Falling in Honey: How a Tiny Greek Island Stole My Heart (Travel Memoir)

My usual reading style is “Meze”. I jump around from book to book, tasting and nibbling chapters and paragraphs and devouring small portions of literary delights. It can take me month’s to get to the end of a book. I blame my Kindle. It keeps my place for me, and sorts my reading list by most recently opened so I can keep track of all the books I’m currently reading.But – when I picked up Falling in Honey, it stuck.I read it to the end and didn’t get distracted by any other book on my Kindle. It was a Literary Sunday Lunch and I didn’t leave the table until I’d finished it and my head was full of daydreams!The full title of this book should really be “Falling in Honey after a couple of Lemons: Jen’s bitter-sweet adventure”. I follow Jennifer’s blog “Octopus in my Ouzo” and was eagerly awaiting the publication of Falling in Honey. I didn’t read the book summary or reviews before buying it, I just bought it on the strength of the cover alone. I just assumed Falling in Honey focused on Jen’s move to the Greek Island of Tilos. In fact it included a bumpy ride through a couple of Jen’s relationships, and her bitter-sweet journey along the way.There’s a famous quote from American Novelist and Poet Don Williams Jr. "The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination." This quote is indicative of Jen’s journey to Tilos. Falling in Honey narratives her lessons along her journey to Tilos, and as I read her story, I became vested in how the story ends. That’s the trick for any author – how to capture the readers attention between the Title and “The End”.How Jen does it is by inviting you into her world. You’re sitting at a table with her in Tilos habour enjoying a coffee. You’re slicing pungent tomatoes on her balcony of her new apartment and licking the juice of your fingers; you’re watching lethargic goats eat roses from her garden. You’re a fly on the wall at another difficult situation where you wonder if it’s a friendly man with a platonic interest her or a friendly man with honey on his mind.The book is a series of sweet moments, that runs through your fingers. There’s no great emotional climax in the story – but there’s enough pace to keep you vested in the outcome.To get over the bitter taste of failed relationships, Jen becomes her own fairy godmother and grants herself three wishes: Freelance Fridays, A Vow of Celibacy and a Month in Greece. These three wishes provided an ideal way to distance herself from her old life, and see it from the outside looking in. It was a safe way to try on a new lifestyle to see if it fit, without making any dramatic commitments.By all accounts it fit perfectly – and her story is an inspiration for others to test drive a new lifestyle for themselves.Falling in Honey is a reminder that the ebb and flow of life is uncertain and constantly in flux. You can either surrender and takes the knocks from this bumper car ride called life. Or you can wait for the music to stop and walk away. At one point in her story I did begin to wonder if her journey would get derailed by one of her Testosterone infused Lemons, but she headed to Tilos regardless, and I needn’t have worried about the outcome.Jen swapped her carnival ride of a life for something more tranquil, and now she has time to smell the flowers and watch the stars.

I read an Octopus in my Ouzo on my way home from a tour of Greece and the Greek islands. I read this, the first book, later. It details how the author fell in love with the island of Tilos and wound up there in the first place. I like the second book, where she has become a true part of the island, better, but this is an entertaining prequel as a finding-oneself story. Worth the time to read, especially if you miss sunshine or Greek islands. Or despair ever escaping the rat-race.

This is basically a diary, about mundane things -- I had this for breakfast, then I walked toward there, then I said hello to someone I passed on my way...The information does evoke life on a small Greek island in its details to some extent, and I appreciate the journey of an independent (if remarkably naive) woman, but the narrative is flat and ultimately uninteresting. It is possible, in other hands, for someone to write autobiographical chronology with grace, depth, intelligence, and insight; see Elizabeth Gilbert's books, for one example.

Eh. It's not a bad book, it's just not the kind of writing that keeps you wanting to turn the page. The only thing it did was make me wish I were back in Greece living my own story. I feel like it was very surface level writing without the real depth that makes it feel authentic.

A good mindless read about a lady who can't pick guys and needs to decide to grow up. Wish I could be like her but am glad I have a stable loving spouse and family.

Very enjoyable read especially for Greek island fans. Also a good introduction for those whoo have never been.

I have spent many holidays on the island of Lipsi and so this book about Tilos brought a massive smile to my face when reading it. So much that the author writes about is familiar and beloved to me but I also enjoyed the way in which she injects her own story into the book - so that it is both evocative of a quiet Greek island but also a book about making your dreams a reality.

A young woman's experience in love and a Greek island. good descriptions of the island and life there.

I read this on holiday, admittedly on Crete not Tilos! It was ok, but I could only read a couple of chapters at a time before losing interest. There was too much about the author's personal life and not enough about Tilos. Some of the chapters felt like you were reading her diary. It's not the best of Brits living abroad, but I think she is a good writer, so three stars instead of two.

I loved this book. If you are battling with British summer weather here is your fix of sunshine, well during the Greek summer time, during Jennifer's winter time on Tilos you might feel cosiest cocooned in your British central heating. Jennifer's understanding of nature, weather, light, humanity is descriptive writing at its best. What on the face of it is just one ex-patriot's experience of life on a tiny remote Greek island colourful characters certainly add to the narrative and one in particular adding an extraordinary twist to the 'plot'.

That Jennifer Barclay so effortlessly captures the spirit of place of the Greek island of her dreams so effortlessly is a magnificent achievement. Many have tried and failed where Jennifer has succeeded to put into words the light, colours, sounds and smells, which make Greece such a beguiling, place. I was recommended Falling in Honey by a friend - otherwise I might never have picked it up. It is a love story, a genre that is usually not my bag, but the object of Jennifer's affection is the island of Tilos in the Dodecanese, a place with the power to heal the wounds inflicted on the writer by life. Her deceptively simple prose is at times as breathtaking as the landscape it describes with an affection that grabs the reader and gives them a tight hug. If I have a criticism of this beautiful book, it is the envy it engenders both of the life Jennifer has made for herself and the artistry she brings to bear to put her paradise into words. Richard Clark

What a fantastic read....when we go to Kefalos, Kos for our 30th time this August, I will think of this book and maybe relive some of the traditions that Jennifer talks about..The locals, the country, the traditions are all described with the enthusiasm of a true lover of Greece and all that it embraces...I could well identify with many things described and can only say it left me wanting more...so now I am following Jennifers blog and hoping that she will write of even more of her experiences on this Island,which now I hope to visit at some time in the future ...Read and enjoy I did ...xx

I was warned I might not like this book. How delighted I was that, on putting it down, I could inform the naysayer how wrong they had been.For a travel book (and all the limitations that genre holds), 'Falling in Honey' succeeds in weaving together myriad themes to create a truly sensational read: the nature of love; the history of Greece; the strength that it takes to book a one-way ticket and just GO. Jennifer Barclay knits these concepts together with the skill of a novelist, but she underlines it with something much more profound - that this is all real, has happened - and her ability to fly phoenix-like above it all will leave any reader at once in awe and jealous.While the evocations of Greece are sumptuous and the characterisations three-dimensional, the real treat in this book is the life-affirming chorus of refrains ... 'happiness is easy sometimes' ...