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The Return: The 'captivating and deeply moving' Number One bestseller

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I really enjoyed The Island, despite its flaws and I was hoping for a similarly good plot with The Thread, but I was pretty disappointed. Richard's French reading list includes Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stephenson and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Seductive smells to tantalising tastes: the books inspired by southern France Bearing no regrets whatsoever for fighting for the communists, the remainder of her life is troubled by some of her decisions. The Figurine is set during the period of the Junta army dictatorship in Greece in the 1960s and 1970s, and Victoria’s story was inspired by the Cycladic figurine and the influence they had on 20th century art. She wanted to explore the crime that beauty and antiquity can drive people to. Before they moved to the country, she had started learning to dance in London. Then she discovered to her chagrin that there were no courses available in Tunbridge Wells. Such is the mania for dance in Britain today, though, that there’s even a salsa class in her local village hall.

Spanish Civil War – Victoria Hislop Spanish Civil War – Victoria Hislop

Her own husband discovered his secret Scottish heritage when he took part in the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? and found that his grandfather was a soldier from Ayr, who helped free France in 1918, and that his great-great-great-grandfather was a crofter from Stornaway in Lewis. “He’s terribly proud of his Scottish roots – he’s entitled to wear the Matheson tartan,” she says. And, not many people know this, he’s a demon Scottish dancer, who can be found on Burns night in Tunbridge Wells doing a very merry Gay Gordons. There was, in effect, a “pacto de olvido”, a pact of forgetting,” says Hislop, when we meet over morning coffee in the cafe of a Tunbridge Wells department store – the Hislops and their children live in the nearby village of Sissinghurst. She’s on her way to a book signing, otherwise we would have met at the family home. A wattle-and-daub house, it is 500-years-old and apparently, it’s a miracle it’s still standing. The history of the novel was interesting, but it really dragged on and on in the last quarter of the book as there was no climactic scene like in The Island. On the face of it, the novel was fine but there were just too many problems with it for me to give it more than two stars. For a start all the characters were either good or bad, selfish or selfless. The poor were wonderful people with tonnes of friends and the rich only cared about money and were ultimately miserable and alone. I realise the Moreno family was an exception to this, but they still chose to live in the poorest part of the city and were therefore wonderful.

Reviews

Both The Island and The Return tell of the uncovering of old family secrets. The first is a multi-generational narrative set in a former leprosy colony on Spinalonga, a Greek island off Crete, which Hislop and her family discovered when they were holidaying there. Her husband hates sitting on a beach, preferring to explore new places. The Return takes place in Granada and revisits the bloody conflict of the Spanish Civil War, which tore the country, and many loving families, apart. If you enjoy novels that also give you a potted history and immerse you in local culture you’ll probably enjoy this one. I did find it odd that the prologue reveals who the main character will end up with. The Return is every bit as gripping as The Island, and is impossible to read without a box of Kleenex by your side. It tells of Sonia Cameron, who is unhappily married to a “dusty” husband, with a serious drink problem. Oblivious to the past, she travels to Moorish Granada, with a wild-child girlfriend, in search of escape and salsa lessons. This book is a collection of ten moving stories by the #1 Sunday Times Bestselling author, Victoria Hislop.

The Guardian Dancer from the dance | Books | The Guardian

While the history of the city and Greece as a whole was something new and informative the author was inconsistent again - some major events took up several chapters while others were glossed over in a few paragraphs. It was too obvious she was simply interested in using the events to interweave the characters' lives. Sonia's fascination with the city's history intensifies. She frequents a cafe where the elderly owner, Miguel, displays old posters of bullfighters and dancers; he whets her appetite with tales of Lorca and days gone by. Less convincingly, we discover that Sonia lost her invalid mother, Mary, when young and has learned little about her from her father. When Miguel finally tells the story of the Ramirez family, who once owned the cafe, the mysterious English Mary will be brought to life as her younger self - a 1930s Spanish dancer, Mercedes. The ground for this transformation is insufficiently prepared, and the large generation gap unexplained until the end, which tests our credulity. I'm not sure what the opinion of this book might be from the perspective of a Greek reader and/ or someone who knows Greece/ Thessaloniki well, and I'm not sure if Hislop has actually written a realistic story here that accurately describes the nuances of the city and its people.

