Soul Of The Mountain — Barbara Stewart

1941: Imagine what it must be like to go to war when you are scared stiff. This novel is about such a man and how war changes people. Jay Armitage, schoolteacher, artist, poet, is a quiet, passive man, but to S.O.E. in Cairo, who have agents in Crete, he is Eagle. Fighting with the Resistance, Jay witnesses atrocities and suffers near starvation in the company of the brave Cretans. He falls in love with an island, its people and a woman. Despite a wife at home, living with Crystalena in Crete is a dream that carries him through imprisonment and torture. 1991: Kate Armitage finds, amongst her grandparents' things, a haunting that won't go away; words on crumpled old paper are not enough. Who is the woman in the old photo? Crystalena, Limoni, Crete, Easter, 1943, is pencilled on the back. Why had Kate's grandfather, Jay Armitage, talked about Crete, but never about what happened to him there? Kate goes to Crete to find out.