Aphrodite's Child

‘Aphrodite’s Child’ by Sarah Catherine Knights is set in Cyprus in the early nineties and is a modern take on the myth of Aphrodite. The story is told through the eyes of Emily Blackwell whose RAF officer husband, Luke, is posted to Akrotiri for three years. Luke, who lives and breathes the Air Force, goes ahead of the family, leaving her to pack up their home. Emily has always rather resented the way the Air Force has impinged on her life; before this posting, she has distanced herself from military life: they’ve lived in their own house and she’s followed her teaching career. She now has to face life back on an RAF camp, in a married quarter and without a job. It takes her a while to adapt, but after her initial misgivings, she embraces life on the camp and enjoys what it has to offer. The social life on the camp is different from RAF stations back home – it’s all barbecues, beach parties, summer balls and sunset cruises around Limassol. Emily leaves her past behind and reinvents herself. Like Aphrodite, who was born as a fully-formed adult off the coast near Paphos, she feels reborn. At a formal dinner, she meets James Fox, a single Army Officer. Her new persona – the new, adventurous side of her that’s been missing for years, falls for him. She has to face the fact that she loves two men, for very different reasons. She learns some unpalatable truths about her relationship with Luke, which make her question everything she thought she knew about herself and their life together. On a trip home to England, she begins to see how the island has seduced her and made her behave recklessly. She vows to stop her affair on her return, but after a tragedy which affects both her and Luke deeply, she again turns to James, with life-changing consequences.