I enjoyed the Beekeeper of Aleppo by this author and was looking forward to this but ended up being a bit disappointed.
This is another standalone from this author and is based in Cyprus, focusing on migrant domestic workers and the difficulties they have. One worker in particular, a young lady called Nisha from Sri Lanka is the main focus of the story. Nisha works as a maid for Petra and her daughter, and is having a secret relationship with Yiannis who lives upstairs. One day Nisha disappears without a trace and the only people who seem to care are Petra and Yiannis. They set out trying to look for her and end up discovering more about her past, and about each other along the way.
I liked how this was separated in to two viewpoints; Petra and Yiannis, as this broke the story up a bit and it was interesting to see how each of them was feeling. I also thought the relationships between the characters were very well written, and loved some of the side characters including the little old lady. The premise of the story was also intriguing and the end was surprising.
However this seemed to drag a bit for me and not much seemed to happen until the very end, which was a twist I wasn’t expecting.
As well as not really connecting with the slow pace, I was not a fan of the descriptions of the hunting of the songbirds, which was often quite graphic and a common theme throughout, but not really linked to the story at all so felt a bit unnecessary to me.
This is another standalone from this author and is based in Cyprus, focusing on migrant domestic workers and the difficulties they have. One worker in particular, a young lady called Nisha from Sri Lanka is the main focus of the story. Nisha works as a maid for Petra and her daughter, and is having a secret relationship with Yiannis who lives upstairs. One day Nisha disappears without a trace and the only people who seem to care are Petra and Yiannis. They set out trying to look for her and end up discovering more about her past, and about each other along the way.
I liked how this was separated in to two viewpoints; Petra and Yiannis, as this broke the story up a bit and it was interesting to see how each of them was feeling. I also thought the relationships between the characters were very well written, and loved some of the side characters including the little old lady. The premise of the story was also intriguing and the end was surprising.
However this seemed to drag a bit for me and not much seemed to happen until the very end, which was a twist I wasn’t expecting.
As well as not really connecting with the slow pace, I was not a fan of the descriptions of the hunting of the songbirds, which was often quite graphic and a common theme throughout, but not really linked to the story at all so felt a bit unnecessary to me.