The Return, By Victoria Hislop

In her Cretan-set debut The Island, Hislop signalled that she intended to smarten up the the conventions of holiday blockbusters. The Return repeats the formula: a youngish British traveller in search of escape, oblivious to the past, who finds that tragic history invades her mind and heart.

PR exec Sonia flees a banker husband to dance in Granada with a wild-child friend. After a fussy set-up, we drop into a saga which follows a family's misfortunes through the Spanish Civil War.

Tourist motifs do feature - flamenco, bullfighting, gypsy guitarists – but Hislop's history is reliable; her judgement sound; and the destiny of the Ramirez clan both holds and moves us.

The Return aims to open the eyes of readers who mostly won't have read the voluminous literature of the war. The battle of memory against forgetting has to be fought on all fronts, and Hislop deserves a campaign medal for her efforts.