The Sunrise - Victoria Hislop

The Sunrise is the first book I have read by Victoria Hislop so I didn't know what to expect from her. I got this book as a present from my parents few years ago and if it wasn't for them I don't think I would have had bought this for myself. The blurb sounds great, but not really my kind of book. After diving into it, I got surprised. I actually liked it! I think want to check out more of her books tbh :)

The Blurb:
Cyprus, 1972.
Famagusta is the Mediterranean's most desirable resort, a city bathed in the glow of good fortune. An ambitious couple open the island's most spectacular hotel, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots work in harmony.

Two neighbouring families, the Georgious and the Özkans, are among many who moved to Famagusta to escape years of unrest and ethnic violence elsewhere on the island. But beneath the city's façade of glamour and success, tensions is building.

When a Greek coup plunges the island into chaos, Cyprus faces a disastrous conflict. Turkey invades to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority, and Famagusta is shelled. Forty thousand people seize their most precious possessions and flee from the advancing soldiers.

In the deserted city, just two families remain.
This is their story.

My Thoughts:
I started writing this review early December last year and I think it's time to maybe finish it? Yup..

I don't remember much since I finished reading it over a month ago so this might be a short review. My apologies.

When I jumped into this book I immediately found out that this was not my type of book. Not much happened and it was all about this hotel called The Sunrise and all that rich interior that was in it and in the end I was like: yeah.. I get that now.. it's a wonderful (and really expensive) hotel! And the characters... I like books with main characters from the start, but this one started with how glorious this hotel was and didn't really know who the characters were. But! After some chapters, when things actually started to happen and the characters became more "present", I actually started to enjoy this book very much. There was lots of drama, tragedies, loss, betrayal.. you name it. Talking about the lack of characters in the beginning, there turned out to be a quite few of those after a few chapters, so you had to remember which character belonged to whom. It got bit confusing, but still managed somehow to connect them to "their right family" 😛

After Turkey invades Famagusta, two families decides to stay behind because of their sons who's been gone/missing right before the whole invading started. It's not only those to families you get to read about. There's also a couple - the couple who owns The Sunrise - that is a part of this story as well. Their escape from Famagusta and how they survive the travel and stuff. Not going to reveal to much! It was a thrill read (in the end) and you do get a little bit attached to some of the characters.

All in all, I'm glad that I didn't give up reading The Sunrise to be honest. Because it was so, so much better than I thought it would be.

And that's it. That's the only things I remember at the moment.

Bye!

3/5

The Secret Keeper - Kate Morton

The Secret Keeper is the second book I've ever read by Kate Morton. I read The House At Riverton a while back ago and feel completely in love with that book. I'm glad my grandmother told me that I should read this right away. If she hadn't borrowed it from me few month ago, then it might have taken some time before I would pick it up (got lots of other books to read so..). But here we are and I was not disappointed at all!

The Blurb:
1961: On a sweltering summer's day, while her family picnics by the stream on their Suffolk farm, sixteen-year-old Laurel hides out in her childhood tree house dreaming of the bright future she can't wait to seize. But before the idyllic afternoon is over, Laurel will have witnessed a shocking crime that changes everything.

2011: Now a much-loved actress, Laurel finds herself overwhelmed by shades of the past. Haunted by memories, and the mystery of what she saw that day, she returns to her family home and begins to piece together a secret history: a tale of three strangers from vastly different world - Dorothy, Vivien and Jimmy - who are brought together by chance in wartime London and whose lives become fiercely and fatefully entwined.

Shifting between the 1930s, the 1960s and the present, The Secret Keeper is a spellbinding story of mysteries and secrets, murder and enduring love.

My Thoughts:
One thing..: How am I going to review this without any spoilers?! This is not going to be easy, mind you but I will try my very best to not spoil anything important!

Ok, first of all, what a book! After finishing the first chapter, I was hooked! Unfortunately my eyes thought otherwise.. which was frustrating. The reason why it took me so, so long to finish this book was because my eyes got tired pretty much in the middle of every single chapters. No matter how thrilling that chapter was, my eyes could barely keep themselves up. Argh! Maybe because the text was small or something.. I don't know.

Despite my tired eyes, I loved this book as much as I loved The House at Riverton. It was suspenseful, thrilling and all in all a great book to curl up with on a rainy day (or weeks in my case).

The characters had their own personalities and you felt like you got to know them well. The shifting from past and present, and between the characters was well written and didn't feel "messy". I liked the way the stories from the past kind of blended with the things Laurel found in present time. I didn't have to wait long for the meaning behind those findings and it still made me wanting to find out more about the life of her mother and also the other people that was part of her life one way or another.

And that ending. That was a huge twist right there! I literally had tears in my eyes reading the last page. I really, really want to spoil it all but I won't do it. You just have to read it yourself!

That's all I'm going to say. If you want to know more then.. well.. read it! (You can also ask me or look up more reviews online :P )

Bye! xx

5/5

Next book to read: On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher

Edge of Eternity - Ken Follett

And here (at last) is my thoughts about the book that took me over 2 month to finish!

Edge of Eternity is the last book in the The century trilogy by Ken Follett. In this last book, you will read about the Berlin Wall, Civil Rights movement and more. If you haven't read any of them, then you should!

The blurb:

As the decisions made in the corridors of power bring the world to the brink of oblivion, five families from across the globe are brought together in an unforgettable tale of passion and conflict during the Cold War.

