"Beneath the Cypress Tree" is a story of three young British women desiring adventure and to make a name for themselves in the world of Archeology. I love the concept behind this book but it has too many flaws for me to give it better than a 2 star out of 5. For the first half we really don't get to the heart of each of the three main heroines (Ella, Kate and Daphne) and most of what the reader does learn is second-hand information. Kate writes letters to Daphne discussing Ella's budding relationship with a Greek national and Ella writes letters to Daphne giving hints at Kate's secret interest in the Archeological dig director Lewis. I love the information about the archeological digs but as a reader I am still not sure what was the central conflict; is the basis of the novel supposed to be the characters' romances, the archeological digs or something else?

From my opinion this novel should be two separate stories; it is long enough to be cut down on pages but also there is a division in the plot between what happens before and after the war. Just when it feels like the conflicts should be coming to some sort of resolution and end, instead the story takes a huge 360 degree turn and focuses on the war and politics etc. I do not understand how the war fits in with the first half of the novel at all. The second half of the book also gets confusing really quickly. There are so many things going on it is a hard to keep track of where people are and who they are with. I still do not really understand how most of the characters manage to survive through the German attack on Crete and find each other again. Neither are some of the coincidences very believable. Ella's ex-fiance, Sam, really doesn't need to come to Crete and somehow see Kate and he doesn't add anything more to the story.

All in all, I wanted to like this book but I lost interest half way through when I was expecting some sort of conclusion.

I appreciate being given the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book and want to thank the publisher Macmillan and NetGalley for the opportunity.