really liked this book. I have a history of enjoying a boarding school book and this is a refreshing take on this setting. It took me a couple of chapters to get into it and then I was hooked. I read it in one sitting and felt that Milo as a character, was the most likeable and funny too! Some of his advice to Beth did remind me of Mr Knightley in Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ and I liked the references to older literature throughout the text. F.J. Campbell is starting to be my favourite author for her depiction of the ‘friend of the female protagonist’ character. Livvy is definitely as heroic as Nadine from ‘No Number Nine’ and deserves a book of her own. I think this book would be a hit with teenagers and those harking back to their teenage years. Roll on book number three!"
"Loosely based on Hardy’s 'Far from the Madding Crowd' but set mainly in a 1980s boarding school, 'The Islanders' shows the impact of beautiful Beth on the lives of three boys: Milo – steady and lovable, Edward – impressive and intense, and Zac – wild and selfish. 
This a great read for the older teens. The dialogue is witty, the humour natural and the characters convincingly fleshed out."
"I love how the author really takes you back to the time period of the novel (recent past) by including songs, movies, etc. that I know are from those times and that I remember myself! The overall book reminded me a bit of the movie "Circle of Friends" with Minnie Driver and Chris O'Donnell."
"The Islanders is a story set in a remote boarding school in the countryside following the intriguing life of popular Beth as she struggles to see what is in front of her all along.
Having always been fascinated by stories set in boarding schools, I read this book in 2 evenings straight. I was gripped by the story from the first chapter and was desperate to follow its twists and turns to the conclusion.
I loved No Number 9 for its lovable characters and for FJ Campbell’s capable and humorous story telling. This book was no different and is a fantastic read - I would definitely recommend it."
"A fantastic read, where romance, tragedy and friendship collide. A real page turner! Would recommend for any teen/young adult, and I’m looking forward to reading it again."
"This is a really enjoyable book and is highly recommended. It has a great storyline inspired by Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd. Its sure to be a hit with the Young Adult readers, who shouldn’t be put off by the boarding school setting, because it’s the likeable (and some unlikeable) characters in the book that draw you in and keep the pages turning. I’m really pleased this author has provided us with a second novel, can’t wait to see what’s next!"
"Loved this book totally recommend it as a trip down memory lane with some interesting characters & feisty females."
"Ah FJ Campbell you've made me laugh and cry again! Loved your new book, very relatable yet lovely to escape into the life of Beth and her boys! Love the 80s references too. A great ending too. Thank you!"
These reviews and more can be found on Goodreads, Facebook and anywhere the book is sold. You can also leave your own reviews on these sites or others e.g. LoveReading.
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Walkmans, Our Price and Ford Cortinas - ??

The Islanders starts in 1988 and ends in 1990. Those of us who were alive then will remember it well. The rest of you might find it fun to have a little context.








​Films -
Ferris Bueller's Day Off - (1986) starring Matthew Broderick; three teenagers skive off school one day.
Dead Poet's Society - (1989) starring Robin Williams; made 'carpe diem', 'oh captain my captain' and 'suck the marrow out of life' into everyday phrases.
The Blues Brothers - OK, so this was a film from 1980 starring Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi. The soundtrack was awesome - R&B including Aretha Franklin singing 'Think'. Years later, I had a driving instructor who was mad about the Blues Brothers and every time I was ready to start the ignition, he'd say, "We've got a full tank of gas, it's dark out and we're wearing sunglasses, hit it." Got a bit annoying after a while.
​Rain Man - (1988) 4 x Oscar-winning film starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise (I know!). Also had a great soundtrack.

Music - 
Our Price was a chain of music shops, selling tapes and the new CDs, plus loads of other stuff probably. I think it's gone bust now.
Ghetto blasters - yep, we all had a sound machine bigger than a suitcase, with a double tape deck (for recording mix tapes) and a CD player if it was a new model. 
If not carrying around something that would give a generation lasting back problems, the thing to have was a Walkman, preferably Sony. And you had to make mix tapes (or have them made for you by a friend). It's like a Spotify playlist, but much better.

Songs featured in The Islanders:
Last Christmas by Wham!
With or Without You by U2
Soul II Soul
Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners
​Lenny Kravitz
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
Here, There and Everywhere by The Beatles - it seems incredible now, but young people in the 1980s and 1990s really did listen to music from two decades before. Do they still? Dunno. In The Islanders, Livvy has a poster of John Lennon & Yoko Ono in bed, protesting against the Vietnam War (which ended in 1975) on her bedroom wall. And Milo (who admits he isn't very cool) still listens to his mum and dad's music: Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra and Otis Redding. 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' from 1967 was and still is one of my favourite songs ever.

I've started a Spotify playlist with these songs and others from/before the '80s. 

​Technology
People were just starting to have mobile phones, but mostly City workers and drug dealers (and people who organised raves). They were huge - the size of a brick - and you could only call on them - no camera, no internet, not even texting. They were pretty shite.
Also, everyone tutted loudly when they saw someone talking into them. Sometimes the tuts were louder than the talking. Apart from that, we used phone boxes with either coins or phone cards. 

