📖 Blog Tour ~ The Letter from the Island by Rose Alexander

Bookouture
24 October 2025

Thanks to the publisher for the copy of the book
and the invitation to the blog tour

 

Every week Calliope writes a letter to her twin sister who died sixty years ago. One day, she receives a letter back… 

Present day, London. Now an elderly lady and living alone in her basement flat, Calliope desperately misses the sun-soaked olive groves of her Greek Island home. It has been over sixty years since she ran away. When the letter postmarked from Crete lands on her doorstep, she is shocked to the core by what it says. Her twin sister is alive: We need to talk about what happened.

Now Calliope must make a confession to her beloved granddaughter Ella. Calliope needs to lay her lifetime of secrets to rest, and she needs Ella’s help…

1944, Crete. Calliope clutches the baby to her chest as they run down the cliff path to the blue water of the harbour. She is all the little one has left now, and they must escape. The boat the Allies sent won’t wait forever. If only she’d reached the village sooner, her twin sister would still be alive. She will never forgive herself, but she must stay strong for the baby.

Calliope must make one final journey home. And what her and her granddaughter discover in Crete will change the course of their lives forever.

📖 My Review ..

Calliope has kept a devastating family secret for over sixty years and when a letter arrives unexpectedly it brings all her old wartime memories to the surface and it would seem that the time is now right to lay down the ghosts of the past. Returning to her childhood home on the beautiful island of Crete is filled with emotion but as we are led gently into the past so the binds of family are rekindled and it’s a chance for Calliope and her twin sister, Calista , to reconcile.

Well written, with a lovely sense of both the past and present, the history of Crete during its occupation in 1944 is brought to life. The hopes and fears of Calliope and Calista and the frantic struggle for survival is brought to life so beautifully that you can’t help but form an emotional attachment to both of them. The dual timeline is done well, I could equally imagine Calliope’s rather lonely life in her present day London apartment alongside the sunshine and beauty of her once Cretan homeland.

With secrets, lies and reconciliation as its main themes The Letter from the Island is a lovely dual time story with interesting characters and a beautiful setting.

About the Author 

Rose Alexander has had more careers than she cares to mention and is currently a secondary school English teacher. She writes in the holidays, weekends and evenings, whenever she has a chance, although with three children, a husband, a lodger and a cat, this isn’t always as often as she’d like. She’s a keen sewist and is on a mission to make all her own clothes.

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