I was surprised twice when I read The Thread by Victoria Hislop. The first surprise started very early on when I found out in the acknowledgements that Victoria is married to Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and team captain of the TV programme "Have I Got News For You". This might not be the biggest surprise you have ever been presented with, but it just amused me since I've read her first novel The Island seven years ago without knowing.
The second surprise came half-way through the novel. I found out that I loved it, just as much as I loved The Island. I never really buy sappy love stories or even historical novels. However, judging by how much I loved her first book about the Greek/Turkish leper island Spinalonga; I thought this one might disappoint, and how better to find out than to read the book?
Hislop has the ability to drag you into another time and pull you into the characters lives so deeply that you don't notice time is flying by. We start at Thessaloniki, Greece in 1917 and we go through all the tumultuous times of two World Wars and the effects this has on the city and the lives of a handful of people, until we reach 2007. We only stop at this year for a seconds, but it's enough to fully grasp the thread that we've followed in the other 450 pages.
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