20 Books Set in Greece
Books have an extraordinary power to transport us. Through their pages, we can cross oceans, wander through sun-drenched landscapes, and feel the magic of distant places—all from the comfort of our own homes. Few places capture readers’ imaginations as vividly as Greece. With its stunning islands, ancient ruins, and rich mythology, Greece provides the perfect setting for stories that linger in our hearts long after we turn the final page.
A Journey Through Greece’s Many Layers
When you read books set in Greece, you are not just reading words—you are stepping into a land of history, myth, and natural beauty. Greece offers a unique mix of azure seas, whitewashed villages, and ancient monuments filled with wonder. You can wander through the olive groves of Crete, explore the dramatic cliffs of Santorini, or stroll the bustling streets of Athens. From the timeless charm of the Greek islands to the storied ruins of its ancient cities, Greece comes alive in books in a way that feels both enchanting and deeply human.
Stories set in Greece capture the essence of the country—its warmth, its struggles, and its enduring spirit. Through these pages, readers experience Greece’s breathtaking landscapes, vibrant traditions, and tales of resilience.
A Feast for the Senses
Greece is a country that engages every one of the senses, and authors who set their stories here bring that richness to life. When reading about Greece, you can almost feel the warmth of the Mediterranean sun, hear the gentle lapping of waves on a secluded beach, or smell the aroma of fresh-baked spanakopita. You might taste the tang of feta cheese or the sweetness of honey-drenched baklava. The rustle of olive leaves in a soft breeze and the distant sound of bouzouki music evoke both beauty and serenity.
Books like Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières evoke the charm of Greek island life, while novels like The Island by Victoria Hislop celebrate the resilience of its people. Greece’s landscapes and traditions are so vividly brought to life in fiction that readers can almost feel they are there.
Stories Woven with History and Myth
Greece’s rich history and mythology provide a stunning backdrop for both historical fiction and contemporary tales. Books like Circe by Madeline Miller breathe new life into Greek myths, offering fresh perspectives on ancient legends. Historical novels like The Summer of My Greek Taverna by Tom Stone delve into the everyday joys and challenges of life in modern Greece.
Myth and legend are central to Greece’s identity, and many stories draw from its rich heritage. Books like The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller bring ancient Greek myths to life, while contemporary novels like Eleni by Nicholas Gage intertwine history and personal struggle with the spirit of the land.
Romance and Renewal in Greece
Greece’s beauty and charm make it an ideal setting for stories of love, transformation, and renewal. Its turquoise waters, cozy tavernas, and timeless ruins provide the perfect backdrop for characters seeking connection and new beginnings. In Mamma Mia! by Catherine Johnson, readers are transported to a Greek island bursting with music, romance, and adventure. Meanwhile, My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell captures the humor and charm of a family’s life on the island of Corfu.
For contemporary romance, books like The Summer House in Santorini by Samantha Parks capture the magic of falling in love amidst Greece’s breathtaking scenery, blending adventure with heartfelt moments.
Mystery and Adventure
For readers who crave suspense, Greece offers a rich and atmospheric setting for mysteries and thrillers. Books like The Magus by John Fowles are a standout, immersing readers in intricate plots set against the enigmatic beauty of Greece’s islands. The secluded beaches and ancient ruins provide haunting backdrops for stories full of secrets and intrigue.
Books like A Small Death in the Great Glen by A.D. Scott evoke a strong sense of place while delivering thrilling, page-turning plots. Greece’s landscapes—both beautiful and brooding—add depth and atmosphere to these compelling mysteries.
Escape to Greece Anytime
For readers unable to travel, books set in Greece provide the ultimate escape. They allow us to experience the vibrant seas, the warmth of its people, and the enduring power of its stories without ever leaving home. Whether you crave a quiet moment of beauty, a sweeping romance, or a thrilling mystery, Greece offers something for every reader.
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Books Set in Greece
Daughter of Ruins by Yvette Manessis Corporon
Also listed in Books Set in the 1920s
A motherless daughter. An Italian prostitute. A mail-order bride. Are these women brave enough to change their fates?
Demitra's mother died in America in the 1930s when Demitra was three years old. Her father took her home to the Greek island of Cephalonia, where she endures a lonely childhood and dreams her dead mother watches over her, like the goddesses she reads about in her mythology books. When Demitra comes of age, she refuses to marry the man chosen for her. Instead, she defiantly begins an affair with a forbidden man who ignites her passion for painting the goddesses she once imagined protected her.
Elena is a beautiful Italian woman who dreamed of a life away from the brothels where she was raised. But opportunities are not meant for daughters of prostitutes and Elena has no choice but to become one herself. When Italy occupies Cephalonia, Elena finds work entertaining the soldiers. Her life on the island is happy and carefree--until the Germans arrive in 1943.
