The Thread

By: Victoria Hislop

Narrated by: Sandra Duncan

Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Dimitri Komninos is born as fire devastates Thessaloniki, where Christians, Jews and Muslims live side by side. Five years later, Katerina Sarafoglou loses her mother when their home is destroyed by the Turkish army. She flees across the sea, alone, to Thessaloniki. When she and Dimitri meet, their lives entwine with one another - and the city itself - even as war, fear and persecution divide its people.

Ninety years later, a young Anglo-Greek hears his grandparents' life story for the first time. Should he become the custodian of their legacy and make this city his home, keeping alive the memories of those who were forced to leave?

Discover for yourself why 10 million readers and critics worldwide love Victoria Hislop's books . . .

'A sweeping, magnificently detailed and ambitious saga' The Sunday Times

'Hislop does her research and is very good at interweaving the lives of individuals into the backcloth of great events, giving the reader a history lesson that doesn't feel like one ' Daily Mail

'Hislop's fast-paced narrative and utterly convincing sense of place make her novel a rare treat' Guardian

'This is storytelling at its best and just like a tapestry, when each thread is sewn into place, so emerge the layers and history of relationships past and present' Sunday Express

'Meticulously researched and compellingly told' Woman & Home

'Oh what a tangled web she weaves! Hislop has done well to tell a story as diverse and tempestuous as Thessaloniki's with such lightness of touch' Spectator

*Victoria Hislop's most recent novel, THE FIGURINE, is out now.*

©2011 Victoria Hislop (P)2011 Headline Digital

A Powerful story

The characters in this story grow up, grow old, grow stronger or weaker against the backdrop of Greece. As I am not overly familiar with this nation's history, I was thrilled that Victoria Hislop chose to tell the story in this way.

What I liked: This story is a story about people. People putting on masks, taking them off, loving, hating, adopting, creating families, letting go. Characters make choices, good and bad, based on the information they had and who they were. Hoslop's choice of Greece, with it's political turmoil, was a wise one. The city of Thesalonica became a character of its own.

What I didn't like: There are a few too many contrivances... nothing glaring, but enough to make me stap back, raise my eyebrows and keep going. I also found the character of Constantinos as too driven and diabolical to be believable. Also, occasionally the narrator would put on this over-dramatic school-teacher voice that drove me crazy! Thankfully, this was rare, but something to be aware of.

Something I wish had been done differently: The blurb on this book talks about the grandson of the main characters deciding whether or not to make Greece his home. This took up so little of the book that they should've just left it alone. It deserved more than the epilogue it received, especially since I was expecting a double-storyline as in Hislop's novel "The Return."

Overall, this book was well worth my time and credit.

Really liked it!

If you could sum up The Thread in three words, what would they be?

Historical, romantic, well-told

What did you like best about this story?

That it was a historical novel and that it was set in a city I knew nothing about. The city itself almost became a character in the book. I also loved the characters in the book and the descripitions of their relatinships to each other.

Have you listened to any of Sandra Duncan’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to any of her other performance's, but I liked her as a narrator in this book.

Who was the most memorable character of The Thread and why?

Katerina, because of her importance in the story. But a lot of the other characters were also good. I especially liked Katerina's foster mother.

Disappointing

Being a Greek/American gal and having read the Island and the Return, I was expecting a beautiful story of pain, struggles, longing, life, love... but mostly around historical events. I might now be a historian, however the account of the history between Turks and Greeks in Smyrna is grossly inaccurate. Perhaps using historical notes and books written by Greeks also may help the author with a better overall picture of truest took place. And also to know where to lay faults.
Like I said, I am not a historian but maybe get the stories of those who lost their lives, their families, their homes... to the Turkish barbarians who slaughtered Greek, Assyrian, Pontian and Armenian women; took young Greek boys from their homes and converted them to Turkish soldiers so they can slaughter their own. Burned churches and killed priests that would nurture and teach the Greek languages, couture, religion and ethics in hiding.

Like I said I am not a historian, but this story of a young Greek girl from Smyrna and the stories of those around her was more an account of the atrocities to the Jews than to what happened to Greeks from the fires of Smyrna to the end of WW2. I have nothing against the Jews but that was the story I thought I was going to come into when I picked up this book.
Disappointed that the research done on this book was one sided and inaccurate.
What happened in MicrAsia was the genocide of Christians- all Christians.

I am not taken lightly what happened to the Jews by the Germans, but that is the the story I was expecting this book would focus on primarily.