There was no such thing as satellite navigation, so we all read maps. Don't let anyone tell you that we did it well - we never did, we always got lost, it was part of the fun (not).

We had no Internet then, although apparently it was invented in 1989. I don't remember seeing it until the late '90s, but this might have been because I'm a bit slow. We did of course have Ceefax - this was an information service on the TV. It had weather, news and sport and, although it was all we had, it was also shite. I've just checked on Wikipedia and am stunned to see that it continued to exist until 2012. Can this be true? Surely the Internet never lies. Certainly Ceefax never did...

​Getting about
Insert joke here about whether we had cars in those days (ha ha) but below you'll see a picture of a Ford Cortina, one of the most popular cars of the '80s, and wonder if horses and carts wouldn't have been a better bet. Or maybe this car is so uncool it's cool. (No? OK, I'll take your word for it).
It seems crazy now, but people really did hitch-hike back then. It probably wasn't safe, but everyone did it anyway.
Other stuff we didn't have:
 
Reality TV
'Big Brother' was first televised in the UK in 2000. Before that, there was a programme called ‘The Living Soap’ which filmed students 24/7 in a house in Manchester in 1993. But there were no Jungles, no Islands, no Baking, no Dancing and no Kardashi-whatyourfaces.
 
Small hair
We had big hair then. The less said about this the better.
 
Digital cameras
We had cameras with films in them and you had to remember to put the films in, otherwise you’d be clicking away all day, feeling awesome, and realize later that evening that you had nothing to show for it. We took photos, 24 (or 36) of them. We handed the film in to Boots and waited for two weeks while they developed it. Then we picked up the photos and 23 (or 35) of them were rubbish. 
 
Harry Potter
'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' was first published in 1997. We did have 'Grange Hill', though, and 'Worzel Gummidge'. Which is sort of the same.

Feminism
​OK, so it's not quite right to say we didn't have feminism - it was always there, but not like it was in the '60s & '70s, and not like it is now. We tried some different things - we tried being Ladettes, which was basically drinking as much as the men, with predictable results; and we had Maggie Thatcher, which was confusing because she seemed to hate women more than the men did. Not feminism's finest hour.
​
(Any inaccuracies here are due to the fact that it was a long, long time ago and my memory's not what it was. The '90s took their toll on me...)
Thomas Hardy's Wessex: the dream country

Thomas Hardy wrote his novels set in a fictional county called Wessex, which is roughly speaking Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon and parts of Berkshire and Oxfordshire. He replaced the names of real towns with his own (e.g. Weymouth became Budmouth). I used the same names that Hardy gave these places because I loved the freedom it gave me to make up the story in what he referred to in his preface to Far from the Madding Crowd as a "merely realistic dream country".

Here's a guide to the places in The Islanders - some are real, some Hardy's and some I just made up all by myself:

Casterbridge: Dorchester (one of the boarding houses at the Island is called Casterbridge House).

Exonbury: Exeter

Greenhill Bridge: the site of Greenhill Fair in FftMC is near Bere Regis. Greenhill Bridge in The Islanders is the site of a lazy post-exam afternoon of drinking, smoking, swimming, kissing and a game of Truth or Dare that ends badly.

Havenpool: Poole

Ivell: Yeovil

Knollsea: Swanage

Lulwind: Lulworth Cove, where Troy (in FftMC) and Zack (in The Islanders) nearly drown.

Melchester: Salisbury - where Beth grew up, living with her aunt.

Norcombe: Toller Down, where Gabriel first proposed to Bathsheba (also one of the boarding houses at the Island).

October Hill: I made up October Hill and named it after a Frank Sinatra song I really like. It's where Milo and his family used to go for walks and picnics when his mum was still alive. It's where he takes Beth on New Year's Day and where she runs to, to be alone. 

​Sherton Abbas: Sherborne. Weatherbury Hall and Sherton Abbas School are rivals in rugby.

Shottsford: Blandford (another boarding house at the Island).

St Emit: this is a coastal village in Cornwall which I completely made up. "Emit" means "ant" and it's what the locals call tourists in Cornwall, apparently.

Weatherbury: Puddletown (the real name is better than the made-up one!). This is where Bathsheba and Boldwood have their farms side-by-side; and where Milo grew up and the site of the school, Weatherbury Hall - AKA The Island.

Real places: 

Bodmin Moor, where the Markhams live and where Beth visits twice: once with Edward for a weekend and once for his 18th birthday party, which ends in tragedy.
​
Clapham, Holland Park, Notting Hill - real places in London where Beth and Zack spent half-term.
Truro, where Milo went for his rugby camp (at Truro College, which is a real school).
If you want to find out more about Wessex, the Thomas Hardy Society is a great place to start.

Its aim is to promote the British novelist and poet’s works for both education and enjoyment.
​It is for scholars, students, readers, enthusiasts and anyone with an interest in Thomas Hardy.

Contact F J Campbell

Photos used under Creative Commons from sergei.gussev, Matt Biddulph