Why a Booktrail?
2000s and the past: Corfu and Kalami are the perfect spots for a literary holiday. With a stopover in Provence
Songs of Blue and Gold
What you need to know before your trail
Against the backdrop of the horseshoe bay of Kalami in Corfu, a love affair plays out between a renowned novelist and a woman escaping scandal. Years later, her daughter Melissa, running from her own past, returns to the island …
Melissa has problems of her own however. Her life in England is not good and it’s her dying mother who offers her a gift one day – a gift which will lead to the reveal of a secret history. She has to return to Kalami to find out what happened all those years ago.
Travel Guide
Corfu
This is a trail following the whereabouts of a poet, traveller and novelist – for Melissa take a copy of a book by Julian Adie romantically inscribed by the author to her mother Elizabeth……
Julian Adie is a character inspired by the author’s love of Lawrence Durrel who lived from 1912 – 1990 and many of the settings too were inspired by real life one linked to him.
Corfu is so much more than the holiday destination we thought it to be as the descriptions of it here are magical –
Each time she walked the tiny main road, effectively barely more than a lane, she noticed more: the powerful scent of jasmine escaping over a wall; bright globes in orange and lemon trees; the violent trumpets of morning glory winding through wire fencing; and everywhere the ancient gnarled olive tree, each composites of several intertwining trunks, some so holed and intricately braided you could see right through them.’
France
The scenes in Provence France form another significant part of the story. The author states that the Arts Centre in the book, the L’Espace Lawrence Durrel in Sommieres is more or less as described. The house across the river where he lived also features pretty much as it and this is another link to the literary mystery.
“To judge from the vehicle, this was still an enclave of rusty vans and Peugeots, A france not much changed from Adie’s time”
Where Next?
