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A tree is a memory keeper. Tangled beneath our roots, hidden inside our trunks, are the sinews of history, the ruins of wars nobody came to win the bones of the missing.��

I wouldn’t have heard of this book, if it weren’t for ŷ������ friend, Nilguen and her stunning review which you can find here�� /review/show...

I had felt the same way she did walking into this novel. I wasn’t sure where it was going. It seemed to meander with lots of different characters and discussions with no real direction. Especially since we weren’t even certain who the narrator was taking us on this journey.

But then it wanted us to know we were in Greece. Cyprus. With two teenagers. 1974. Kostas a Greek boy and Defne a Turkish girl. What they are doing is risking seeing each other. Falling in Love. At a place called The Fig Tree.

But that was a violent time. A violent place. And soon it would be clear that whatever was happening would be disastrous for these two, and their destinies will be changed.

Time moves forward. Time moves backward. The chapters are dated, so readers know what time period they are in. There will be other characters introduced. And, the stories told of what happens to all these characters are shaped through time. The grief, the joys, the horrors, the politics of what happened during those tumultuous years.

And eventually we learn who our narrator is who has been taking us on this journey.

There is something magical and sad and surreal between these pages. A bit of history, and passion, and excellent author research provides for a unique story with a very unusual narrator that takes readers on a very different reading experience.

If you can manage to read your way through that slow beginning, readers might find the magical prose enticing enough to find yourself engaged by what this compelling narrator will bring you through these pages.

“If it’s love you’re after, or love you have lost, come to the fig, always the fig.��