Fancy a holiday in Cyprus? A holiday in the imagination which does not involve that early morning trip to the airport or any of the disagreeable hassle of travel? Take flight instead with the latest novel by Irish writer Lucinda Riley (http://www.lucindariley.com/home/4591002983). The Olive Tree will transport you to the Eastern Mediterranean from your armchair in Clydesdale. The summary is as follows. It has been twenty-four years since 39-year-old former dancer Helena Cooke spent a magical holiday at Pandora, her godfather’s beautiful home near Kathikas in Cyprus. It was there that she fell in love for the first time. Now she is back for the summer, with family and friends in tow, after inheriting the empty, crumbling house. Despite her hopes that the holiday will be perfect, Helena has a strange feeling of impending doom as if opening up Pandora (!??) again will also yield the mythological box of ills and evils. What the others don’t know is that the idyllic beauty of the house masks a web of secrets and there is a risk that here in Cyprus the truth will out. Helena has never revealed to her reliable, loving husband William – father of her two youngest children – or Alex, her precociously clever 13-year-old son from a previous relationship, just who is Alex’s father. That revelation would destroy everything for the family. This novel is very much in the ‘secrets and lies’ vein of fiction which has become popular of late. I can feel the dusty heat and sea breezes of Cyprus already.
Enquire at your local library or consult https://www.amazon.co.uk/Olive-Tree-Lucinda-Riley/dp/1509832475/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470894875&sr=8-1&keywords=olive+tree+riley for bibliographic detail.
512 pages in Macmillan
First published 2016
ISBN 978-1509832477
Lucinda Riley