A new novel 'The Green Line to Aphrodite', by Maria Savakis, cleverly combines light romantic fiction with a travel guide to Greece and Cyprus, making a thoroughly worthwhile holiday read.

PRESS DISPENSARY - Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010 - Popular holiday reads tend to fall into two camps: light fiction and the travel guide. In her new novel 'The Green Line to Aphrodite', Maria Savakis cleverly combines the two, guiding the reader through some of the highlights of modern Italy, Greece and Cyprus (with a brief hiatus in Hollywood) while unfolding an adventurous love story in which a young Englishwoman of Greek parentage is enticed away from London by an archeologist twice her age as they both go in search of different pasts but ultimately discover a common destiny rooted deep in ancient history.

Following the death of her barely known father, Katalina Sokritos has a consuming desire to track down her surviving family - if it exists - in Greece and Cyprus, and to connect to her Greek roots. American archeologist and journalist Paul Campano also has his eye on Greece with the need to prove his contentious theory that an ancient statue claimed as Italian is in fact Greek and - after the manner of the Elgin Marbles - should be returned to its homeland by the US government. The two set off together on seemingly separate quests which take them half way around the world, deeper and deeper into Hellenic history and more profoundly into their own childhood tragedies.

If slightly fraught, their expeditions begin well ... until a young Greek Cypriot who shares Katalina's surname shoots a Turkish soldier on the disputed border between Turkish and Greek Cyprus - the Green Line. Suddenly the Cypriot police take an unhealthy interest in the pair, whose travels assume a more threatened air.

Author Maria Savakis is herself of Greek Cypriot roots but was born in London, and has traveled extensively through the regions she describes, carefully researching the factual, travel aspects of her work.

Savakis explains: "My aim throughout writing 'The Green line to Aphrodite' has been to create an alluring travelogue set across Greece and Cyprus, with a background to Greece's ancient past blended into a first class fictional tale of investigation, intrigue and love on the shores of a modern Odyssey."

Savakis is careful to define her audience. "Travel and culture it may offer but 'The Green Line to Aphrodite' isn't some scholarly tome. It's deliberately accessible to a wide readership and is intended to find its way into holidaymakers' suitcases: an ideal read while lying by a pool or on a Mediterranean beach."

Devon-based Savakis introduced the book locally two weeks ago, with a more than successful signing at Plymouth Waterstones proving great popularity. "It was amazing," recalls the author. "The queues for the signing took us all by surprise and Waterstones actually ran out of stock. We had to bring my own personal supplies from home to meet demand!" Further signings are being planned for other West Country bookshops, with the next at Exeter Waterstones on Saturday August 21, 2010.

The Green Line to Aphrodite is published by Antony Rowe Publishing, ISBN 978-1-9052-0090-0, and is available at WH Smith, Amazon, Waterstones, Tesco and more. For review copies please contact the author on 01752 251992 or info@maria-savakis.co.uk .

For further information, visit http://aphrodite-mystery.co.uk

Notes for editors

About the author

Maria Savakis was born of Greek parentage and lives in Plymouth, Devon. The Green Line to Aphrodite is her first published novel.

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