The Nightingale Won't Let You Sleep
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From internationally acclaimed and Governor General’s Award-winning author Steven Heighton comes a passionate novel of buried secrets, the repercussions of war and finding love among the ruins
Elias Trifannis is desperate to belong somewhere. To make his dying ex-cop father happy, he joins the military—but in Afghanistan, by the time he realizes his last-minute bid for connection was a terrible mistake, it’s too late and a tragedy has occurred.
In the aftermath, exhausted by nightmares, Elias is sent to Cyprus to recover, where he attempts to find comfort in the arms of Eylül, a beautiful Turkish journalist. But the lovers’ reprieve ends in a moment of shocking brutality that drives Elias into Varosha, once a popular Greek-Cypriot resort town, abandoned since the Turkish invasion of 1974.
Hidden in the lush, overgrown ruins is a community of exiles and refugees living resourcefully but comfortably. Thanks to the cheerfully corrupt Colonel Kaya, who turns a blind eye, they live under the radar of the Turkish authorities.
As he begins to heal, Elias finds himself drawn to the enigmatic and secretive Kaiti while he learns at last to “simply belong.” But just when it seems he has found sanctuary, events he himself set in motion have already begun to endanger it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Heighton's (Afterlands) fascinating novel takes place largely in Varosha, the tourist quarter of the Cypriot town of Famagusta. The town was abandoned in 1974 when Turkish forces invaded and occupied it, but this story begins three decades later in the shadow of a different conflict. Following a traumatic military incident in Afghanistan, Elias Trifannis, a Canadian soldier who enlisted to please his dying Greek father, is shipped off to Cyprus for stress leave and therapy. A romantic night with a prominent journalist goes terribly wrong when Turkish soldiers, objecting to a relationship between a Turkish woman and someone they think is a Greek man, ambush them. Elias is rescued and then held captive by the villagers a ragtag bunch hiding out, most presumed dead, in the ruins of Varosha. Elias's arrival threatens the villagers' safety, which was previously ensured by Kaya, a happy-go-lucky Turkish officer. He's more concerned with his prowess on the tennis court than issues of military security, but a zealous young subordinate who wants to bring Kaya down starts prowling around Varosha, determined to prove that there are people living in the ruins. As this well-plotted novel draws to a tense conclusion, Heighton skillfully knits together the difficult history and politics of the region, military machinations, and the nuanced inner lives and relationships of Elias and the villagers.
