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Fourteen-year-old Andrew discovers his mother's hidden diary at his grandmother's home during a Christmas gathering. His eyes are opened to a family secret when he reads about her time as a nurse in Salonika during the First World War, and the tragic love affair she had with his father, a Greek Officer who died in battle. Four years later, Andrew is impelled to visit his father's land and trace his roots. What - and who - he finds there will change his life forever.
The Long Shadow is filled with descriptions of Greece and its people. Dramatic images of battle and the terrible conditions endured by the Allied Armies entrenched around Salonika in the “Birdcage” are authentic and vivid. Greek music and dance play a vital role, reconciling in Andrew the dichotomy of belonging to two very different cultures and helping him to unite them in his heart and soul.
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Beacon Books, Worcester Rd. Malvern UK
Goldsboro Books Cecil Court, London UK
This must be it. This must have been what he saw glint in his mother’s hand when he was a small child. This then was the key to Pandora’s box.
He now turned the lock of the wooden box and opened it. Inside he saw two books, a red one and a black one. These looked like diaries. Opening the first page of the red one, which lay on top, he saw the date January 1916. He knew then that this was what he had been looking for.
Beneath the diaries were several photos, yellowing slightly and curling at the edges. Then he found a Christmas Day menu with various pencilled signatures all over it, dated December 25th 1916. There was also a thick yellow-gold wedding ring. He took out the photos and found several of his mother, dressed in the long skirts which now seemed so old-fashioned, a long white apron over the dress with a Red Cross on the bib, white tents behind her, bleak hills in the background. In some pictures she was with other nurses, in others by herself, looking so young, gentle and dignified, with that sweet smile on her face. Another was with Ethan in what looked like an operating theatre. In many of these pictures was a pretty blonde nurse, arm affectionately linked with his mother’s, whom he now recognised as the mysterious May whose photo was on the washstand.
At the very bottom was another picture; a man in full military uniform, his peaked and braided cap shading his eyes a little. Andrew took it out with trembling hands. A lean, hawk-like face looked back at him. They were not kindly features but full of stern character. The likeness to himself took his breath away.
For the first time in his fourteen years, Andrew looked upon his father’s face.
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