Maria Karametou

The Amalgam is a stunning novel, lush with detail and rich with history. It intertwines the personal, cultural, and political. It unspools the concept of home into a stretched thread, traversing space and time. Most of all, the novel is an insightful and touching exploration of how memory, across generations, merges the past with the present. —-Zach Powers, author of The Migraine Diaries

I devoured Maria Karametou's, The Amalgam. Highly recommended. — Yvette Manessis Corporon, Internationally Bestselling Author, Daughter of Ruins

“THE AMALGAM”
Publisher: Vine Leaves Press
Publication Date: March 24, 2026

BOOK LAUNCH EVENT: Saturday, March 28, 2-4 pm
The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, Maryland

REGISTER @ https://writer.org/event/maria-karametou/

Relating to the mass population shifts that impact our world today, set against the parallel events of WWI, The Amalgam is a story of uprooting and the search for a new home and sense of belonging. Through the immigrant and refugee experiences of two strong women—a grandmother and her granddaughter—who defy the odds to forge their own path in the world, and through the mysterious relic that binds them, the book explores cultural identity, displacement, family relationships, and love in its various manifestations.

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If lives are vibrant tapestries, war can turn them into remnants, as is the case with “The Amalgam.” Rich with history, the story’s transporting prose allows the plot to sing even in difficult times so that even a hidden jar of syrupy cherries is special and sumptuous. “The Amalgam” is a triumph. —Frances Park, award-winning author of BLUE RICE, and AHN LOVE

A captivating book. The title captures it. This is a novel about identity and family connection amid great change. The change comes from personal decisions, particularly about emigration, and the larger history of the time. But change is managed by unexpected personal flexibility, which gives the book, and the main protagonist, a welcome complexity. I enjoyed the nuance throughout. — Dr. Peter N. Stearns, Distinguished Historian, Author, and Professor Emeritus.

Maria Karametou’s The Amalgam is an ambitious historical novel and a poignant story told from the perspective of Meta, a Greek woman. With echoes of Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife, we are drawn into a world of intergenerational tenderness where love and loss are mysteries worthy of attention.  -Leeya Mehta, author of Extinction, a novel (Simon and Schuster, 2026)