This was a beautifully “quiet” book set in Croatia. I was in Split, Hvar and other islands 2 years ago so I had the landscape in my mind as I read this novel. The writing is really exquisite and the story will tug at your heart. While it wasn’t necessarily a page turner I was happy to get back to the pages. For those that like more literary, character driven novels.

I just finished this amazing book gifted to me by @simonbooks. Heartwrenching, frustrating, beautiful, and poignant are all words that come to mind as I think about reading this book.

Our main character, Ivona, divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago and has lived with the regret ever since. The story takes place in Croatia in the early 2000s as the newly democratic country faces a new future. Ivona and Vlaho face challenges that ultimately lead her to make a tragic decision. The story flips back and forth between the early days with Vlaho as things lead up to that decision, and her life in the current day after she’s “adjusted” and so has he. Vlaho is now married with two children, and Ivona lives with her father, acting as his caretaker. Things get shaken up as she meets someone new and potentially suitable for her.

This story explores the idea of sacrifice and what you’d do for those you love. It also looks at the idea of self-love, or lack thereof, and how that can lead an individual astray from their own needs and desires. It explores history both in terms of the young country of Croatia and the family history that Ivona carries on her shoulders.

The writing just blew me away; it was so wonderful. I could picture the Croatian coastline (and can’t wait to visit it someday). Admittedly, I started the book knowing little about Croatia's history, but I am grateful for what it taught me.

That said, there were times when I felt frustrated with Ivona and how she perceived her role in life, and I felt frustrated with Vlaho, as well. That made the reading experience all the more real!

I really wanted to like this book, but it just wasn't the book for me. I highly disliked Ivona, who was the main character. Yes, she battled depression, her mother died, & she found out she couldn't get pregnant, but her reaction to all of that was to wallow in her misery and divorce the love of her life. I completely empathize with the depression part of it, but how she handled everything else was just not relatable. It was like she was happy being miserable. There were a few bits here and there that I enjoyed, but for the most part I just did not enjoy the novel.

I was first drawn to this book's gorgeous cover and the fact that it took place in Croatia, but it was the constant praise it kept getting from some of my most trusted readers. And while I really really liked it, I think the buzz got to me and I was just a LITTLE let down. It is still well worth reading, it just wasn't 5 stars for me. (However, I could see it sticking with me and inching up from 4 to 4.5, TBD). The writing was beautiful, the characters were richly drawn, and the setting was perfection. There was just a little something missing that didn't get me as emotionally invested as I need to be for a book to be a favorite. A stunning novel that is well worth your time. Can't wait to see what she writes next!

Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje is the perfect summer escape read for anyone who wants to travel but can't. This book is set in Croatia, partially along the Dalmatian coast, and it is so well described that you feel as though you are there on vacation. However, reader beware, your heart is about to be tossed through quite a storm of feelings. Ivona and Vlaho have been together since their college days but life took some unexpected turns, and they find themselves having to navigate going through life without each other. They are still involved in their lives, and that might not be a wise decision. This is an engrossing read that has you really hoping for the best for these two humans. Read and enjoy!

What beautiful writing and such a sense of place! I would have never believed that Slanting Towards the Sea is a debut novel! I do not usually highlight many quotes in a book, and yet I found myself highlighting passage after passage here.
The only thing I knew going into this book is that the narrator Ivona, her ex-husband Vlaho, and his wife Marina are friends. The more I read, the more engrossed I became in their story. It is so well done and never falls into the melodramatic.
I loved it and am certain it will be one of my "best books" of 2025.

Thank you to #Simon&Schuster for this gifted eARC in exchange for my honest review.

The highest praise I can give this book is that after being sick for the better part of two months and putting this book to the side for the majority of that time, I actually wanted to pick it up again and finish it - a lesser book would have been put to the side since I had lost the "flow."

Hijje's novel following Ivona over the course of more than a decade is lush and beautifully written (shockingly, English is Hilje's second language). It is not a romance but it does capture Ivona's developing relationship and eventual divorce from Vlaho in their native Croatia in a lovely and realistic way. I've never had the fortune of visiting Croatia, but it is also depicted in its full complexity - its natural beauty, its angering bureaucracy. Ultimately, it is a story that is very much of Croatia, for many of the dilemmas Ivona and Vlaho face would not occur in my United States, or Hilje's home in the United Kingdom. Ivona is the type of character who lives and breathes on these pages, and she will stay with me a for a long time.

