| Love in the Land of Midas | ||
 Ciela (BG), 2011 |
Penguin NZ 2001 'This is the sweeping and exuberantly youthful novel of an award-winning young author. It traces two tales of love: between a journalist, Pascal, and a left-wing resistance fighter, Daphne, in the Greek Civil War; and between two tourists - Pascal's granddaughter, Véronique, and an Australian student, Theo, in modern Greece. When a critic mentions an author's youth twice in the first sentence, it could introduce a note of envy or condescension: in this case, admiration wins out over criticism. For the strengths of this novel shine through. The descriptions, in the Pascal-Daphne love-story, of travel through the mine-strewn mountain-paths above Thessaloniki; of the execution of Daphne's brother by order his commanders; of the capture and interrogation of Pascal by the brutal regime, are superbly gripping. And in the modern era, too, the relationship between Véronique, with her bleached hair and heroine habit, and the student Theo, who is picking up the war-shattered remnants of an elder generation of his family, is edgy, vivid, and emotionally unpredictable enough to absorb the reader. - Caroline Moore, Sunday Telegraph, 2001 |
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