Read & Review

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Years later, a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited - her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.