Five star review from Amazon.com
Not your ordinary read! By Branko
Format:Kindle EditionAmazon Verified Purchase
The price of this book is a joke. It's undervalued beyond belief. This is unlike any other book I have ever read. It's a reality show at its best. It may just make you change and reorganize your priorities in life. Your children would love that. This book sucked me deep into it's incredible story. It reminded me on my pre-teen reading times when I couldn't stop reading until finished. Love it.
Readers Review taken from Harper Collins Authonomy;
Hi Andy, Your writing is that of a seasoned writer...so descriptive and full of warmth. You bring the reader right along with you in your journey. I'm only on chapter 4 but took a trip down memory lane with you in Chapt 1 even though we live in two different countries... your memories of your grandfather growing & hanging his tobacco out to dry in his wooden huts made me think of my grandfather in Kentucky, growing & hanging his tobacco to dry in his barn.
I was so glad in Chapt 2 he identified himself to you in his military picture.
The horrors of war are so hard to comprehend and understand and yet it is uplifting and amazing to hear your grandfather was still able to show such tremendous love. The two of you shared a special bond.
I am struck with the realization that you were meant from a young age to write this story. It's your grandfather's story but so beautifully told that I think many others will enjoy reading this heart felt story, especially those who also have lost their ancestral homeland. Although, I've never done any research in Yugoslavia, I know first hand how difficult and many times impossible it is to find records in those war torn countries.
Thanks for sharing this amazing story!
Jane
Latest Press Release
From Coal Miner to Author: West Yorkshire native uncovers his Yugoslavian roots in twenty year journey of false hope, bloodied ground and discovery
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From coal miner to author
West Yorkshire native re-discovers his roots in the former Yugoslavia
Born into the coal-mining industry, Andy Evans spent his childhood dreaming of another place, one not blackened by industry, but green and pure, the land his grandfather, Maksim Culumovic, had once called home.
Maksim was a ‘Displaced Person’. Originally from the former Yugoslavia, he had left his country of birth during the bitter fighting of World War II, where, in 1941, he had survived a brutal attack on his village that had left his neighbours, friends and the majority of his family ruthlessly slaughtered. The once peaceful community he had fought so hard to protect was destroyed in one single despicable act.
Following the horror of that day, he had left what remained of his family, including his older brother, Ostoja, his friends and everything he had ever known and after time spent in resettlement camps in Germany and Italy, Featherstone became his new home.
Like most of West Yorkshire, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Halifax had become home to ‘alien’ communities, encouraged over by a western power that had suffered heavy casualties in the war and needed a new workforce to run the heavy industry at home.
For the next 40 years, Maksim worked hard and built himself a new life, far away from the one he had started with. The shadow of his past hung over him, but he remained silent on the subject.
When he died in 1988 aged 79, it was his grandson, Andy, who set out to find the past, so well hidden to both family and friends that it would take a twenty-year search to uncover the truth.
Displaced is a joint work between Andy, and his Bosnian cousin Vesna Kovac, granddaughter of Ostoja, bought together finally to show both sides of this emotional story. The hardships of the coalmine and a heartbroken grandchild are bought into sharp contrast with a young woman’s trials in a post-Yugoslav civil war that would once again scar the landscape of what is now Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia.
Their stories combine to create an enthralling text and finally answer the question that Andy, now 45, has spent the last twenty years trying to discover.
Who was Maksim?
Displaced is available from Lulu Publishing in paperback, hardback and for the Kindle.
Also from Amazon and direct at http://kovacevans.blogspot.com
Today we are offered information like never before. At the click of a mouse we can purchase the latest computer hardware and software, order our weekly groceries, to be delivered to the door. Even more impressive we can now retrieve records of the Uncle Frank we never before knew existed.
Genealogy, for most is ingrained within our fabric. The need to know where we come from as never become greater.
No more can I ever claim to be the age old slayer of giants to my young audience, nor will I ever be again the fighter of demons.
Alas now genealogy has put paid to such claims. Census records, readily available, at little cost, detail the true origins of our birth. Whether we are of true blue blood origins, or the misfortunate product of a bygone shame, the records are now for all to see.
Just imagine now, if no records of our existence survived. As we turn around to face the high noon of the sun, no shadow will ever be cast to remind us we are truly alive and always were.
DISPLACED tells of such a search of no recordable beginning. Originally penned In Search of the Displaced Persons the story strives to uncover the shrouded blanket, kept in secret for over sixty years, of my own grandfathers life before his appearance in England in 1947. Yugoslavia's bloody and violent times of her past are revisited within my own travels of my modern day quest of understanding.
Excerpts from Displaced
"Stop!" The sudden command jolted me immediately from my thoughts.Mile grabbed my shoulder in a vice like grip.
"Do not step forward my friend," the Eastern European accent heavy within his voice.
My pulse raced to a crescendo. Bosnia, after all remained the most densely populated area in the world, not with people, but landmines, forgotten remnants of the civil war.
"Landmine?" I asked, sweat immediately covering my brow.
"Ne comrade," he pointed before me, "dog shit….."
"Russian miners had taken pity on our desperate plight and shipped food containers to help ward off malnutrition amongst the mining communities. One particular tinned ‘goodie’ soon became my favourite and I would consume as much of this sandwich paste as possible. Unfortunately, as the months passed, supplies of my favourite spread became hard to come by. Remembering how Granddad had once revealed he could speak Russian, I presented him with the last tin, in the hope I could purchase something similar in England.
“Baby food.” Came his reply as he idly scanned the outer wrapping.
“From six months upwards.” He added with a smile.
Baby food! No wonder my waistline had been growing in girth despite the hardships we endured. I had been innocently feasting on pure protein and fat…"
Today we are offered information like never before. At the click of a mouse we can purchase the latest computer hardware and software, order our weekly groceries, to be delivered to the door. Even more impressive we can now retrieve records of the Uncle Frank we never before knew existed. 
"Stop!" The sudden command jolted me immediately from my thoughts.