Maria lives in a poor mountain village in 1921 with a loving mother and sister. When her father grows desperate to feed his family, he sends her to America as a picture bride to marry a stranger. Only eighteen years old, Maria is terrified of the journey ahead.
Daughter of Ruins is an all-encompassing tale steeped in the rich history, culture, and myths of Greece. It is a deeply moving story that follows three women as they struggle to control their destinies, fighting to become the women they were meant to be.
Akmaral by Judith Lindbergh
Before the Silk Road had a name, nomads roamed the Asian steppes and women fought side by side as equals with men. Like all women of the Sauromatae, Akmaral is bound for battle from birth, training as a girl in horsemanship, archery, spear, and blade. Her prowess ignites the jealousy of Erzhan, a gifted warrior who hates her as much as he desires her. When Scythian renegades attack, the two must unite to defeat them. Among their captives is Timor, the rebels’ enigmatic leader who refuses to be broken, even as he is enslaved. He fascinates Akmaral. But as attraction grows to passion, she is blinded to the dangerous alliance forming between the men who bristle against the clan’ s matriarchal rule. Faced with brutal betrayal, Akmaral must find the strength to defend her people and fulfill her destiny. Drawn from legends of Amazon women warriors from ancient Greece and recent archaeological discoveries in Central Asia, AKMARAL is a sweeping tale about a powerful woman who must make peace with making war.
Diva by Daisy Goodwin
My Most-Anticipated Historical Fiction of 2024
New York Times bestselling author Daisy Goodwin returns with a story of the scandalous love affair between the most celebrated opera singer of all time and one of the richest men in the world.
In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas was known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she was the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. But her fame was hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her golden voice, she learned early in life to protect herself from those who would use her for their own ends.
When she met the fabulously rich Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, for the first time in her life, she believed she’d found someone who saw the woman within the legendary soprano. She fell desperately in love. He introduced her to a life of unbelievable luxury, showering her with jewels and sojourns in the most fashionable international watering holes with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
And then suddenly, it was over. The international press announced that Aristotle Onassis would marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.
In this remarkable novel, Daisy Goodwin brings to life a woman whose extraordinary talent, unremitting drive and natural chic made her a legend. But it was only in confronting the heartbreak of losing the man she loved that Maria Callas found her true voice and went on to triumph.
Walking on Fire by Kathryn Crawley
Also listed in Books Set in the 1970s
Greece. Politics. Love. Danger. Reeling from a failed marriage and spurred on by a burgeoning sense of feminism, twenty-five-year-old Kate accepts a position as a speech therapist in a center for children with cerebral palsy in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is 1974, and the recent end of Greece’s seven-year dictatorship has ignited a fiery anti-American sentiment within the country. Despite this, as her Greek improves, Kate teaches communication to severely disabled children, creates profound friendships, and finds a home in the ancient and historied city. From a dramatic Christmas pig slaughter to a mesmerizing fire walking ceremony, her world expands rapidly—even more so when she falls in love with Thanasis, a handsome Communist.
Through Thanasis, Kate meets people determined to turn a spotlight on their former dictators’ massacre of university students, as well as their record of widespread censorship and torture of dissidents. The more she learns, the more her loyalty to her country and almost everything she was taught in her conservative home state of Texas is challenged. Kate is transformed by her odyssey, but when her very safety is threatened by the politics of her lover, she must choose: risk everything to stay with Thanasis and the Greece that has captured her heart, or remove herself from harm’s way by returning to her homeland?
A Greek Love by Zoe Valdes
For readers of Isabel Allende, Gabriela Garcia, and Julia Alvarez, the story of a woman who must fight for her love and her child in a Cuba suffocated by oppression
A free spirit who spends time near the port of Havana, where her friend Osiris is known as the “Greek sailormen's whore,” teenager Zé becomes pregnant after a brief love affair with a captain's son her age. By the time she realizes her condition, the ship has left and the boy is gone. In her father's Cuba, an unwed teenage mother is a source of scandal and shame and a threat to his ambitions in the Party. He disowns her and brutally throws her out of her home. Led by her mother, she leaves the city for refuge in Matanzas, a university town rich in Afro-Cuban culture, where her mother's sister, a music scholar, lives and where she will raise her child mentored by these three older women—aunt, mother, and Osiris.
Years later, Zé’s son, Petros, has become a world-class musician bridging Cuban and Greek traditions, while Zé has become a scholar herself. When a recording executive invites Petros to give concerts in Greece, Zé seeks permission from the authorities to leave the island and accompany him. Secretly—a secret they guard from the authorities and her father, now a Party stalwart—they both nourish the hope of somehow finding Petros’s father and Zé’s one great, lost love.
With echoes of the breakout novel that made Zoé Valdés an international literary star, A Greek Love is a tale of passion, endurance, and hope—and a woman's tenacious love.
Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman
Author Interview with Ella Berman
Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures.
While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . .
Except now Joni is tangled up in a crime eerily similar to that one fateful night in Greece. And when she asks Bess to come back to LA to support her, Bess has a decision to make.
Is it finally time to face up to what happened that night, exposing herself as the young woman she once was and maybe still is? And what happens if she doesn’t like what she finds?
Two Wars and a Wedding by Lauren Willig
Author Interview with Lauren Willig
From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig: a dramatic coming-of-age story with a dual timeline and a single heroine—a bold and adventuring young woman who finds herself caught up in two very different wars on both sides of the Atlantic.
September 1896: An aspiring archaeologist, Smith College graduate Betsy Hayes travels to Athens, desperate to break into the male-dominated field of excavation. In the midst of the heat and dust of Greece she finds an unlikely ally in Charles, Baron de Robecourt, one of the few men who takes her academic passion seriously. But when a simmering conflict between Greece and Turkey erupts into open warfare, Betsy throws herself into the conflict as a nurse, not knowing that the decision will change her life forever—and cause a deep and painful rift with her oldest friend, Ava.
June 1898: Betsy has sworn off war nursing—but when she gets the word that her estranged friend Ava is headed to Cuba with Clara Barton and the Red Cross to patch up the wounded in the Spanish-American War, Betsy determines to stop her the only way she knows how: by joining in her place. Battling heat, disease, and her own demons, Betsy follows Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders straight to the heart of the fighting, where she is forced to confront her greatest fears to save both old friends and new….
Set during an electrifying era of nation-building, idealism, and upheaval, Two Wars and a Wedding is the tale of two remarkable women striving to make their place in a man’s world—an unforgettable saga of friendship, love, and fighting for what is right.
Have Mercy On Us by Lisa Cupolo
Also listed in Books Set in the 1940s
In these beautiful and tender stories, the people are varied in age, race, gender, and origin. An old man travels to a remote village in Kenya in an attempt to bring his estranged son back home to Portland. In Calgary, against her mother’s wishes, a young woman attends the funeral of the father she never met. On holiday in Greece, a woman long married to a philandering artist asserts herself with stunning force. In an imagined, loving portrait, the writer Zora Neale Hurston is shown near the end of her life in 1948, working as a maid in a motel in Ft. Pierce, Florida.
Spare, romantic without being sentimental, these powerful stories are, above all, about love, and the impossible and remarkable ways we yearn for connection. Cupolo is an important new voice with vision, and grace—cause for celebration.
A Thing of Beauty by Peter Fiennes
What do the Greek myths mean to us today? Peter Fiennes travels to the sites of some of the most famous Greek myths, on the trail of hope, beauty and a new way of seeing what we have done to our world. Fiennes walks through landscapes – stunning and spoiled – on the trail of dancing activists and Arcadian shepherds, finds the ‘most beautiful beach in Greece’, consults the Oracle, and loses himself in the cities, remote villages and ruins of this storied land.
Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
The place is the Greek island of Cephallonia, where gods once dabbled in the affairs of men and the local saint periodically rises from his sarcophagus to cure the mad. Then the tide of World War II rolls onto the island's shores in the form of the conquering Italian army.
Caught in the occupation are Pelagia, a willful, beautiful young woman, and the two suitors vying for her love: Mandras, a gentle fisherman turned ruthless guerilla, and the charming, mandolin-playing Captain Corelli, a reluctant officer of the Italian garrison on the island. Rich with loyalties and betrayals, and set against a landscape where the factual blends seamlessly with the fantastic, Corelli's Mandolin is a passionate novel as rich in ideas as it is genuinely moving.
The Island by Victoria Hislop
On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding plans a trip to her mother’s childhood home in Plaka, Greece hoping to unravel Sofia’s hidden past. Given a letter to take to Sofia’s old friend, Fotini, Alexis is promised that through Fotini, she will learn more.
Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone’s throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga—Greece’s former leper colony. Fotini at last reveals the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters, and a family rent by tragedy, war, and passion. Alexis discovers how intimately her family is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip.
Circe by Madeline Miller
Also listed in Favorite Female Book Characters
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
The Magus by John Fowles
A young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching post on a remote Greek island in order to escape an unsatisfactory love affair. There, his friendship with a reclusive millionaire evolves into a mysterious--and deadly--game of violence, seduction, and betrayal. As he is drawn deeper into the trickster's psychological traps, Nicholas finds it increasingly difficult to distinguish past from present, fantasy from reality. He becomes a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his very survival.
The Summer House in Santorini by Samantha Parks
Anna’s running away. From a failed relationship, a dead-end career and a complicated family life.
On the island of Santorini, with its picturesque villas, blue-tiled roofs, and the turquoise waters of the Aegean lapping at the white sand beaches, Anna inherits a less-than-picturesque summer house from her estranged father.
