Aphrodite’s Island

by Hilary Green

First published 2014

Amazon

4.2(1,756)

Cyprus, 1955. Seventeen-year-old Ariadne falls in love with British National Serviceman Stephen Allenby while her family supports EOKA’s campaign to end colonial rule and unite the island with Greece. Their relationship is unacceptable to both communities, and Stephen is sent back to England after Ariadne becomes pregnant. Silence, missing letters and political violence shape the separate lives that follow.

Stephen returns to Cyprus with his wife and daughter during the crisis of 1974 and disappears while seeking the truth about Ariadne. In 1998 his adult daughter Cressida travels to northern Cyprus after finding old love letters that challenge everything she believed about her family. The novel connects private inheritance with partition, occupation and unresolved memory across two islands and three generations.