This cover and all the early buzz is why I requested it. I thought the descriptions of Croatia and their government were fascinating. She really knew how to transport the reader. I was okay with this being a slow burn and was so invested until the latter half. SPOILERS from here: I don’t do infidelity in stories, so that ruined it for me sadly. I know this is a personal preference, and if I had known it was a plot point, I wouldn’t have requested.

This is a beautifully written coming-of-age novel that focuses on themes of family, first love, unmet dreams, loss and finding oneself. Set in the beautiful and sometimes fraught country of Croatia, this book features two young adults who meet as students and fall deeply in love. 

Sometimes life doesn’t end up quite the way you might have imagined and Ivona and Vlaho’s love story is tinged with loss and regret. Ivona is the narrator and is a prickly character. As she tells her story, you can feel a myriad of emotions. She makes decisions that affect not only herself, but her loved ones. 

I struggled with the romantic angst in the book, at times. And the heavy themes. There are a few aspects that I really do not enjoy in a book that are a part of the plot as well. The lyrical prose will likely appeal to many. 

CW | Contains some strong profanity and several intimate scenes, with moderate details. Triggers to be aware of.

3.5/5 stars

[Thanks to the publisher, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for the early electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.]

𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙪𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨: 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙥𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙙𝙤𝙤𝙢 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙖 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩. 𝘼 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙤 𝙨𝙖𝙮.

It is the start of the new Millenium, Croatia is a ‘newly democratic, burgeoning country’, hope is exploding, and the times are ripe with opportunity when love between students Ivona and Vlaho is born. Ivona (19) has just moved to Zagreb, swimming in freedom from her parents’ drama, eager to embrace becoming a new person, taking classes, making friends and partying. It isn’t long, though, before she is missing the familiar routine of home but then she meets Vlaho at a party and feels an immediate, instinctual love. “I had been hiding for so long I didn’t believe it possible that someone else could see me.” It is mutual and intense, all the love she has inside of her finally has a welcome place to land. Love isn’t guaranteed, not even in a time full of promise, nor for a girl people once said had so much potential. Book smarts, Ivona knows, are not an immunity against the disasters of time. At the beginning of the novel, it is a fact that Ivona and Vlaho married but now they are divorced. Her heart still aches with loss, but the fact stands, she is the one that made the decision to let the love of her life go. This is the heartbreaking story of why.

Ivona is now thirty-eight, single and living in her childhood home sometimes stalking her ex-husband online when she isn’t caring for her aging father after his stroke. In fact, the interactions between father and daughter resonate with me, and surely with those of us caring for our parents. Her father is a character, his grievances, his challenges are an honest mirror of the realities old age hands us. I could cry with the moments between them, “Dad nods, his right hand trembling as he raises the cup to his mouth. He steadies it with his left. I avert my gaze, because I know it bothers him when I see all the ways his body is failing him.” The weight of getting older in such a man, one who was once “a presence one couldn’t ignore” is a knife to the heart in those two sentences but it shows the tender love Ivona has for her father. He is feisty, unapologetic about his opinions and views, including his ambition for Lovorun. The building site, one that is also a heritage project that kept Ivona from giving up when her love crumbled, is in ruins, they do not have the money, nor any bank willing to grant them a loan. Selling it, the only solution, is something that would devastate her father, his dreams. As to her own dreams of Olive groves, it is always on the back burner, as all Ivona’s hopes and dreams remain suspended in time. How can she chase her future when she is anchored by other’s needs? Trapped still in the past, torn between her love for Vlaho as she is on the periphery of his life, close with his children and wife?

How do you break away when you’ve made decisions that go against what your heart wanted? Why does she stay in Croatia, clinging to the ruins of the past? She feels she has failed at everything, but no failure guts her more than the one that should come naturally. It feels like a curse.

A new love enters her life, but will she continue to drag the old love behind her, sabotaging her happiness?

This is a beautiful story about how sometimes we must trust the slide into unfamiliar territory, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Life gives us more than one path; but you must be willing to engage with change despite the pain.

Publication Date: July 8, 2025

Simon & Schuster

I'm having a hard time getting my thoughts down about SLANTING TOWARDS THE SEA, the debut novel by Lidija Hilje. It's a beautiful book, and I had never read a novel set in Croatia before so I really appreciated learning more about the country. But I felt the writing was overly flowery and a little try-hard, and the main character's actions were baffling and frustrating, which frequently took me out of the book.

