A passionate love affair. A glittering secret buried for centuries. A question that could destroy everything.

When an English writer meets the fifth-generation owner of a glass foundry in Murano and they fall in love, their worlds explode.

Business and pleasure take them to Athens, the Greek islands and Istanbul. The shocking sequence of events that follows includes two murders in a Venetian Palazzo on the Grand Canal, the unmasking of an international smuggling gang in the bowels of a ruined Byzantine Monastery in Istanbul and the discovery of a cache of glittering medieval mosaics that have been hidden away for over a thousand years.

Finally, their story takes a surprising and horrific twist. It raises a question and when it is answered, a life is shattered, raising a moral dilemma:

Was a murder committed on the slopes beneath the Parthenon?

A Life Lost is a passionate love story, action-packed, full of intrigue. A detective story and a thriller. Rich, deep, and all-absorbing, it is a fascinating mix of pure history and historical fantasy. It is fun. It is scary. It is sexy. It is thought-provoking. Fans of Donna Leon, Dan Brown and Kate Mosse will be captivated by this literary thriller filled with art, passion, and ancient secrets that refuse to stay buried.

About the author

Holley Martlew is an archaeologist and historian with a Ph.D. in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Bristol. A specialist in Greek prehistory and a Byzantinist, she has lived and worked in Venice, Istanbul and Athens - the cities where A Life Lost is set. She has published extensively on the Greek Bronze Age, but A Life Lost is her first novel, in which she draws on her deep expertise to bring the past vividly to life.