In The Library of Nicosia, Christy Lefteri, international bestselling author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo and Songbirds, returns to Cyprus, the island her family fled after the war, to explore a community riven by conflict, and the acts of courage that lie at the heart of what it is to love.

Turkish Yasemin and Greek Nicos are in the first flush of love when they are driven apart by the brutal war. Yasemin flees when her father's bookshop is burned to the ground. Salvaging what he can from the ruins, Nicos and local cafe owner Vassos create a library beneath the militarised Green Zone which divides the island in two.

Tended by Vassos, the library offers a secret meeting place for those separated by war.  Friends, family and lovers communicate via notes smuggled out in books.

Sent out into the world, one book contains a promise: that each year on the same day, Nicos will wait for Yasemin in the library. But as time moves on, will that promise bring the lovers home to each other?



Christy Lefteri has a PhD in Creative Writing from Brunel University and lectured in the Creative Writing department there. Acclaimed for her compassionate, haunting and resonant storytelling, Christy is the author of four novels, including the international bestseller, The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which tells the heartbreaking story of a young Syrian refugee couple seeking sanctuary, and won The Aspen Words Literary Prize. Songbirds, her third novel, also a bestseller, was inspired by the real-life disappearance of domestic workers in Cyprus. Her fourth novel The Book of Fire, was set against the backdrop of the forest fires of Greece.  It was published in 2023.    

Christy Lefteri's novels are sold in over 40 countries.