The characters, Vlaho and Ivana, are a young married couple who desperately want a baby, but sadly find out Ivana is not able to carry a child. Their obsessive love cannot withstand this tragedy, and Vlaho eventually remarries, and so begins the story of these two coming together and part and together throughout their entire lives. It's an epic love story, but I can't help but feel that so much would have been solved with a little more communication and forward thinking. Ivana often wallows in her misery, which can make the book seem unbearable at times, especially in a character driven novel. I wanted to know what was going to happen from one page to the next, but overall wasn't taken with the book as much as I had hoped.

Slanting Towards the Sea is a work of literary fiction set along the coast of Dalmatia on the island of Zadar. Ivona, divorced and 'lost' in more ways than one, is stuck in a holding pattern caring for her aging father and maintaining a delicate friendship with her ex-husband, Vlaho, whom she is still in love with, and his wife, Marina.

Ivona caters to everyone's needs but her own, and to top it off, she shoulders the enormous task of preserving her father's legacy: Lovorun, a family home turned heritage hotel she doesn't want to manage. The bills are stacked high, and she just can't catch a break in a country that, while so beautiful, is still young and rife with bureaucratic red tape.

So when Ivona crosses paths with an investor named Asier, who is handsome and full of surprises, her actions set forth a series of events that irrevocably change the dynamic she shares with Vlaho and Marina and redefine the woman she knows herself to be.

I loved this book! Hilje's prose is immersive and atmospheric, making the reader feel like they're sitting in a coffee shop watching the novel unfold in the town square. The characters feel like old friends whom we love, and are sometimes frustrated with because they're complicated! Messy, even. But mostly, they are human and mirror one another in their hope for success, love, and deeply fulfilling lives.

The perfect summer read, if you've ever felt a little lost or your trajectory off course, Slanting Towards the Sea will leave you feeling satisfied and content in trusting that little glimmer of destiny found along the crests of ocean waves on the horizon.

Thank you, NetGalley and Simon & Schuster, for the advanced copy of the novel in exchange for a review.

4 ⭐️ The book is a beautifully written portrait of Croatia. The setting is brought to life with the gorgeous prose describing the sea, olive groves, food, sights and smells of the village that is home to Ivona and Vlaho.

Ivona has suffered for years after her divorce from the love of her life Vlaho. Burdened by infertility, family expectations, and secrets, she makes a devastating decision. She lives a solitary life caring for her invalid father unable to move on. She remains friends with Vlaho and his new wife Marina,even being Godmother to their daughter.

Asier enters her life working for a company interested in buying her father’s property, Louveran. Ivona begins to let her guard down and hope for the future, but what of her love for Vlaho?

I sometimes questioned Ivona’s choices and also those of Vlaho. I felt both characters were selfish and foolish at times, though they made the right choices at the end. Overall a well written romance.

thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster publishers for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was beautifully written, thoroughly melodramatic, and abundantly rich with emotion— I absolutely loved it. This book will not be for everyone but, it hit the mark spot on for me. I was captivated from the beginning by the rich prose and fantastic writing, which eloquently captured the main character’s feelings about her childhood, falling in love, her anxiety, her hopes and fears, etc.

There is not a great deal of action in this book but, the plot moves swiftly as the tension builds and the past begins to unravel into present day. There were a few times where I thought about putting the book down for the night but, each chapter was so compelling and I had to know what happened to the characters. If you are someone that gets frustrated with characters easily, especially those that wallow a bit in their emotions, you will likely struggle with this book. However, I thought that the author did a great job exploring topics like the caretaking for aging parents, infertility, marriage difficulties, etc. and I could very much understand and accept the inner struggle we read about.

Ultimately, I really loved this book and think it will be a favorite this year. I can’t wait to get a copy of this once it’s out to highlight my favorite sentences and return to this story. I’d absolutely recommend!! Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this advance readers copy, in exchange for an honest review.

This was probably a 3.5-star read for me. I thought the characters were three-dimensional and interesting and the setting is fantastic, but by the end of the book, I was really disappointed. There also seemed to be a lot of repetition in the writing (sometimes I felt like there were entire sentences that I'd already read before). I think this sense of repetition also made me feel like I was slogging through each chapter. Although there was a feeling of authenticity to the storytelling, I do hate stories where the entire conflict could be resolved by people just talking to each other. And SPOILER: the ending made me feel like we'd ended up right back where we were at the beginning again. I think Hilje is a talented writer, but this missed the mark in a lot of ways for me.

