Unabridged Chick

I'm Audra, a 30-something married lesbian. I love interesting heroines, gorgeous prose, place as character, and the occasional werewolf.
The Thread - Victoria Hislop I love reading novels for the armchair escape and the free history lesson. In this case, the Greek city of Thessaloniki is the setting of The Thread, and one couple's lifelong relationship the columns for holding up this saga-ish look at love, family, national identity, belonging, loss, and war.Starting in 2007, a beloved grandson finally learns just how his grandparents met and what their lives were like. Normally I hate this frame -- why not just start with the meat of the story? -- but in this case, it worked for me. Hislop is skilled at conveying a foreign world in a way that resonates and feels ... not familiar so much as seen -- as if in a film or photo series. I've never been to Thessaloniki (hadn't heard of it, actually!) but in her story, this was a city I fell in love with, broke my heart over, and dreamed of visiting. Once a vibrant multi-religious setting of culture and commerce, a fire in 1917 razes much of the city, and the armies of World War I and II finish the job. The story doesn't end there, though; through our couple, we follow Greece through another forty years or so of change and their own responses to that.There's romance, obviously, but as we know from the start of the novel that the couple stays together, the meat of the story for me wasn't the will-they-won't-they but how would they weather such violence and striking change. Their love of place influenced me and I loved Thessaloniki, and had my own complicated feelings about how the city evolved over the nearly one hundred years the novel covers.If you're a fan of WWI or WWII fic, grab this one -- the Greek setting was interesting for me -- and anyone who likes a good family saga should give this one a try. I immediately thought of book clubs for this one -- at 400 pages it is a bit chunky but I raced through the story (although I made myself slow down to savor) and there's a wealth of themes for discussion.