Reviews
Reviews of The Embroiderer
By David Ebsworth
This is Kathryn Gauci’s début novel – but I would never have known that from the writing and telling of her tale. It occurred to me, instead, that if Tolstoy had been able to produce a historical fiction based on the complex relationships between Greeks and Turks during the final days of the Ottoman Empire, it would have very much resembled The Embroiderer. [read more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]The action moves smoothly between carefully woven images of Chios, Constantinople, Smyrna and Athens; from the ravages of the Greek War of Independence, through the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, the formation of the Greek and Turkish Republics, and the German occupation of Greece during the Second World War; through a very rich tapestry of births, marriages and deaths for the main female protagonists – Dimitra Lamartine, her grand-daughter, Sophia, and Eleni Stephenson, with whom the story starts and ends; across some of the most fascinating incidents of action and intrigue that I’ve read for a long time; and all set against the beautiful colours with which Kathryn herself embroiders the world of exotic textiles.
I enjoyed the book very much, and I know that it will appeal to a very wide audience. Hopefully, Kathryn Gauci will gain the recognition she richly deserves for this excellent story and will go on to tell many more.[/read]
By Eleanor Parker Sapia
Gauci’s ‘The Embroiderer’ is an amazing debut novel about love, loss, and women’s courage in the face of adversity in exotic lands. Meticulously researched and a joy to read, this book will appeal to historical fiction lovers who are looking for something a little different. Wonderful book. I highly recommend ‘The Embroiderer’.
By The Just-About-Average Ms. M (North Florida)
I adore sagas, big, fat epic stories covering generations of family members across a nice chunk of geography. Even better when said saga is a single book, hefty in your hands, weighty with promises made and promises delivered, without the jolt of a cliffhanger ending requiring me to wait—and purchase—the next installment. Instant gratification, please, and a lot of it. Alas, these wonderful sagas are thin on the ground.[read more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]But wait… look what I found, purely by a fortuitous happenstance: a marvelous tapestry [no pun intended, well, maybe] of the eastern Mediterranean world beginning with the Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire, an event overly romanticized by the 19th century Romantics Byron and Delacroix, through the fall of the Ottomans, not with a bang but a whimper, and then the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II. The history forms the warp and weft of this tapestry, but it never rises above its supporting role, nor does it tap the reader on the shoulder and say, “Look how much about X you’re learning!” The true beauty of this novel arises from the varied silken threads woven over and under and through the weft of history, some of those threads shining with hope, beauty, and the rosemary-scented days when there is peace, while others are stained through with blood, pain, and loss, stretched until they snap…almost. The analogy of threads also extends to the tethers linking the three main protagonists through their turbulent histories, together with the complex, colorful embroideries they created in fact or by analogy—these ladies are far beyond the counted cross stitch fad of the 1980s.
The novel almost generates sensory overload—strong, evocative appeals to smell, touch, sound, and feeling, too often ignored, unfortunately. In the author’s skillful hands, these sensory treats are as much a part of the story as the words you read. In other words, there is a veritable wealth of Byzantine bits to savor along the way, so don’t overlook them.
I found the juxtaposition of Dimitra Laskaris’s delicate crystal saucer and embroidered napkin and the old seer’s dire prophecy as the Ottoman Empire was ending to be particularly illustrative of the tension throughout the book—for nearly each interlude of peace and beauty there is one or more of death and destruction, of horror and loss. Still, the women and their embroideries, stitched for themselves and for countless unfortunate, destitute women in the empire and beyond, survive, as sharp and shining as their needles. Make no mistake—Dimitra, her granddaughter Sophia, and Sophia’s granddaughter Eleni are not one-dimensional “strong, feisty heroines” of many forgettable historical novels. These women show from the massacre on Chios through the end of WWII in Greece that they are not too much apart from us, or as we might have been in similar circumstances. Not a Mary Sue in the crowd!
I rarely extol a historical novel because I can always find some inaccuracies to carp about, more than a baker’s dozen of pesky anachronisms, and all too often pedestrian writing. It’s much easier to write a critical review than a glowing one. However, folks, here is my genuine effort to praise a novel I loved, and one I’d encourage anyone to read at the first opportunity.[/read]
By Alan Hamilton
This is the first self-(indie) published book I have reviewed on my web site. When I looked at and opened the book, my reaction was ‘It’s a saga. Not the kind of book I normally read’. What a lesson I had. The adage, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, in my case is replaced by, ‘don’t judge a book by its blurb or its publicity’.
As I read it, it did everything the best novels should do.[read more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]Even though the story spreads across much of the nineteenth and three-quarters of the twentieth centuries, the pace does not flag, you keep turning the pages, you’re not inclined to skip whole passages; the excitement and tension of the plot is transmitted through the characters directly to the reader. The characterisation, and this is an enormous cast, is excellent and the reader is drawn to care what happens to each of them. Any student of Mediterranean history will be fully aware that if the sea itself does not have tides, the flow of people and the movement of ideas in the area has been truly tidal, and will appreciate the profound fears and unease that have always underlain relations between the Hellenic west and Ottoman east – still present today in Cyprus. The reader is made conscious of what happens as empires crumble: how the hatreds, which are largely subsumed in a working multicultural empire, rise to engulf both those who know their world is collapsing and those who see the chance to throw off the rule of the empire. The description of the sack of Smyrna (Izmir) is a work of art of its own. All of these tensions and tragedies are superbly portrayed in this book and the scope and the timescale are handled with great skill.
The novel teaches without being didactic. Almost all readers will have little familiarity with Greco-Turkish cultures, so there’s much to learn. What people ate and drank, how they slept, worked, communicated, loved and lived within the framework of two religions, fundamentally different in philosophy, yet joined at the hip. All of this the author encourages us to appreciate in the course of the storytelling, I even felt I was there taking part in it all.
For me the hallmark of literature is when it fully engages my emotions. The author successfully draws out our pity for the tragedies, public and personal, she presents us with, and at the novel’s ending imbues us with such feelings of warmth and closeness to the remaining actors that it doesn’t seem at all improper to have tears at the back of one’s eyes.
The production values of this book from cover to cover match the beauty of the story and the way it is written. It is a flagship for self-publishing and sometime soon literary agents and publishers are going to rue missing this particular bus.[/read]
By Jenny Greenwell
Loved this book from start to finish. This book has it all mystery, romance, history and intrigue. It is a must read for even the novice reader, very easily explained. I just loved the plot and the wonderful characters portrayed throughout the book.
By Richard Vella
This is a fantastic and gripping read. I thoroughly enjoyed its plot and characters, all of whom are set against the backdrop of Ottoman society and Orthodox Greeks in the 19th and early 20th Century history. The detail to history, culture and artefacts is excellent. A great read.
By Leonie Coleman
Kathryn Gauci is a naturally gifted author. Her first book is a gripping story set amongst the struggles and bitter wars between Greece and Turkey over a long period of time and the families involved – from 1822 to well beyond 1919. Her vivid characters leap from the pages of expertly researched history and are beautifully intermingled throughout the entire book. It left me with a sense of satisfaction and did nothing but impress. I have no hesitation in recommending this enjoyable book.
