#1 RETAILER BESTSELLER IN MIDDLE EASTERN LITERATURE

Cypress is a gripping, powerful multi-generational family saga that celebrates a passion between star-crossed lovers—a love that in truth never dies, and the woman who keeps it that way with grace and steel magnolia determination.

Katerina is the daughter of an aristocratic Greek Cypriot family dominant over most—but tellingly, not all—of this beautiful former British Crown Colony which basks in the Mediterranean sun. Pretty, bright, yet impulsive, she seems destined for the best of fates. But—perhaps too romantic for her own good, she falls deeply in love with the impoverished yet noble Kemal Turkoman, and thereby hangs this tender but fierce tale. It is played out with fervor from Cyprus, to Greece, and to Turkey—involving both families, their children, and their wider brother-against-brother communities.

Maybe in any other time and place, somehow this love of theirs might have worked out. Families forgive. People heal. But not everywhere with everyone.

And not in Cyprus. Not in this cradle of Europe and Asia; not in these mid-20th Century decades of nearly constant and deadly little wars. This big strategic island has been a prized conquest for all the world’s winners since the dawn of history. Yet ironically Cyprus may be most famous as the mythological birthplace of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, who is still honored in the ruins of the Temple of Love at Paphos. Love? War? When they fall in love, Katerina and Kemal are inheritors of both traditions.

But it's a shadowed destiny. Katrina and Kemal’s families are both dead set against the marriage, and Cyprus itself is on the brink of a civil war that—hard to believe but true, still rages between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Fifty years after its start, international troops still patrol the partitioned land.

In the face of all that, how could a love—even a true love from a woman of intense strength and the man who loves her until what seems to be the end—still survive?

Katherina’s stalwart answer is rooted in forgiveness and reconciliation and a passion strong enough to survive persecution, separation, and even death. Her love is as enduring as the cypress trees the pair planted in their garden as a symbol of their love, and beneath which the novel’s dramatic and emotional passion comes to a climax.

This is the first publication of Cypress in the United States in any format. Cypress was first published in London by Andre Deutsch in 1994. It is part of the Devine Sagas—Nile, Saudi, Crescent, Kronos, and Cypress—standalone novels written and published 1979-1994, some by Simon & Schuster in New York and all by Andre Deutsch in London. In 2024, for the first time these five novels are being published in digital editions and by December of 2024 will be available everywhere on Amazon Kindle.

These internationally bestselling novels all rest soundly on history and are fictional stories modeled on the lives of real people—especially women of the developing world—and aim to tell the deepest truths behind headlines. Their blood and guts are reflections of real human suffering. So are their heartfelt emotions of love, shame, hate, healing, and forgiveness, which lie at the birth of history.

Laurie Devine, an American author with a gift for storytelling of brave and unforgettable women of the developing and Western world, continues her stand-alone Devine Sagas with a multi-generational tale of courage, faith, and friendship.

Cypress reverberates with Laurie Devine’s storytelling verve, which have made the Devine Sagas an international success. Nile, Saudi, and Kronos became instant #1 Amazon bestsellers upon their digital publication this year.