Lost letters. A secret Greek love affair. A daughter’s search for the truth.
Crete, 1963. Young artist Greta Ellis arrives at the sun-soaked port of Fáros Limáni,
ready to paint and explore the beautiful Greek island.
When she meets passionate local Andreas Papadakis, she is swept up in a world of
colour, freedom and forbidden love. But when tragedy strikes, Greta is forced to make an impossible choice that will echo for decades.
Wales, 1984. After her mother Greta’s death, silversmith Zoë Carter receives a sealed letter that upends everything she thought she knew. Greta’s dying wish is for her ashes to be scattered in Crete, a place precious to her . . . but somewhere she had never spoken of.
Searching through her mother’s belongings, Zoë uncovers a series of letters. Written in Greek and dated the year before she was born, they reveal a passionate love affair. And a tragedy that tore it apart.
Determined to know the truth, Zoë travels to Crete to follow the trail left behind in her mother’s letters. Through the olive groves and whitewashed villages of Crete, she begins to piece together a story of love, betrayal and loss — and discovers that her
family was never what it seemed.
Fascinated by family secrets and ‘skeletons lurking in cupboards’, Jan’s dual narrative,
dual timeline novels explore how decisions and actions made by family members from one generation impact on the lives of the next. Her first three novels look at the bond between mothers and daughters as well as forbidden love.
Setting and a sense of place plays an important part in all Jan’s stories and as well as her native mid-Wales, there is
always a contrasting location – Greece, Sicily and northern France. Her next books will involve secrets and sibling relationships; the first set in 1943 and 1968 takes the reader back to beautiful Sicily where two sisters work together to prove their father’s innocence of a wrongdoing.
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My thoughts: Have the tissues handy! This is a bittersweet story of family, loss and love that takes us from green Wales to sunny Crete and back in time to the 1960s, when young artist Greta found love and heartbreak on the island.
Twenty odd years later, her daughter Zoë follows in her footsteps to honour Greta’s last request and scatter her mother’s ashes on the island. Why? Zoë has no idea. Her mum never spoke of the place.
What Zoë uncovers will change everything she thought she knew about her parentage, her family and her life.
I really enjoyed this book, which tugs on the heartstrings and is truly one of those books where the sad parts and the happy parts co-exist and blend together beautifully.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 