Bøger af Suzi Stembridge

The third book in the Quartet GREEK LETTERS. It is set both in Cheshire, just prior to the First World War, the war years and the era between the wars and then in mainland Greece. The story begins with the birth of Helene, who is the great-great-grandchild of Samuel Carr and his third wife Eleni. Family life in the WW1 years is slightly disrupted by the arrival of Phil, a Greek teenager also descended from Samuel Carr. Meeting her distant cousin many years later Helene finds herself sharing adventures in the Pindus mountains of Northern Greece and the Peloponnese. There is an unexpected twist to the end of this story as WW2 begins. The story is a period piece with the childhood scenes garnered from primary sources left to the author by the author's mother.

The seeds from one man's romantic trysts with four different women have germinated. This novel beginning in the 1970s in northern Cyprus, progresses to the 1974 Turkish invasion. The main character is clearly hiding from someone or something. When the Turks overrun the Greek harbour of Kyrenia the British are forced to flee but at the same time Gerald, or is it Stephanos, or even Lawrence uses the opportunity to indulge in an expensive and painful disguise. With scenes in beautiful Cyprus, the English Lake District with mountainous excursions, plus the forbidding setting of a Harley Street surgery, the shocking tube disaster at Moorgate station, the dense woodlands of the Portmeirion estate and nearby seaside Criccieth, the backdrop is as dramatic as the action. Living incognito is never easy and the novel explores the fears of a haunted and hunted man and his naive attempts at disguise. When success seems possible, despite fate intervening during the Moorgate disaster and the dubious motives of those in the medical profession presumably there to help him, his own uncertainties about his sexuality return to overwhelm him. Will the need to acknowledge his male offspring prevail?

Historical fiction set at the time Greece attains its independence, starting in 1829. The location is mainly the Peloponnese area of Greece, Athens and other areas of mainland Greece and the Ionian with a shift to Cheshire, Manchester and Lake District in England. This is book 2 in a series of 8 thrilling tales set over two centuries from the early 19th century up to the present day and as such is a romantic family saga as the characters develop from Samuel Carr, who as a Philhellene arrived in Greece in 1827, and his Greek descendents. Each book is individual and can be read in any order. Scenes in the series are always topical, climate change, emerging cities or modern cities of culture, childbirth out of marriage, LGBT, blackmail and great descriptive writing making the books essential travel or holiday reading.

Written about the 1970s, the Glass Class is set partly in Pennine Yorkshire, North Wales, Athens and finally on the Greek island of Spetses where a group of friends approaching middleage are forced to confront that their mortality. Marriages are fraying, children have become more noticeable and alcohol for some is perhaps consumed more lavishly. When death is introduced into this toxic mix not once, but three times no wonder their cozy life is shattered. The characters, journalists, industrialists, doctors are struggling to keep their day to day life in order. They regularly take their concerns on holiday whether it is walking in Snowdonia or to the apparent safety of a Greek island. Between the scenes of a thriller and crime story is romance and a historical perspective introduced by a family tree. The stories of ancestral lore dating to the Victorian and Edwardian eras and told by their elders as cautionary tales. What none of them can know is that the clue they need to solve far too many deaths within their circle is here in their family tree.