The Return offers welcome evidence that women's fiction is getting more ambitious, marching into the realm of big events traditionally colonised by men, in particular military action. Rosie Thomas's Iris & Ruby, which won last year's Romantic Novel of the Year award, featured second world war Egypt; Emma Darwin in The Mathematics of Love dramatised Waterloo. Now Victoria Hislop's new offering, belying its dreamy sepia-tinted cover of a couple close-dancing, revisits the gruesome arena of the Spanish civil war.

BBC Arts - BBC Arts - Sensuous poetry, stark prose and BBC Arts - BBC Arts - Sensuous poetry, stark prose and

He does try to sneak up on me when I’m writing, but I’m paranoid about talking about my work, so I’ve told him he’ll know where my next book is set when he gets the postcard from wherever it is that I’m planning to set it. I never show Ian my books until they are finished. He doesn’t say much about them, in any case. My daughter, who is 18, says she has my book by her bed, which means it’s waiting in the pile to be read. My 15-year-old son, however, has read my new book, The Return. He sent me a text saying, ‘Amazing, mum!’ It’s the best compliment I’ve ever had. I treasure it.” For me, while I found very emotional the Jews storyline and their ending, I 'd prefer that Victoria Hislop would make us feel a little bit more of her characters' sentiments and not so much "tell" us their feelings... So when bedlam characterizes the island as a result of a Greek coup, the Turkish Army is sent to protect their people living in Famagusta. Ultimately captured and imprisoned in the infamous islands of Makronisos and Trikeri, Themis is forced to make a life-changing decision.

Praise for Maria’s Island

Why, why do you want to write about it? It’s got nothing to do with you,” her friend said, then refused to talk about it to her. This notable documentary undertow was a feature of Hislop's debut, The Island, a multigenerational narrative centred on a leper colony off Crete. After becoming Richard and Judy's top Summer Read in 2006, it went on to sell an astonishing 1 million copies in this country alone. Thousands this summer will read The Return while sunning themselves on Spanish beaches and learn some unpalatable history about their holiday destination. On the surface this melodramatic historical novel sounds appealing and interesting. When I heard the book was set in Thessaloniki (the town of my great grandmother) and that it dealt with Jewish and Sephardic heritage I was intrigued. Although Sonia Cameron is completely oblivious of the city’s dark past, a coincidental conversation and some fascinating old photos plunges her into the remarkable story of Spain during the civil war.

Victoria Hislop Books in Order (Complete Series List) Victoria Hislop Books in Order (Complete Series List)

recent releases to enjoy whether you're away on holiday or staying at home. Twelve brilliant books to set you up for a summer of reading Indeed, she’s currently ferreting away all sorts of things from her nosy husband, including the small library of books she’s reading to research her third novel. BORN Victoria Hamson, in Kent, her childhood was difficult, unconventional and sometimes unhappy. Her father drank too much – which explains the accuracy with which she writes about Sonia’s alcoholic husband in The Return – and often directed his unreasonable anger towards Victoria. “I have no idea why this was,” she sighs. Hemingway returned to the country regularly, and was a key voice reporting on the Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance.Ian is actually a very serious person,” she replies. “Although he can be hysterically funny. He is domestically challenged and has been known to make cucumber sandwiches for the children using a courgette – a story I used in The Island, by the way. About twice a year, he prepares a meal but he does it in the manner of a TV chef – we all sit in the kitchen weeping with laughter, because he’s so funny. This book has expectations to be epic but the sad reality is that it looks like a book written by a tourist who wanted to stage some kind of story in a place she fancied. Foster, Sophie (16 June 2019). "Victoria Hislop: 'Ian was in a different league to me at Oxford - he charged me 50p to borrow his essays' ". The Sunday Telegraph . Retrieved 18 June 2019.

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