An Island Of Secrets by Eva Glyn ~ Exclusive Guest Post.

I am delighted to be today’s stop on the blog tour for; An Island of Secrets by Eva Glyn, I love the sound of this book and I can’t wait to share it with you all, plus I have a fantastic exclusive author guest post; Five Good Reasons to Write about Croatia.

About the Book

An Island of Secrets

For fans of Dinah Jefferies, Victoria Hislop, Lucinda Riley and Rosanna Ley, this is a stunning and sweeping WW2 novel that shows a side to the war not often seen before.

That was then…

Seventy-five years ago, British SOE spy Guy Barclay was forced to leave behind the woman he loved in war-ravaged Yugoslavia.

…This is now

As ninety-three-year-old Guy’s days draw to a close, he asks his granddaughter, Leo Holmes, to go looking for answers. Given that her marriage has imploded and her City job is on the verge of killing her, Leo agrees and rents a house on the island of Vis, where her grandfather was stationed in the Second World War.

But as Leo’s search takes her down unexpected roads – and into the path of a gorgeous local, Andrej Pintaric – she begins to wonder if this journey down memory lane might yield unexpected results for more than just her beloved grandfather…

Purchase Link – https://mybook.to/AnIslandOfSecrets

Guest Post

FIVE GOOD REASONS TO WRITE ABOUT CROATIA

An Island of Secrets is my second book set in Croatia, and at the moment I am writing a third, so what keeps pulling me back to this fabulous country?

There are so many tales to be told

I stumbled across the story that would turn into The Olive Grove when I was on holiday in Croatia. We were on a cruise between the Dalmatian islands and on a blustery morning our guide, Darko, told us about the war in the 1990s and it turned out to be a very personal account. As a child, he’d grown up in Mostar (in Bosnia, Croatia’s neighbour) in the middle of the fighting and spent years on and off living in an underground shelter. It was a tale I knew I had to share with the world – it just took me a little while to work out how best to do it.
I have a friend to help me

Because of my desire to tell a version of his story, Darko and I stayed in touch and he helped to make sure I not only had the history right, but all the details of everyday life in Croatia too. I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing about a country I’ve never lived in if I wasn’t able to ask him about absolutely everything, because although I have protagonists in my books who are British, there are Croatian main characters too.
Let’s face it; it’s beautiful

Croatia is an incredibly varied and multi-faceted country, but for the moment I have set my books in the region of Dalmatia, which is probably most familiar to international visitors. Here chains of islands snake up the coast from the ancient city of Dubrovnik to Split and beyond. The sea is a very special colour blue, and the Aleppo pines and cypresses give some of the islands dark green cloaks, while others show their colours in the red and golden rocks of their cliffs, or stunning white marble. Add to that olive groves, vineyards, terracotta roofed houses and it’s close to heaven.
There are hidden histories everywhere you go

Before I started to research An Island of Secrets I had no idea the British actually had a base on Yugoslavian soil during the Second World War. I knew they had dropped supplies and agents to the resistance, but I hadn’t realised there was one tiny corner that had never been occupied by the Germans. That corner was Vis, and during 1944 British commandos and Tito’s partisans held it and used it as a base to harry the enemy. All brave fighting men, but with very different views of the world, and this clash of cultures is what feeds my story. Because one day, while walking in the hills, some off duty soldiers came across a partisan execution party, and what they witnessed was truly horrifying.
I have a really good excuse to keep going back there

Yes, really 😉 During lockdown I found myself writing a book set on an island I had never visited but as soon as travel opened up I was able to go, and what a huge difference it made to the book. With an excellent local guide I was even able to visit the site of the British hospital which features heavily in the story and see some of the artefacts left behind. Priceless beyond jewels to a writer.

About the Author

Eva Glyn writes escapist relationship-driven fiction with a kernel of truth at its heart. She loves to travel and finds inspiration in beautiful places and the stories they hide.

Her last holiday before lockdown was a trip to Croatia, and the country’s haunting histories and gorgeous scenery have proved fertile ground, driven by her friendship with a tour guide she met there. His wartime story provided the inspiration for The Olive Grove and his help in creating a realistic portrayal of Croatian life had proved invaluable. Her second novel set in the country, a dual timeline looking back to World War 2, will be published in the spring of 2022, also by One More Chapter.

Eva lives in Cornwall, although she considers herself Welsh, and has been lucky enough to have been married to the love of her life for twenty-five years. She also writes as Jane Cable.