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

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In the wake of the military coup led by General Franco, in 1936, the three-year civil war devastated the country,” says Hislop, adding that many Scots made a notable contribution, fighting for the Republican cause, and her book is unashamedly biased anyway, since it’s written from the Left-wing perspective of the war. “When I read from the book in England at author events, I always have to explain the context. People in Scotland never need that. They ask such intelligent questions and they always tell me things I never knew,” she says. She also worked in public relations and as a journalist before eventually becoming a full-time novelist. Philby, Charlotte (3 January 2009). "My Secret Life, Independent Magazine 3 January 2009". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 17 August 2022 . Retrieved 5 January 2009. No other family members went to Sonia’s funeral, only her parents. The tragic story haunted Hislop and when she finally discussed it with her mother she understood that trying to forget was how things were done 50 years ago. That’s what her parents attempted to do. “Now, I realise it must have been awful for them,” she says. A sprawling epic spanning both world wars, the Thread works better as historical reference than fiction: the characters are still born, rendered lifeless and unengaging, with the true centre piece being Thessaloniki, a vibrant city full of colour and pizzaz which subtly evolves throughout the 20 century.

Like the heroine of The Return, Hislop originally went to Granada to learn to dance because she wanted to write a novel about dance; then, like Sonia, she stumbled across stories about the civil war. “I love music and I love to dance. I even dance in my kitchen when I’m cooking.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.

Rose, Hilary. "Victoria Hislop on doing Strictly (the Greek one): My partner is beautiful — I can't stop looking at him". The Times . Retrieved 11 October 2021. However, as I said, I absolutely adored it. It was a bit slow to get going but after a little while I was completely hooked and couldn't put it down. 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. I was reluctant to ready this book. Why ? Well, I have read a lot of books about this era of Greek history, but other than Louis de Bernieres, never one written by a British author.When Hislop was 30, she discovered a secret that changed her perspective on life – her parents had had another daughter before she was born. One evening during an interval at the theatre – her father had by then remarried and had two younger children to whom she’s now close – he referred in passing to having had five children. She knew of only four. Victoria Hislop read English at Oxford, and worked in publishing, PR and as a journalist before becoming a novelist. She is married with two children. 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. 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. It was just beautifully written with a wonderful structure. It did also feel like there was a thread running throughout the entire book. At the end, when Katerina and Dmitri were reading Leonidas's letters to Olga and he describes saving a young Katerina, I completely caved in. Oh my god, the emotion that flooded out of me! It was such a satisfying way to round things off and really brought everything together.

Through dance she discovers a new lease of life. By chance, she also meets an elderly cafe proprietor, who recounts – in a riveting third-person narrative that makes up the best part of the novel – the story of the death of the great Spanish poet, Lorca, and of the Ramirez family. I hadn't realized that there was such an enormous flow of Greeks and Turks after WWI, forcibly ejected from places they had spent previous centuries living in peace. The author did a great job portraying the harmony of mixed-ethnicity (Greek, Jewish, Muslim) neighborhoods in Greece before the war. I learned a lot about the turmoil Greece faced both during WWII and afterwards, with collaborationists helping the Nazis, and Communists fighting for control. Visiting Greece in the '80s and afterwards, one would have no idea that the country had survived so much recent violence and turbulence. 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. Hislop's writing is very mediocre. When she wants to compare something or show a contrasting situation she inevitably uses a simple metaphor to get the point across. The dialogue was simple and corny.Among them are the Georgious and the Özkan families which moved there following years of ethnic turmoil on other parts of the island. All of this was so shaming at the time it had been swept under the carpet for years, adds Hislop, who, having been a journalist, is imbued with lively curiosity about her own family’s clandestine past as well as that of others. “Everyone has a story to tell about their family secrets,” she insists, gently quizzing me about mine.