Beyond the Olive Grove by Kate Hewitt

 

Setting

In 1941, Greece was invaded by the Nazis. It was divided and occupied by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. In 1942, the resistance movement began and grew stronger over the years. Battle of Gorgopotamos or Operation Harling was a World War II mission in which the Gorgopotamos viaduct was blown up with the help of Greek Resistance groups. This was done to sabotage the flow of supplies to germans through Greece. 

Storyline

After losing her daughter in a stillbirth, Ava was consumed by grief. In such times, her husband - Simon was unable to give her the much needed emotional support. Soon her marriage began to fall apart. She decided to move to a house in a tiny village called Iousidous in Greece. The house had been uninhabited since Second World War, belonged to her grandmother and bequeathed to her. Ava had gone there to find answers for herself. Instead, she got sucked in the mysterious past of her stern grandmother. In 1942, during the German occupation of Greece, Sophia Paranoussis, a hardworking young girl in Greece believed that keeping her head down would keep her family safe. She never viewed herself as brave and heroic. But one encounter with a stranger turns her life around and she became part of the resistance movement, albeit a reluctant one. 

My Thoughts

Beyond the Olive Grove is my second book by Kate Hewitt. But this one did not match up to the high standards set by The Edelweiss Sisters. As is the case, with most of the split timeline books, one tends to get more invested in one time period than the other. For me, it is usually the past that holds the charm. But here, the present timeline drew me in. I was curious to know, how Ava was going to dig into her grandmother's history when no one was willing to talk about that period. I enjoyed the character arc of Ava from a grieving mother to a woman handling her pain in a dignified way once things got back into perspective. People may have different ways of dealing with pain. That does not make our sorrows greater than theirs. Neither does it make them insensitive. I was unaware of the resistance movement in Greece during World War II. Learning about the blowing up of the Gorgopotamos viaduct was interesting.