| THE BALKAN TRILOGY |
| OLIVIA MANNING |
| Book One –The Great Fortune Guy and Harriet Pringle, newly married, arrive in Bucharest in the autumn of 1939. The city they find is one of contrasts and rumours, on edge with wavering loyalties and the tension of war. Guy, teaching at the university , throws himself unstintingly into Bucharest life, embracing all around him. Harriet, struggling to adjust to married life and to her husband’s friendship to over-attentive Sophie, finds life in a city cut off from the outside world less straightforward then she first anticipated. Peopled by an international cast of characters, including the inimitable and eccentric Russian émigré Prince Yakimov, this is a rich and rewarding portrait of a city and a country at war, and of the first months of a marriage. Book Two- The Spoilt City In 1940 young newly-weds Guy and Harriet Pringle are living in Bucharest where the threat of invasion by the Germans is an ever-present reality. Harriet, learning daily about the virtual stranger she married, finds Guy’s idealism clashing with her own more down-to-earth attitudes and Guy’s generosity to all comers frustrates Harriet’s attempts to live reasonably in a city beset with shortages. In the increasingly frenzied atmosphere , the easy life of the café society is undermined as rumours of war become reality, and the Germans march in. The Spoilt City is a dramatic and colourful portrait of a city in turmoil, unsure where its loyalties lie- and a sharply perceptive depiction of a young couple struggling to make their marriage work in the face of adversity. Book Three- Friends and Heroes Harriet Pringle is newly arrived in Athens. Having fled Nazi- occupied Romania, she anxiously awaits news of her husband Guy, trapped in the spoilt city of Bucharest. When the young couple are reunited, in the sunlight of a capital still at peace, they have little idea of the problems still to come. Greece is invaded by the Italians and work is scarce; hardly the best time for a marriage to flourish. Guy, as ever, is engrossed in his work and the problems of others, and when Harriet is diverted by a handsome young officer, their marriage seems doomed. But when Greece is defeated, and as Europe disintegrates around them, Guy and Harriet are forced to find a new strength in a crumbling world of turmoil. |
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