Last Letter from Istanbul: Escape with this epic holiday read of secrets and forbidden love
‘This will sweep you away for the summer. Lucy Foley blends a rich history, haunting secrets and a timeless love story’ Santa Montefiore, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Deverill seriesISTANBUL, 1921Before the Occupation, Nur’s city was a tapestry of treasures: the Grand Bazaar alive with colour, trinkets and spices; saffron sunsets melting into the black waters of the Bosphorus; the sweet fragrance of the fig trees dancing on the summer breeze . . .Now the shadow of war hangs over the city, and Nur lives for the protection of a young boy with a terrible secret. Stumbling through the streets, carrying the embroideries that have become her livelihood, she avoids the gazes of the Allied soldiers. Survival is everything.When Nur chances upon George Monroe, a medical officer in the British Army, it is easy to hate him. Yet the lines between enemy and friend grow fainter.She and the boy would both be at risk. Nur knows that she cannot afford to fall – impossibly and dangerously – in love . . .
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Lost and Found Books Ltd 2018
Jacket design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Jacket photographs © Stefka Pavlova/Arcangel Images (boy); Shutterstock.com (letters and landscape).
Lucy Foley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008169077
Ebook Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 9780008169091
Version: 2018-06-20
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Victorious Allies in Constantinople!
Part One
Nur
The Traveller
The Boy
Nur
George
The Boy
The Prisoner
The Traveller
Nur
The Boy
Nur
George
Nur
The Prisoner
George
Nur
The Prisoner
The Boy
Nur
George
The Boy
The Prisoner
The Traveller
The Boy
Nur
George
The Boy
Nur
Part Two
The Prisoner
Nur
George
The Traveller
The Boy
Nur
George
The Prisoner
Nur
George
Nur
The Prisoner
Nur
Nur
The Prisoner
The Traveller
Nur
George
Nur
George
Nur
The Prisoner
George
Nur
George
The Traveller
Nur
George
Snow
The Boy
The Prisoner
Nur
The Traveller
Nur
Spring
Nur
George
The Prisoner
Nur
George
The Boy
Nur
Acts of Destabilisation
George
The Prisoner
George
The Prisoner
George
Nur
George
Nur
Nur
Together
George
Then
Nur
George
The Prisoner
The Traveller
Nur
The Traveller
A Note on Names
Acknowledgements
Discover More from Lucy Foley
About the Author
Also by Lucy Foley
Today, November 13, 1918, the Occupation of Constantinople began. The vanquished Ottoman Empire, which ill-advisedly threw its lot in with the German campaign, must now yield to a victorious Allied force.
British ships entered the famed Golden Horn, having travelled through the Dardanelles on Tuesday – passing right by the fateful beaches of the infamous battle of Gallipoli three years ago. A disaster for Allied forces, perhaps, but also for the then victorious Ottoman army. It was upon these same beaches that it spent the flower of its youth, a loss from which it would never recover.
Reaching the famous Golden Horn, forces numbering nearly 3,000 British, some 500 French, and 500 Italian soldiers landed immediately and occupied military barracks, hotels, houses, Italian and French schools, and hospitals. There these men will remain until the Allied administrative machine can be set up and the requisitioning of private homes begins, and order can be restored to this war-beleaguered city. These men will not return to their families like the vast majority of their soldierly compatriots. Instead they will remain thousands of miles from home in execution of this noble endeavour.
THE ENEMY ENTERS STAMBOUL
Today, November 13, 1918, enemy ships arrived in our great city, flower of our Empire. This move by the so-called Allies is in express contradiction to promises that they would not seek an occupation of Ottoman lands. Fortunately the Ottoman people have long ago learned to doubt the word of our Western European counterparts.
Men, women and children observed the advancing ships from the banks of our beloved Golden Horn, sorrow in their hearts. Some of those men had fought a valiant battle in 1915 against the ‘Allies’ on the shores of Gallipoli, losing many comrades in the process but emerging from the conflagration with victory and great honour. To see their vanquished enemy follow them here, ready to lay claim to their city and requisition their homes if the fancy should take them, is the greatest imaginable indignity.
