Karen Emmerich

"For Melia and her sister Myrto, the summer of 1936 means a break from Grandfather's history lessons and weeks of running free at the Greek seaside with their ragtag group of friends. Best of all, cousin Nikos will visit and tell his fabulous stories about the taxidermied wildcat, which opens its blue glass eye when it wants to do good deeds and its black one when it makes trouble. The black eye must be open lately because all the adults have been...

A collection of blistering, darkly humorous stories that upend the idyllic image of the Greek holiday island.
Seeking to escape the paralyzing effects of the Greek economic crisis, a group of Athenian friends move to an Aegean island in the hopes of starting over. Viewed with suspicion and disdain by the locals, they soon find themselves enmeshed in the same vicious cycle of money, power, and violence they thought they had left behind.