Daughter of Ruins: Review & Interview with Yvette Corporon About Her Powerful New Release

For years, bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning journalist Yvette Manessis Corporon has been uncovering remarkable family stories — both her own and those of others — through her deep connection to her Greek heritage. MyHeritage has been privileged to play a role in her journey, using our extensive resources to help her track down and reconnect the descendants of the Jewish family her grandmother’s family had sheltered on Ereikoussa during World War II.

It all began with a search for the truth behind an old family story. Yvette’s grandmother had told her that during World War II, the community on their tiny island of Ereikoussa, Greece, sheltered a Jewish family from the Nazis. Determined to uncover what really happened, Yvette appealed to MyHeritage Founder and CEO Gilad Japhet for help.

Gilad had a unique insight that led to a breakthrough using MyHeritage’s historical record collections — and the Jewish family and their descendants were found. The discovery culminated in an emotional reunion between Yvette, her grandmother’s community, and the descendants of the people they had saved.

This inspiring journey was chronicled in her book Something Beautiful Happened, and her work has continued to highlight the power of history, family, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. You can read more about that story on our blog, watch a news segment about it here, or listen to it in the debut episode of our podcast, Blast From My Past: “The Secret of Ereikoussa.”

Now, Yvette is bringing another powerful story to readers with Daughter of Ruins, an evocative novel that weaves together history, mythology, and the struggles of generations of Greek immigrants.

Inspired by real events, Daughter of Ruins follows the intertwined lives of three women across different eras — Demitra, an artist defying societal expectations; Elena, an Italian woman caught in the tides of war; and Maria, a young bride forced to leave her homeland for a new life in America. Through their journeys, Yvette celebrates the enduring love between generations of women; laments the long-reaching effects of cruel and catastrophic choices; and underlines the courage and resilience of those who choose to shape their own destinies.

Daughter of Ruins contains many threads that will resonate with family history enthusiasts: Demitra’s lifelong quest to understand what happened to her mother, Elena’s desperate search for a stolen child, and the coming together of long-lost family members once the secrets of the past have been unraveled. The novel explores how women can serve as a source of strength to one another, even in the most dire circumstances, and even across vast distances of space and time.

Yvette’s new work is equal parts thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and inspiring, and serves as a wonderful springboard for exploring how our family history can impact us, shaping both the challenges we face and the triumphs we celebrate over the course of our lives.

With Daughter of Ruins already earning recognition — including a spot on Oprah Daily’s must-read list and praise from the Historical Novel Society — this is a novel you won’t want to miss. It’s an especially appropriate read for upcoming International Women’s Day.

Below are some questions we asked Yvette about the book, and her insightful answers.

At one point in the book, Demitra hits what many genealogists know as a “brick wall” when trying to find records of her mother’s death. What advice would you, as a family history researcher, give to someone in Demitra’s position?

Having gone through my own genealogical detective journey, I would suggest doing what I did — and that’s asking for help. Several years ago, after hitting my own brick wall, I was advised by many to give up my search for the family my grandmother helped save from the Nazis on our tiny Greek island. Instead of giving up, I reached out to the experts and asked MyHeritage for help. My family’s decades-long mystery was solved within 24 hours.

Thankfully there are so many tools available to those of us who love exploring their own family histories. That said, my own story is a reminder of the power of this community and the incredible detective work of the researchers and team at MyHeritage. Just like the process of editing a book — exploring a story through a fresh set of eyes can be the best way to find resolution and meet your potential.

Daughter of Ruins explores in part the plight of “picture brides”: young women who were shipped off to the U.S. to be married. What’s one aspect of this phenomenon you wish more people knew about?

Yvette with her new book

I’m fascinated by the stories of the picture brides and their journeys to America. So many of these brides were children, 14, 15, 16 years old. These girls had no say in where they were going or who they were being sent to marry.

For many of these poor Greek families, sending their daughters away to be married came down to the necessity of having one less mouth to feed. Others saw the poverty and limited opportunities around them, and thought sending their daughters away to marry a stranger in America was the only way to provide the chance of a better life.

I think of these young girls and women, ripped from the only life they ever knew, and sent overseas to a stranger in a strange country with a strange language and customs, with absolutely no say in the matter — and I can’t help but think of how terrified they must have been. Of course, not all stories were horror stories; some women did marry and find a better life in America. That said, I also feel like we should call the practice what it was: human trafficking.

In Daughter of Ruins, women of different generations draw strength from each other. In what ways can women in 2025 draw strength from previous generations?

Oh, this is my favorite question of all! One of the most rewarding things about writing historical fiction is to be able to give voice to the once voiceless women who came before us. In Daughter of Ruins, I write about women in early- to mid- 20th century Greece and U.S. — women who were so often told that their opinions didn’t matter, and whose worth was confined to the kitchen and bedroom. These women were brave and creative and smart and had worth well beyond their dowries, although society did not see it that way. It is so important for women in 2025 to remember and honor the women who came before us. Every day we stand on the shoulders of these women; their strengths and sacrifices and struggles are the reasons we are here today, living these lives of opportunity and accomplishments. 

In your author’s note, you write about how Demitra’s journey as an artist is a reflection of your journey as an author. How can family history research benefit artists and writers? How has exploring your own family’s past impacted your writing?

Exploring my own family history was truly the catalyst key that opened up the world of writing books for me. I wanted for so long to try writing a book, but the idea was so daunting. It wasn’t until I looked closer at my grandmother’s life, that I realized her actions during WWII were just as heroic as those I read about in WWII history books. The only difference was that those stories had been written down… and so I decided to put my grandmother’s story to paper.

That book, When The Cypress Whispers, inspired by my grandmother’s life, went on to be an international best seller. I have been so incredibly inspired in mining my family’s history for my books. Sometimes the most compelling stories are in our own homes, and in the yellowed pages of our family photo albums.

In Daughter of Ruins I explore the challenges of the early Greek immigrants and the discrimination they faced. While writing the book, I learned that when my grandfather arrived from Greece in the late 1930s, he was called “dirty Greek” and faced terrible discrimination. I also learned that my great-grandfather came over in the 1920s to work on the Midwest railroads. He stayed for a few years and then returned to Greece after facing horrific racism. “They don’t want us there,” he told his family at the time.

The key to writing is to find a story that is uniquely yours, and yours alone to tell. What could be more perfectly yours, than a story inspired by your own family history?

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Get your copy of Daughter of Ruins now and enjoy a beautifully woven tale of history, courage, and heritage from an author who truly understands how family history research can change your life.

Start exploring your own family history now with MyHeritage >>