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Headline has announced a new novel from bestselling author Victoria Hislop, Those Who Are Loved.
The book, to be published on 30th May 2019, is set against the backdrop of the German occupation of Greece, its subsequent civil war and military dictatorship.
It centres on Themis who, as a young woman, is driven to fight for the communists due to her fury at Nazi collaborators. She is eventually imprisoned on the notorious islands of exile, Makronisos and Trikeri, and has to make a life or death decision. She is proud of having fought, but for the rest of her life is haunted by some of her actions. Forty years after the end of the civil war, she finally achieves catharsis.
Headline m.d. Mari Evans said: “Victoria’s novels are unique in the market – they explore Europe through a prism that has never seemed more timely as they reveal the darker lessons of history, but always wrapped up in compelling tales of humanity and compassion. These bestsellers capture the imagination and live long in the memory, fast becoming modern classics.”
Hislop said: “Those Who Are Loved has been germinating for a decade now, from the moment I first saw the island of Makronisos from the Greek mainland. I was told it was uninhabited, but had been a prison camp for communists. The discovery compelled me to read about the Greek civil war (in which many women played a role), but of course it also meant researching the events that led to that conflict as well as the long-term after-effects that are still seen in Greece even today. Everyone knows how much I love Greece, but exploring this story has taken me to some new and disquieting places.”
Hislop was previously inspired by a visit to Greece when she wrote hit 2005 novel The Island, which sold 5 million copies, including 1.23 million in the UK. In total she has sold 3.016 million books in the UK for £18.8m.