When Rebecca Hoffmann, a teacher in East Germany, finds herself pursued by the secret police, she discovers that she has been living a lie. Her younger brother, Walli, longs to escape across the Berlin Wall to Britain to become part of the burgeoning music scene.

In the United States, George Jakes, a bright young lawyer in the Kennedy administration, is fierce supporter of the Civil Rights movement - as is the woman he is in love with, Verena, who works for Martin Luther King, Jr. Boarding a Greyhound bus to Washington to protest against segregation, they begin a fateful journey together.

Russian activist, Tania Dworkin, narrowly evades capture for producing an illegal news sheet. Her actions are made all the more perilous as her brother, Dimka, is a rising star in the heart of the Communist Party in the Kremlin.

From the deep south of America to the vast expanses of Siberia, and from the shores of Cuba to the swinging streets of sixties London, Edge of Eternity is a sweeping tale of the fight for individual freedom in a world gripped by the mightiest clash of superpowers anyone has ever known.

My Thoughts:

After using over 2 month to read this book, I'm actually a bit sad to leave this story. I gotten to know many characters and followed the five families through their ups and downs. 3 books and so many people I've read about and gotten to know and now it's over.

The characters in this book are the children of the ones from the last book. I have to admit that I got confused now and then, like the last time, over which belonged to whom. But in the end, I managed to keep up. Anyway. Edge of Eternity was different from the others and people have said that it's not as good as the other two. In my opinion, I actually liked this one as well as the others, but in a different way and was also nice reading about the old characters and what had happened to them. It was also sad to read about their death after "knowing" them since the first book.

In this book you get to feel what it was like to live through the Civil Rights movement, going through different presidents and the Berlin Wall where one of the families children in East Germany escapes over to West Germany for a better life. The things the characters went through for their countries and all the dangers they got themselves into to make things possible and right. Some of it was heartbreaking other triumphant. And I felt with every single one of the people and I did have tears in my eyes more than once. Even at the end of this book! I smiled, got annoyed, scared for their life, sad... just a lot of emotion from the beginning to the end. And that's all I have to say about that! *Forrest Gump voice*

I did learn some things from this trilogy. Though, most of it is fiction, there's real historical things in there that actually happened and, to be honest, I feel like I've learned more about the history of reading this trilogy than in history class!

5/5

Winter of the World - Ken Follett

The second book in The Century trilogy by Ken Follett. This time the story is set to the time around WWII. If you haven't read the first one then you should!

Finally finished this last night..It took me over a month to finish it, but now I'm done and can start on the last book! But first: My thoughts!

The Blurb:
Five interlinked families live out their destinies as the world is shaken by tyranny and war in the mid-twentieth century.

Berlin in 1933 is in upheaval. Eleven-year-old Clara von Ulrich struggles to understand the tension disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany. Many are resolved to oppose Hitler's brutal regime - but are they willing to go so far as to betray their country? Such people are closely watched by Volodya, a Russian with a bright future in Red Army Intelligence.

At Cambridge, Lloyd Williams is irresistibly drawn to dazzling American socialite Daisy Peshkov, who represents everything his left-wing family despise. But Daisy is more interested in aristocratic Boy Fitzherbert - amateur pilot, party lover and leading light of the British Union of Fascists.

In this spellbinding epic, the international clash of military power and personal beliefs will sweep over the world, from Cable Street in London's East End to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, from Spain to Stalingrad, from Dresden to Hiroshima.

My Thoughts:
I enjoyed this book as much I enjoyed the first one! The main characters in this book are the children of the ones that was in Fall of Giants. It was a bit weird reading about their kids and not the people I got to know in the last book, but they were still there in the background so it was ok :P I also have to admit that it took me some time to know which kid belonged to whom, but in the end I started to remember. Apart from the confusions about the new characters, I thought it was as exciting and as thrilling as the other. The main characters get in a lot of danger in this book too and you just sit there and hoping that everything will be alright and that they will survive.

During this book I had tears in my eyes, I was worried about the characters, and I smiled when something bad happened to an annoying person and/or when something good happened to the characters.


5/5

Fall of Giants - Ken Follett

This is the first book in the The Century trilogy by Ken Follett. This is also the first book I've read by him. This trilogy is set through the early 1900's right before WWI and the second book that I'm currently reading is set to few years after the WWI ended and right before (and during) WWII. (Not sure about the last book yet since I'm not finish with the second one.)


The Blurb:
Five families are brought together through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the struggle for votes for women.

It is 1911, and the coronation day of King George V. Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams begins his first day at work in a coal mine.

The Williams family is connected by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of Gus Dewar, ambitious young aide to U.S President Woodrow Wilson. Two orphaned Russian brothers soon become involved, but Grigori and Lev Peshkov's plan to emigrate to America falls foul of war, conscription and revolution.

Fall of Giants combines richly developed historical detail with fast-moving action and powerful emotion to deliver this absorbing narrative.

My Thoughts:
For someone who had enough of the whole WWI and WWII history in class I really enjoyed this book! My dad recommended this for me and after I downloaded the preview to my iPad to check it out, I got hooked from the first page. He had already told me a little about this book so I knew there were five different families and they all got connected somehow. I wasn't really sure if I would like this book since it's about the war and it's not something I would have bought right away if it wasn't for him. But here I am..already reading the second book and can barely put it down so yeah..

Anyways, this book is really good and it's an amazing story about five families in different countries who somehow get connected one way or another. I have smiled and also had tears in my eyes few times during this book and am so glad that my dad convinced me to read this. I regret nothing!

5/5