Blog Tour: P.S. Olive You by Lizzie Allen

Title: P.S Olive You
Author: Lizzie Allen
Published: 25th August 2015
Publisher: Maze

Hello fellow book lovers, today I bring you my stop on the tour for P.S Olive You and how gorgeous is that cover?! I want to be that lady sunning herself. So I have another wonderful extract of the book to share with you and hope it makes you want to read it as much I do. As always the other stops on the tour are listed below, so do make sure you stop by their blogs.

His favourite place to stop for an oration was in front of the oversized EU sign at the top of the new beach road that had been blasted through the mountains to Merihas bay. ‘Tourists want beaches’ he’d proselytise, staring proudly up at the circle of yellow stars that had come to represent a force for good in his eyes. ‘And tourists bring money’. At that, Ajax and his wife Theodora would both nod their large heads enthusiastically at the prospect of so much money. It wasn’t so much that he was unethically bankrolling an economic boom on Iraklia – there were thousands of projects like this all over the EU – but more that he was not above feathering his own nest by vicariously benefiting from the growth.  Iraklia was on its way up in the world and Andrew intended being part of its gold gilt future.  That meant ingratiating ourselves with the right kind of social scene on the island.  Theodora and Ajax were all very well, but one couldn’t spend every Saturday drinking raki on Ajax’s fishing boat. In his characteristically relentless pursuit of new friends, Andrew soon managed to unearth with a wealthy Athenian family called Gerardos, whose vast holiday home sprawled arrogantly across about a quarter of the island.   After our first dinner with them Andrew cheerfully listed their excellent qualities as he undressed that evening and even announced Demitiri was a ‘regular bloke’. Regular was a term he used often to describe people he liked.  It meant steady and predictable.  No worrying eccentricities or outspoken ideas.  A fish that swam with the rest of the shoal.  This was just as well since the Aegean had virtually been fished dry and Dimitri’s frozen foods company probably did it. Within days Andrew knew everything there was to know about the Gerardos although they knew very little about us. Despite being loquacious, Andrew seldom gave out personal information. He was a conversational cuckoo who nested in the minutiae of other people’s private lives while offering nothing of his own.  This he prided himself in.  The fact that he could extract the most delicate of confessions from people at dinner parties and leave a full six hours later untarnished by the shabby business of reciprocal self-disclosure. Dimitiri’s wife Christina was beautiful and vacuous. She shopped and entertained for a living.  A disturbing Greek version of myself. We were expected to sit with these people night after night talking about nothing.  All the while the boredom and fear of desiccating into shrivelled Mediterranean olive ate away at my subconscious, smudging out what was left of me particle, by particle, causing my brain to collapse into itself like a spacetime wormhole through which I slid and emerged in a parallel universe. A universe where it was no longer necessary to think or even exist, just to drift along in Andrew’s slipstream.   A ribbon of fragrance that trailed in the air behind him. Andrew would vehemently have denied such an accusation if I’d ever found the courage to raise it with him, because Andrew prided himself on being a card-carrying feminist.  He’d read all the literature and felt it was important to think progressively whilst behaving like a medieval laird at home. At the end of July he left me in Iraklia to house hunt.  He had an important series of meetings in Brussels to attend and since it was ‘all agreed’ we were definitely buying, it was left to me to find a suitable abode.  His instructions were clear:   West facing. Sea view. Close enough to the Chora to be able to walk in for dinner. Not so close as to be disturbed by late night revellers. Three to four bedrooms.   Two bathrooms.

About the Author

Writing is a third career for Lizzie as she previously worked as TV Producer and before that in PR.  She lives in London with her husband (who looks like James Bond!) and has a daughter at Edinburgh University studying history and history of art, and son who models for Elite International and is currently swanning around the world on a gap year.