It’s such a pleasure today to be joining the blog tour for the latest book from Eva Glyn, The Collaborator’s Daughter, and to share my review. Published as an ebook by One More Chapter on 1st April, it’s now available for kindle and on all other major ebook platforms, with the paperback to follow on 25th May (available to pre-order from your favourite local bookshop or through a range of other retailers). My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the invitation and support, and to the publishers for my reading e-copy (provided via netgalley).
Just this once, I won’t run through the author’s entire back catalogue – I expect you’ll already know that Eva Glyn is the alter ego of Jane Cable, whose books I’ve always enjoyed so much (and you’ll find my reviews if you pop her name into the search bar on the right hand side of the page). But I’ve equally enjoyed the “escapist relationship-driven fiction” that Eva writes with One More Chapter, the most recent books being set in the former Yugoslavia. The Olive Grove was totally captivating – emotionally complex and a wonderful story, set on the Croatian island of Korčula and bringing the setting vividly to life, delving into the region’s troubled recent history (you’ll find my review here). And she took us to Croatia once more with An Island of Secrets – with some quite exceptional storytelling, backed up by clear and extensive research into both the setting and the complicated wartime history, present day and historical threads so perfectly balanced and equally engaging (you’ll find my review here). And she’s taking us back there for her latest, with the promise of a more mature lead character in the contemporary thread – and I was really looking forward to this one…
US cover
In 1944 in war-torn Dubrovnik Branko Milisic holds his newborn daughter Safranka and wishes her a better future. But while the Nazis are finally retreating, the arrival of the partisans brings new dangers for Branko, his wife Dragica and their baby…
As older sister to two half-siblings, Fran has always known she has to fit in. But now, at sixty-five years old and finally free of caring responsibilities, for the first time in her life Fran is facing questions about who she is and where she comes from.
All Fran knows about her real father is that he was a hero, and her mother had to flee Dubrovnik after the war. But when she travels to the city of her birth to uncover the truth, she is devastated to discover her father was executed by the partisans in 1944, accused of being a collaborator. But the past isn’t always what it seems…
And neither is the future.
From its opening pages – 1944, and a moment of reflection in a Dubrovnik on the verge of liberation as a man ponders what the future might hold for his baby daughter Safranka – I knew this was a book I was going to love.
It becomes Fran’s story – 2009, now sixty-five, with her caring responsibilities now ended with the death of her stepfather. Aware that her mother fled from Dubrovnik after the war, her thoughts turn to finding out more about her birth father – her mother had always told her he had a hero’s death, but finding his name among a list of Nazi collaborators massacred by partisans on the island of Daksa she decides to use some of her inheritance to try and uncover the secrets of her past. She rents a small apartment for her stay, makes a friend at the local cafe – and he introduces her to his uncle Jadran, the only person willing to take her to the island where her father died. As she continues her quest to uncover the full story, they become close friends – and she learns more about the sadness in his own past, the heartbreaking consequence of a far more recent Balkan conflict.
The full story of her father’s experience slowly emerges – as she follows the clues she discovers, and through glimpses into his difficult life that become part of the story. There’s an immense sadness and inevitability about the outcome – and the insights into the complicated situation following the liberation of Dubrovnik are just superbly handled, a compelling story, that illusion of a new safety and peace sadly shattered. The sheer injustice of his ultimate fate is just so desperately sad – but the book as a whole is filled with hope, as Fran slowly becomes able to put the past to rest and move forward with her future.
It’s not so unusual these days to find an older character as the focus of a story – but I found Fran particularly easy to identify with, her uncertainties, her many insecurities, her initial worries as she embarked on her journey. There’s a nice focus on her friendship with the considerably more confident Parisa – with some nice touches of humour along the way – and the complications and joy of family, with her difficult brushes with her resentful stepsister but the warmth of her relationship with her stepbrother and her son and his family, who she misses greatly while in Dubrovnik. Her friendship with Jadran slowly develops into something rather more too – a romance, tentative at first, and particularly sensitively handled given the damage from his own losses and the emotional impact of Fran’s discoveries – and that was an element of the story that I very much enjoyed.
But I have to say that it was the unfolding wartime story that had the most powerful impact – the bravery of the individuals, the hardship and dogged endurance, their belief in doing what was right despite the personal cost, a family torn apart, the unexpected and fascinating Jewish connection. And then there were those parallels with the more recent conflict – and that strong message around the importance of not judging individuals by their ethnicity, but by who they are. And I really must just touch on the story’s vivid and wonderfully researched setting – both present day and wartime, it’s quite perfectly drawn, transporting you to Dubrovnik, into the heart of the community, and to the remote islands where the full story slowly emerges.
There are times when a review just can’t do full justice to a story – and I feel I’ve barely scraped the surface of this one, which I found immensely emotionally engaging and a searing picture of the impact of conflict upon its survivors. Unforgettable – and very highly recommended.
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 has proved invaluable. Her second novel set in the country, An Island of Secrets is a dual timeline looking back to World War 2, and although a contemporary romance featuring mature main characters her third, The Collaborator’s Daughter, has its roots in that conflict too.
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 more than twenty-five years. She also writes as Jane Cable.
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