Product Description

Beneath the majestic towers of the Alhambra, Granada’s cobbled streets resonate with music and secrets. Sonia Cameron knows nothing of the city’s shocking past; she is here to dance. But in a quiet café, a chance conversation and an intriguing collection of old photographs draw her into the extraordinary tale of Spain’s devastating civil war.

Seventy years earlier, the café is home to the close-knit Ramírez family. In 1936, an army coup led by Franco shatters the country’s fragile peace, and in the heart of Granada the family witnesses the worst atrocities of conflict. Divided by politics and tragedy, everyone must take a side, fighting a personal battle as Spain rips itself apart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #930 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

The Times
The Return, 'may be a beach book, but it goes inland and rummages around the cellars'

Review

'The Return may be a beach book, but it goes inland and rummages around in the cellars'

'Brings dignity and tenderness to her novel'

'At last - a beach book with a heart'

About the Author
Victoria Hislop is a writer and journalist. She writes travel features for the Sunday Telegraph, the Mail on Sunday and Woman & Home. Victoria lives in Kent with her husband, Ian Hislop, and their two children.

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable, intriguing and interesting
I was eagerly looking forward to this book, and, unlike other readers, was not disappointed at all.

The book is based around the Spanish Civil War, and is incredibly well researched. The 'flashback' sections are very revealing, and echo many of the facts that i have read before about this incredibly traumatic time - whatever side of the war you were on. These fit fairly comfortably with the 'modern day' events, which come together to help us to further understand the traumas inflicted by a civil war. (One only has to hear Michael Portillo or any other Spanish family on the subject to know how families were affected)

One or two events in the story are a little 'contrived', and the final twists are anticipated by all but the main characters, which has reduced it to a 4 star book in my opinion; however, I still feel it to be a good read and worthy of the wait.

Strange hybrid of hen-lit and harrowing war narratives
The first 150-pages of this novel are fairly mundane chick-lit - or rather hen-lit -stuff; in 2001 two female friends, Sonia and Maggie, approaching middle age, go off to Granada for a dance course.

The descriptions of the dance classes and the routines they have to follow are interesting at first but for me they soon begun to pall. Maggie finds a Spanish lover and Sonia makes friends with an elderly waiter who starts to tell her about the Spanish Civil War and its effect on people he knew.

When we switch to the waiter's narration the tone darkens. Many of the scenes described during the war are harrowing and I can understand why someone who bought this book as a light beach read might be disappointed with it.

Victoria Hislop has researched the subject and is able to describe situations vividly. I found this war section of the book, if not exactly enjoyable, informative; for example, I was shocked at the treatment Spanish refugees received when they fled to France.

Where I felt the book went wrong was having this framework of starting the book in the 21st Century, going back to the period of the Spanish Civil War, and then returning to Sonia in an attempt to tie the two stories together. The link between Sonia and the waiter's war narrative - which I won't reveal - is contrived and failed to suspend disbelief. I feel it would have been far better to have set the novel entirely around the period of the Civil War and its immediate aftermath.

Why would Victoria do this again?.....
Take a perfectly good historically based story and make it into an unconvincing flashback?
I loved "The Island" but it stood on its own as a story about Spinalonga and did not need the link to the modern day bad relationship and family secret. In the same way this wonderful saga of the Spanish civil war does not need to be encompassed in a modern day scenario of "unhappy London girl seeks solace in salsa". In fact, it spoils it. How likely is it that the unhappy London girl would visit Granada and unknowingly go into the very bar which was the home of her Mother?
That said, the book had me in tears as I became wrapped up in its revelations. Victoria, please just stick to the story you want to tell next time. You make it come to life and have relevance without obscure modern beginnings and endings.