It is a beautifully written, moving, compassionate, and powerful story that showcases the triumph of the human spirit. It is July 1974 and on the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to life as they know it. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. I’m not sure if there is anything I nearly left out, but there is something I definitely left out and those were chapters that I had written from Afra’s perspective. I decided that I didn’t want to include them, that I wanted Afra’s strength to be revealed in the story slowly and subtly. I like it that when people read it they think at first that Nuri is the stronger of the two but later discover that it is in fact Afra with her deep, quiet strength. The above description sums up the extent of the plot, with the addition of a few unexpected turns. It is not developed much further, but the core of the novel focuses on the descriptions of life in the village and it's inhabitants. I also enjoyed the sharp contrasts between the cultures of the people living in Cyprus to those in London. Lefteri also captures the hidden differences as well and the obvious ones in her scenery portraits.

On the other hand, her second novel is the story of a married couple forced to flee Syria which was inspired by real accounts of refugees recounted to her while she was volunteering for UNICEF in Athens. Book Genre: 20th Century, Cultural, Fiction, Greece, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literature, War Adem Berker is a Turkish soldier and for him, the invasion of his former home is an opportunity to seek out the woman he has loved for so many years. Waiting for a chance to return, his only thought has been of her. And so, by cover of darkness, he searches every house, every pathway for a glimpse of that head of flames. It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to life as they know it. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. While I was on tour for Beekeeper I was often asked a very important question which got me thinking. “How can we get people to understand that refugees are not like migrants, that they have no choice?” what really saddened me about the question was our obvious need to categorise, label and put people into boxes. I knew from the stories that I had heard that people make journeys for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they are frightened, sometimes they have no other choice, but sometimes they are searching for a better life. Can we condemn people for wanting a better life? Don’t we all? What does wanting a better life mean to one person and another? It was these thoughts and these questions which compelled me to want explore further and eventually to write about migrants.Christy Lefteri writes a deeply empathetic and poignant narrative of the human stories we don’t get to hear about the immigrant experience. She became desperate to showcase the suffering she saw and put on paper the pain she sometimes saw in her parents’ eyes when she was growing up.

During the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, her father had been a commanding officer and left soon after the signing of the armistice. He was forced to leave as he did not believe it was safe for him and his wife to be in the country. The best bits of this book are the beginning and the end. It starts off with this really fairy-tale like sequence, full of symbolism. It's beautiful, and sad, setting you up to journey through war-torn Cyprus in 1974. Lefteri moves you through the capture of Kyrenia through several viewpoints: Maroulla's childish innocence, Adem Berker's loss and guilt, Richard's longing, Commander Serkan Demir's anger and hatred, Koki's fear. Sometimes it's too much--the core of this story feels like Koki's, the way she's caught between Greeks and Turks, an outcast to both groups as much as she is deeply tied to both. I loved the way Adem's, Richard's and Koki's stories weaved in and out of each other, I didn't care so much about Serkan (Lefteri admitted that he was a rather two-dimensional character without an arc) or what his whole confusing interaction with the baby was about, and whilst I loved the thread of the rose and the petals and the innocent fairy tale of Maroulla that both starts and ends the novel, she wasn't ultimately very important to the story. Whilst she acted as a sort-of impetus for Koki to keep moving, keep trying to survive, I kind of feel that she could have been replaced by anything (or anyone) else.While her parents successfully rebuilt their lives in London, she always felt a sense of something dark in their past. A well-crafted structure and a troubled but engaging narrator power this moving story of Syrian refugees. The war destroys everything they care for and they have to flee. However, Afra has seen so many terrible things that they have to go on a perilous journey through Greece and Turkey to start a new and uncertain life in the United Kingdom. I loved the story in this book and being married to a Cypriot refugee find the story to be close to my heart.