The Girl Under the Olive Tree

Back in 1941 the Greek island of Crete is captured by the Germans and the lives of two very different women are changed forever... Sixty years after the invasion of Crete, Lois West and her young son, Alex, invite feisty Great Aunt Pen to a special eighty-fifth birthday celebration on the island, knowing she has not been back there since the war. Penelope George—formerly Giorgidiou—is reluctant to go but it is time for her to return and make the journey she never thought she’d make. On the outward voyage from Athens, she relives her experiences in the city from her early years as a trainee nurse tending the wounded and dying, one of the few foreign nurses left on the battlefield. When word spreads of her visit, and old Cretan friends and family come to greet her, Lois and Alex are caught up in Penelope’s epic pilgrimage and the journey that leads her to a reunion with the friend she thought she had lost forever—and the truth behind a secret buried deep in the past.