This is an incredibly beautiful novel, and Croatia is as much a main character as the people main characters. I felt so many emotions as I read this captivating story.
A must read!

✨ Synopsis: Spanning twenty years and one life-altering summer in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is at once an unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.✨

Review:

This is a beautifully written book that I wished I would have read sooner. Slanting Towards the Sea covers important themes including infertility, hardship, grief, and health. However, it is more of a character driven story rather than the love triangle I was anticipating.

If I had to praise one thing about the book, it would be how the book touches on each of the senses.

“It’s sweet and sticky and savory, and you can’t get enough even when you’re full.”

“I’m reaching for him, running my hands up his arms, through his hair, pulling him closer, willing him to come back to his body.”

In every chapter, I personally felt touched by the words written. I could ‘feel’ the subtle touches between Vlaho and Ivona. I could ‘smell’ and ‘taste’ the saute onions and olive oil in the second half. I could ‘see’ Croatia. I could ‘hear’ the fights. Because of this, I wished I had the chance to listen to this novel rather than ‘read’ it. I just know this would be a wonderful listening experience for those who choose to.

My only big critique about this one is that I felt it was too melodramatic. We could have cut a bit of the sentimental and tightened up the action.

The Gist:
Positives: Atmospheric, Engaging, Touching and Relatable
Negative: Too Melodramatic, Pacing (Extremely Slow in the 1st Half)

Actual Rating: 3.5/5

Lastly this month, I picked up a highly anticipated debut that hits shelves tomorrow. There’s a lot to love here, from the stunning cover to the atmospheric Croatian coastline setting, but it was the writing that really drew me in. Hilje dives deep into the interiority of Ivona, who is clearly depressed and a little unmoored. She ends up in a strange love triangle involving her ex-husband, and the result is a riveting, mesmerizing, and beautifully written novel. If you enjoyed Thirst for Salt, Piglet, or The Rachel Incident, I think you’ll find something to love here too.

4.25 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I'm not even sure where to begin with Slanting Towards the Sea. It was such a beautifully written book, and the story was gut-punch after gut-punch of loss, grief, infertility, unrequited love, and feeling stuck in life. It wasn't uplifting or cheerful, and yet I couldn't stop reading. I wanted so much for Ivona, at times more than she wanted for herself. It was so sad, and yet familiar, to see her feel like she had no agency in her life. Like all of her decisions were predestined for her and there was nothing she could do - whether because of her parents' toxic marriage, her mother's subsequent death and father's illnesses, her own infertility, the state of life in Croatia, her inability to find a job in her field.

I was trying to explain the plot of the book to my husband, and I was struggling to describe "the triangle." Was there cheating? Technically, yes. And while I'm normally a hard-liner when it comes to cheating, Hilje has you so connected to these characters that you understand why it's not black and white for them. There is so much nuance and grey area, and there's no easy answer to any of it. I kept waiting for the story to be tied up in a neat bow by the end, but it doesn't. Which honestly, is kind of the point isn't it? Life is rarely neat and tidy, and no part of this book felt that way.

I have so much empathy and sadness in my heart for Ivona, Vlaho, Marina, and Asier. I wanted them all to find their own versions of safety and love. I truly wanted Asier to be able to provide that for Ivona, but I also really appreciated that in the end she chose herself for once. The open ending left so much room for you to imagine characters continuing to grow, so that maybe someday they will finally believe the deserve the love the so desperately seek.

I've never read a book set in Croatia before, but the atmospheric writing describing all of the regions and seasons within the country was outstanding. It has made Croatia a destination, bucket-list trip for me. Croatia was as much a character in the book as Ivona, and you can feel the genuine adoration Hilje has for the country through the pages.

.What an incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking debut from Lidija Hilje. I was completely mesmerized and enraptured by this story.

I love a good character driven novel, but Slanting Towards the Sea literally blew it out of the water (pun intended). Set in Croatia, this story centers around the relationship between Ivona and Vlaho who meet, fall passionately in love, and are torn apart in such a devastating way my heart ached for them. I was so drawn in to the lives of these characters I felt like I could scarcely breathe at times. The ending came much too quickly and I hesitated to even finish as I was not ready to say goodbye. Hilje crafted an extraordinary story. about grief, loss, love, and what makes a family.

I still can't quite process the beauty of the writing in this book. I am literally in awe that this is a debut. Many thanks for NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for allowing me to read this story. This is one that will stay with me forever.