The Wine-Dark Sea by Victoria Hislop (Headline)
There are some authors whose books you just know you're going to read regardless and Hislop has been one of these for me since The Island came out around 20 years ago and I always get very excited when I see a new one is due.
This one is set just post World War Two when Greece was tearing itself apart in a 'civil' war between left and right and concentrates on the effects this had on one family from the rural north of the country.
Many, many years ago my dad recommended the book Eleni by Nicholas Gage and so I was aware of some of the story covered here but by no means all of it. Eleni is a horrifying read because it is true and can't have a happy ending, but I found The Wine-Dark Sea to be just as dark and as novel did need the slightly (!) contrived coincidences and endings just to be rounded. It is a story of hope, survival, and family which swept me away.
I am lucky in that I get to go to Greece often and while I know about the Greece from antiquity, and the Greece from WW2, am not so familiar with Greece from 1945-1990 and just how successfully the country has overcome its past divisions. I hope that it is a true story of reconciliation and that the trauma hasn't just been buried to explode again in the future.
Many thanks to Headline/NetGalley for early access to this book
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