I found this meandering, sprawling multigenerational family saga very hard to relate to and in the end gave up trying to keep track of what was going on and who exactly was who. Narrated in 10 interlinked tales, it tells the story of the vast Chrisoforos clan and is a mixture of straightforward narrative, folklore, mythology, history and magic realism, a hodge-podge that didn’t appeal to me at all. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and didn't much care what happened to them. I admit to giving up about half way through and of course I may have missed something that would have converted me to the novel – but I don’t really think so. Zyranna Zateli is considered one of Greece’s most respected authors so maybe there’s a cultural divide here. Certainly many of the Greek reviews on Goodreads are 5*. But I remain unconvinced, although happy to have discovered and learnt a little about a new foreign author.