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The Allure of Greek Temples

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  The glory yet burden of living in Greece can be the very richness of classical beauty here, there, and everywhere. The burden is especially heavy for those, such as myself, forever smitten with Classical Greece and compulsive about seeing and doing whatever I think I should. During my four years living there—plus various vacations there before and after my residence—there was always one more temple or archaeological site that had to be visited. The only thing I didn’t like about them was that they were always atop high hills and climbing in up the eternal heat was hard! It took me several years in residence just to be content to settle down on Kolonaki Square in Athens and sip iced coffee and flirt with the waiter. Ah, but those ancient temples! Following, in no order except prominence in my memory and heart, are some of my favorites: Epidavros Theatre, near Naphlion, where I lived for a summer, in north Peloponnese. Ancient theatre with fantastic acoustics, every sum...
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Critically reading…myself

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  I’m in the process of digitally republishing five novels I wrote nearly fifty years ago. It’s a legacy project. A “bucket wish” for authors. I want my out-of-print family sagas—some of which were never published in the U.S.—to finally be available in my own country, and hopefully long after I write no more. But it had been decades since I read my own books, written in 1979-1994. Were they worth republishing? So it was that last year I began my legacy project by critically reading my own stuff. They were all long books—in those days, long books like mine were often plus 200,000 words—whereas now publishers want 80,000 novels.  I’ve heard that authors are now told 100,000-word or more novels should be cut in half and sold as two books. Hmmmm.   But I put away greedy thoughts of republishing not five long but ten short books It took me six months of solid work to read my own five books. And I’m happy to report that I loved them.  What a relief! Sometimes...
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Introducing The Devine Sagas

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  The Devine Sagas—five engrossing family sagas, three of them being published for the first time in the United States, are being digitally published this calendar year on Amazon Kindle. Kronos, the first volume of the Devine Sagas, is set in Greece.  It was published on May 8—International Women’s Day—and is available on Amazon Kindle.  This is its American debut publication, although it has been available in London, published by Andre Deutsch, since 1991. The Devine Sagas are written by the bestselling author Laurie Devine, an American from Pittsburgh, who made her name as an international writer who excels at can’t-put-down family sagas featuring strong and memorable women of the developing world. Devine lived in the Middle East and leading European cities for nearly twenty years, establishing a solid reputation as an author with intimate knowledge of the cultures she writes about.  Her base was London, as she lived in Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus....
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For Greeks, Better Than Christmas

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  In Greece, Easter is the most fabulous time of the year. For families, it’s the must-time to eat, drink, and be merry together. In my four years in Greece, I learned to celebrate Easter like a Greek. Just in terms of fun, it’s key to celebrate in the embrace of a real Greek family, when the traditional roasting of a lamb outside becomes a daylong center of the action. In the countryside and  on the islands, it begins maybe the day before with someone digging a pit. In Athens, it happens on the  rooftops, where a rigged-up roasting is engineered.  Easter morning the lamb roast begins over a real  fire. The men—what always seems to be a succession of the uncles—hunker down to oversee the  continual turning of the lamb, basting it all day with aromatic and alcoholic marinades.   It’s always hot on this radiant Greek Sunday, and soon the sweating uncles discard their shirts.  Music comes from somewhere and everywhere, and everyone else sings an...
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Kronos New Digital Edition, Now Available!

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  Laurie Devine is so, so happy to announce that finally Kronos , her award-winning Greek family saga, is being published in the United States. Kronos is now available for the first time in a digital edition on Amazon Kindle. Kronos is written by the award-winning American author Laurie Devine and was first published in London in 1991 by Andre Deutsch.  It became an international best-seller and was a special favorite in Australia, which is home away from home to many hundreds of thousands of Greeks. Kronos is expected to be even more popular in the United States, where an estimated three million Greek Americans now live but retain pride in the country of their ancestors. Kronos It is a passionate powerful multi-generational family saga set not only in contemporary Greece but also among resettled Greeks in America’s New England. Its story centers on a wily Greek beauty who is loved by two brothers – one a leftist leader and the other a rightwing colonel. The unforgetta...
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