Seven people trying to survive, all drawn into battle, all forever altered.
1941: a brutal airborne invasion of Crete by the Nazis culminates in a mass evacuation of tens of thousand allied Australian, British, and New Zealand troops - marking the start of a years-long occupation.
A nurse riskily travels to her injured fiancé, a British soldier makes his way through the chaos, a young German paratrooper learns to fly, and an elder of the island who has lived long enough to know that invaders come and go takes one last stand.
Burn the Blue Water captures the first civilian mass resistance against the Nazis - and the heartbreaking loss that marked a turning point in the War.
It is a remarkably researched and emotionally wrought portrait of one of World War II's costliest battles, and all the lives that converged there.
Praise for Laird Hunt's writing and previous novels:
'Tender, glowing . . . as beautiful as Marilynne Robinson's Gilead or Denis Johnson's Train Dreams'
Anthony Doerr on Zorrie
'Spare, beautiful . . . Laird Hunt had me under his spell from the first word'
Paul Auster on Neverhome
'As the characters fade into the margin of the final page, it is as if an inner landscape has altered. It is mature, accomplished, impressive'
Hilary Mantel on Neverhome
'This is not a just book you are holding in your hands; it is a life . . . Poignant, unforgettable'
Hernan Diaz on Zorrie
'Strange, dazzling . . . as audacious as it is lyrical'
Emma Donoghue on Neverhome
'A dark treat . . . lush, exciting and gorgeously strange'
Sarah Waters on In the House in the Dark of the Woods
'Sweeping, lyrical and profound . . . will break your heart with its propulsive beauty, depth and grace'
Mona Awad on Zorrie
'Beautiful . . . gentle, yet full of surprises'
Roddy Doyle on Zorrie
