Emma's Review: She Came to Stay by Eleni Kyriacou

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

In a city of strangers, who can you trust?

London, 1952. Dina Demetriou has travelled from Cyprus for a better life. She's certain that excitement, adventure and opportunity are out there, waiting - if only she knew where to look.

Her passion for clothes and flair for sewing land her a job repairing the glittering costumes at the notorious Pelican Revue. It's here that she befriends the mysterious and beautiful Bebba.

With her bleached-blonde hair and an appetite for mischief, Bebba is like no Greek Dina has ever met before. She guides Dina around the fashionable shops, bars and clubs of Soho, and Dina finally feels life has begun.

But Bebba has a secret. And as thick smog brings the city to a standstill, the truth emerges with devastating results. Dina's new life now hangs by a thread. What will be left when the fog finally clears? And will Dina be willing to risk everything to protect her future?

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback 

Many thanks to Hodder and Stoughton via NetGalley for my copy of She Came to Stay to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.

She Came to Stay is the debut novel from Eleni Kyriacou and it’s quite different from my usual kind of reads. It’s a real dark and atmospheric story which I found difficult to get into but once I reached the halfway mark, I really began to appreciate the complex tale unfolding. It’s an excellent story about friendship, family and the meaning of home with betrayal and resilience being its central themes. As a young woman arrives in the city of London in 1952 from another country and a different way of life she has a persistent feeling that this place will be her undoing. She has come for a new and more promising life from the simple, uncomplicated one that she left behind. She left for numerous reasons, mostly because of a marriage that never came to fruition but also because she knows there is something better out there for her. The question is will she find it in London or has this city other plans in store for her?

Dina, a Greek Cypriot, has been in London for 8 months. She shares a small, dark, damp and foul room with her brother Peter. They arrived hoping to find a better life and the bright lights of Soho, so dimmed in this story by the never-ending fog, had promised so much. But she has yet to strike it lucky and the café she works in does nothing to inspire her or go anyway near to fulfilling her dreams. An opportunity for work at the Pelican nightclub where girls perform for men throws some hope and expectancy her way. She is to work with other women of many varying nationalities as a seamstress repairing the costumes for the girls. She keeps this job secret from her brother as she has plans to save money and get a better place for herself. Peter does have a job but his gambling problem leads to many issues and complications arising throughout the story. Dina wants more than the life she was born into. She wants to escape the country where land and family and generations of traditions and poverty would entrap her. A failed marriage before she even walked down the aisle put paid to this. She still feels under pressure from Peter as he is trying to find a good man for her to marry. It’s almost like he is replacing her father and trying to ensure traditions continue even though they are in a different country.

Dina has ambition but the circumstances she finds herself in prevent her from really getting out there and seeing what the world can offer her. Unless she has money she can do nothing but meeting Bebba, a fellow seamstress at the club, changes everything for Dina and from this point on nothing will ever be the same. There is an air about Bebba, that she knows how to have a good time yet at the same time she holds many things back and keeps things close to her chest. She holds a secret and a mystery that will intensify the further the book progresses. It’s like Bebba casts a spell over Dina, which in turn grows to a shadow that engulfs Peter too. She seems so glamourous and that she has it all and with the flick of a switch the world will be at her feet. Bebba too comes from Cyprus but she holds her cards tight and doesn’t reveal much but she seems to have plenty of money and shows Dina a good time at different clubs and fancy shops. Things that Dina can only dream about as they are out of her reach.

With this book you never knew whether to take statements at face value or were you to read more into simple comments or actions. Everything was so carefully constructed by the author and it all came together brilliantly but I can’t say I actually liked any of the characters apart from Dina. There still remained an air of innocence about her even with everything that began to become apparent. I did click at one point what exactly was going on before things were revealed because something was annoying me that wasn’t being said. A simple thing but when it was revealed, and I was proven correct, it turned the whole story on its head. 

Bebba just seemed too good to be true and I think Peter became enchanted with her and the spell she cast he couldn’t break free from it. In fact, in a way she trapped both Dina and Peter and they find themselves involved with something so dangerous that meant their lives were lived on a knife edge so easy to fall from with no way of getting back up. Bebba was a mistress of manipulation. She carefully plotted and executed everything so well that the reader too believes she is this glamorous girl who can bring Dina places. But she had a long term goal in mind and nothing or no one would prevent her from straying from the path she was treading to achieve her end goal. Who cares what happened in the process and whether friendships or families were tested, marked and crumbled through her actions and operations? 

I mentioned above that this story is dark and that’s because the fog that enshrouds London and plays such a pivotal role throughout the book gives the story this stifling, claustrophobic feeling. It never leaves but grows denser and denser weighing the characters down as the story becomes ever more complex and twisted. The heavy, impenetrable fog allows a menacing and sombre feeling to pervade throughout the chapters and in turn also always for certain dangerous situations to develop. The author has done very well to use this type of weather in such a way that it mirrors the characters actions and feelings. Some of them can hide what they are doing because with the fog never lifting what they are doing and trying to conceal can go unnoticed. What takes place under the cover of the gloom, damp, smoke and vapour will have severe and long lasting repercussions for all involved and by the end of the stifling and depressing atmosphere created you are in shock at was has occurred and realise everyone is not as they seem. I say depressing but use this word in a good way because there is no light and happiness emanating from this book given the themes and subject matter there is no room for this. 

But it’s not an awful read that is a trudge to get through therefore leaving you depressed. In fact it is far from this description .This is just the most suitable adjective I can think of to sum up the sense of danger, threats, double crossing and restlessness that the characters are facing. I don’t think when Dina arrived in London she expected to be caught up in a very tangled web of someone else’s creation that only seemed to grow tighter with each twist of the knife. Can she endure and emerge unscathed out the other side? Will London and in particular Soho eventually give her the life she has craved or will a friendship built on brittle lies be her downfall? 

No doubt about it She Came to Stay is an impressive debut novel and it’s only as you reach the end you truly appreciate how the author has written a story that leaves you questioning everything and wondering just you can believe, trust and have faith in. Eleni Kyriacou is certainly an author to watch in the future.