Monday, 2 February 2026

Guest Post with Eva Glyn

Today, I'm delighted to welcome Eva Glyn aka Jane Cable back to the blog. I'm a big fan of Jane's writing and am so pleased she has a new novel out. Published by One More Chapter, The Croatian Island Library was published on January 16th, 2026.  

Welcome, Eva. I think you're going to tell us about one particular island out of several that were visited in your fabulous new novel, so it's over to you.  

How to even begin to choose an island to tell you about? There are five of them in The Croatian Island Library, and most of them dear to me for different reasons. So how about I share the tale of the island that chose me?

When I visited Croatia in September 2023, I had a good idea of how The Croatian Island Library’s story would pan out. There were five islands in all; the three inhabited Elafiti Islands (Kolocep, Lopud and Sipan), Mljet and my beloved Korcula. Mljet was to feature in the story as the home of Baka, the elderly lady who befriends my youngest protagonist, Natali and I was looking forward to visiting it for the first time.

We were staying on Korcula when, out of nowhere, the ferries were cancelled. It was near the end of the season, after all, and I had no way of getting to the part of this long, thin, island I needed to visit. Could I rely on desk research, or would something else crop up?



At the end of our trip we spent a few days in Dubrovnik, staying near the ferry port. There were plenty of boats to the nearest island, Kolocep, so we decided to spend the morning there.



Arriving at Donje Celo, one of two villages on the island, I was entranced. The frantic activity when the boat came in was replaced by an almost eery calm when it left. There was one hotel, a handful of konoba (the Croatian equivalent of the Greek taverna) and a couple of shops. The tiny beach was so quiet, a cat was sitting on it. But the water was incredibly clear and the houses, piled on the hillside, so beautiful I knew within about twenty minutes that this was where Baka needed to be.


We spent the morning exploring the village and the bay it surrounds. There were very few visitors (apart from day cruises loading and unloading their charges for half an hour) and barely any of them made it to the top of the hill where I imagined Baka would live. There were no cars either; everything and everyone was transported either on golf buggies or on the strange trailer-lawnmowers I’ve never seen anywhere else.

Kolocep was so very perfect it even found its way onto the cover of the book. The ideal place to show my readers a slice of Croatian island life, just a stone’s throw from Dubrovnik but at the same time a world away. There was even a bench on the harbour. The bench where Baka would sit to wait for her son to come home, day after day. And where Natali’s little dog Obi, finds her.


Biography & links: 

Eva Glyn writes escapist relationship-driven fiction to whisk you away to fascinating destinations with their own stories to tell.

Set mainly in Croatia, her contemporary novels are more about friendship than romance, the coming together of people through shared interests – especially a love of books – and the opportunity to make fresh starts in their lives.

She has written seven novels for One More Chapter, the most recent being the best-selling The Dubrovnik Book Club, The Santorini Writing Retreat, and The Croatian Island Library which was published in January 2026.

Although she considers herself Welsh, Eva lives in Cornwall with the man she met and fell in love with more than thirty years ago. She also writes as Jane Cable. 

Follow Eva on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EvaGlynAuthor), Instagram (@EvaglynAuthor) and Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Eva-Glyn/author/B08WH28BPV).

Thank you, Eva. Having read The Croatian Island Library, I can see why you chose Kolocep as the perfect location. I feel as if I've visited there myself through your words. 

Here is my review of Eva's new novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope you can tell that from the review. PLEASE CLICK HERE

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed Eva's post as much as I did.

It's only three weeks until my next novel, The Stolen Sister, is published and I can't wait to introduce my characters to you all. Here is the link to NetGalley if you'd like to read an ARC:

https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book/771349 


Here is one of the Netgalley reviews and I was thrilled:

'This story is as beautiful as the cover! It had me in my feels from the get-go, I loved everything about this book and definitely did shed a few tears here and there. This was my first reading experience with this author but definitely not the last. If you love heartwarming and emotional reads that make you feel like you're experiencing the story with the characters then I highly recommend this book! The writing style was easy to get through, the pacing was perfectly done and it kept me invested.'

You may also follow me on:
X/Twitter - @JanBaynham
FaceBook - Jan Baynham Writer
Instagram - janbaynham
Threads - Jan Baynham
Bluesky - Jan Baynham

For more information about me and my books, please visit my AMAZON page.

No comments:

Post a Comment