As she rebuilds the house, she rebuilds her life, uncovering family secrets along the way that will change everything. She soon starts to fall for her little slice of paradise, as well as for gorgeous, charming Nikos.
Will Anna lose her heart in more ways than one?
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Also listed in Books Like Red White And Royal Blue
A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights—and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.
Eleni by Nicholas Gage
In 1948, as civil war ravaged Greece, children were abducted and sent to communist "camps" inside the Iron Curtain. Eleni Gatzoyiannis, forty-one, defied the traditions of her small village and the terror of the communist insurgents to arrange for the escape of her three daughters and her son, Nicola. For that act, she was imprisoned, tortured, and executed in cold blood.
Nicholas Gage joined his father in Massachusetts at the age of nine and grew up to become a top New York Times investigative reporter, honing his skills with one thought in mind: to return to Greece and uncover the one story he cared about most: the story of his mother.
Eleni takes you into the heart a village destroyed in the name of ideals and into the soul of a truly heroic woman.
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
First published in 1946, Zorba the Greek, is, on one hand, the story of a Greek working man named Zorba, a passionate lover of life, the unnamed narrator who he accompanies to Crete to work in a lignite mine, and the men and women of the town where they settle. On the other hand it is the story of God and man, The Devil and the Saints; the struggle of men to find their souls and purpose in life and it is about love, courage and faith.
Zorba has been acclaimed as one of the truly memorable creations of literature—a character created on a huge scale in the tradition of Falstaff and Sancho Panza. His years have not dimmed the gusto and amazement with which he responds to all life offers him, whether he is working in the mine, confronting mad monks in a mountain monastery, embellishing the tales of his life or making love to avoid sin. Zorba’s life is rich with all the joys and sorrows that living brings and his example awakens in the narrator an understanding of the true meaning of humanity. This is one of the greatest life-affirming novels of our time.
Aegean Dreams by Dario Ciriello
In November 2006, Dario and Linda move to the tiny Greek island of Skopelos hoping to start a new life in paradise. The Greek Gods have other ideas.
Comic and tragic by turns, Aegean Dream is a bittersweet story of love, resilience, and the power of friendship, a true-life memoir with all the attributes of a compelling novel. A compelling window on the daily life of a small Greek island and the spirit of its people, this book also provides striking insights into the broken institutions that would soon shake the entire global economy.
The Summer of My Greek Taverna by Tom Stone
Tom Stone went to Greece one summer to write a novel -- and stayed twenty-two years. On Patmos, he fell in love with Danielle, a beautiful French painter. His novel completed and sold, he decided to stay a little longer.
Seven idyllic years later, they left Patmos for Crete. When a Patmian friend Theológos called and offered him a summer partnership in his beach tavérna, The Beautiful Helen, Stone jumped at the chance -- much to the dismay of his wife, who cautioned him not to forget the old adage about Greeks bearing gifts.
Her warning was well-founded: when back on Patmos, Stone quickly discovered that he was no longer a friend or patron but a competitor. He learned hard lessons about the Greeks' skill at bargaining and business while reluctantly coming to the realization that Theológos's offer of a partnership was indeed a Trojan horse.
Featuring Stone's recipes, including his own Chicken Retsina and the ultimate moussaka, The Summer of My Greek Tavérna is as much a love story as it is the grand, humorous, and sometimes bittersweet adventures of an American pursuing his dreams in a foreign land, a modern-day innocent abroad.
Love and Olives by Jenna Evans Welch
Liv Varanakis doesn’t have a lot of fond memories of her father, which makes sense—he fled to Greece when she was only eight. What Liv does remember, though, is their shared love for Greek myths and the lost city of Atlantis. So when Liv suddenly receives a postcard from her father explaining that National Geographic is funding a documentary about his theories on Atlantis—and will she fly out to Greece and help?—Liv jumps at the opportunity.
But when she arrives to gorgeous Santorini, things are a little…awkward. There are so many questions, so many emotions that flood to the surface after seeing her father for the first time in years. And yet Liv doesn’t want their past to get in the way of a possible reconciliation. She also definitely doesn’t want Theo—her father’s charismatic so-called “protégé”—to witness her struggle.
And that means diving into all that Santorini has to offer—the beautiful sunsets, the turquoise water, the hidden caves, and the delicious cuisine. But not everything on the Greek island is as perfect as it seems. Because as Liv slowly begins to discover, her father may not have invited her to Greece for Atlantis, but for something much more important.
Greece’s captivating landscapes, rich history, and deep sense of myth make it a literary destination unlike any other. Books set in Greece let us explore its azure waters, immerse ourselves in its stories, and connect with its people from wherever we are. Whether you’re dreaming of sunlit beaches, ancient ruins, or moments of magic in a Greek taverna, let Greece be your next armchair travel destination—all you need is a good book.
