As the Ottoman Empire collapses, in Smyrna, the fates of four families from different backgrounds intertwine.

My first DNF of the year. Set in a time of great change with a broad range of characters from the different backgrounds that made up Smyrna’s rich, multicultural heritage, all intertwined into multiple storylines, this one sounded great, but it did not deliver - what should have been a sweeping historical epic just ended up being…tedious. The timeline skipped around and was unclear and confusing, not helped by the foreshadowing, which was overdone and rapidly became repetitive. None of the characters drew me in, so I wasn’t particularly invested in any of them - to the point where when I decided to DNF, I didn’t even turn to the end to find out what happened to them all (which I usually do for closure, otherwise it bugs me). I did love the setting and the richness of the descriptions of early 20th century Smyrna, and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire meant turbulent times ahead for everyone, but it wasn’t enough to keep me going. If this was a short book, I might have stuck it out to see how the storylines all came together, but at 500+ pages, I just couldn’t face it. An unexpectedly tedious historical epic with a rich setting and great premise, but a confusing timeline and characters which failed to pull me in enough to keep reading.