At the heart of the trilogy are Guy and Harriet Pringle, a newlywed English couple who arrive in Bucharest – the so-called Paris of the East – in the autumn of 1939, a few weeks after the German invasion of Poland. As gregarious as Guy is, Harriet is equally introverted, discovering to her surprise that she must share her beloved husband with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. More surprises follow: Romania joins the Axis, and soon the capital is flooded with German soldiers. The Pringles flee to Greece, with a group of refugees consisting of Russian "White émigrés," journalists, swindlers, and officials. In Athens, however, the couple will face a new challenge – one that is equally significant in its own way as the theater of war that continues to expand.

The Balkan Trilogy is the story of a marriage and a war, a multifaceted masterpiece in which Olivia Manning brings to life the uncertainty that prevails in the lives of citizens under military siege. Manning's focus is not the battlefield but the café and the kitchen, the bedroom and the street, the daily lives of ordinary citizens disrupted by war yet remaining unchanged.

The novels included are:

• The Great Fortune
• The Spoilt City
• Friends and Heroes