"Sofia had explored the no-man's land between secrets and lies. She convinced herself that concealment, the act of 'not' telling something, was very different from telling something that was untrue."
Anna and Maria's mother suffered from leprosy and was sent to live in the island of Spinalonga, Greece's former leper colony. Anna, the more aggressive one, married into a well-to-do family and met her husband's cousin Manoli, who looks like her husband but aggressive and adventurous like her. They had an affair and she got pregnant and Sofia was the product of that affair. Anna was murdered by her husband and he was imprisoned. Maria also contracted the dreaded disease that killed her mother and also lived in the island of Spinalonga where she fell in love with Nikolaos, a young doctor eager to find a cure for leprosy. When eventually Maria was cured, she and the doctor married. However, they found out that they would not have children of their own. When the grandmother of Sofia, the mother of Anna's husband, died, the care of Sofia was vested on to Maria and Nikolaos, Maria being Sofia's aunt and closest blood relative. Before setting off for university when she was 18, Maria and Nikolaos felt the need to tell Sofia who her real parents were. Bitter and ashamed of her past, Sofia left but kept in touch with her adopted parents. She married an Englishman and had children. Her eldest daughter, Alexis, curious of her mother Sofia's unspoken past, went to Greece to discover her mother's family history.
The island of Spinalonga was used as Greece's leper colony from the turn of the last century to the early 1960's. It is now uninhabited but is a popular tourist attraction for its beaches and shallow waters.
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the novel is labelled a beach book. although the plot is a cliché, i liked reading this book for its historical content. it also made me do some research on the internet about leprosy. growing up in manila, there was a family that lived down the road from our house who was taken by the government agents one night. the grandparents of the children who lived there had weird lesions on their arms and people believed they had leprosy. they were transferred to the leper colony island of culion. my research revealed that the island is also no longer a leper colony. leprosy, though now curable, still has the stigma attached to it, and people still have the same ignorant attitude towards people who had recovered from leprosy.
Great photo and the book sounds like it is action packed. It's not surprising that you did some research. You have a penchant for providing accurate information unlike your book's character Sofia.
@pamfromcalgary and @roth - thank you so much for your very nice comments and kind compliments. i am so flattered and humbled by your kindness. i really really appreciate them.
@sunnygreenwood - thank you, anne. i'm always scribbling, i have little notebooks everywhere. until recently, i have a small tape recorder where i record my thoughts, on anything, but it had been replaced from my purse by the camera. quiet time is reserved for reading. i don't watch mindless TV but i listen to music. and just before i sleep, i plot how i can take over the world then report to the mother ship. :-) i'm also a big prankster and an annoying joker.
That is quite the story. Interesting the connectiion to your past. I love the lone boat in this shot. I actually connect that to how lonely people who lived in these colonies must have felt and how even today how people with leporsy must feel
@danig - DG, it is fairly new, my copy is first edition published in 2005. i read this about 2 years ago when the bookstore near my office had a sale. never regretted paying $6 for a good read. :-) you like my boat eh? i took it sunday morning when i attempted to go early to the beaches to take sunrise shots. i was too late for the sunrise, but i got this instead.
@bkbinthecity - thank you. in the old country back then, the women converged every morning and they talk hush-hush about something that the children shouldn't hear. well, i have a pretty acute hearing and i could make out what they were saying about the family; and i deduced a lot from the general attitude of the people towards that family. now that i remembered it, i think i'd like to know what happened to them and where they are now. they had kids my age at the time.
i should like to see this island in the book. it said that the island was pretty much like a normal community, and i would guess that much. i suppose an island full of people, people won't just stare at each other's sickness the whole time; they have to have some kind of diversion and normalcy.
@steeler - when i was choosing which photo to post - there are 7 shots of this boat as it was moving due to the wind - my target audience was actually you! it's quite fun and strange, but when i look at a particular photograph, i think of certain persons in my little 365 circle that i know would love to see it. does that happen to anyone else? thank you, howard, much appreciated.
what a serene and lovely photo. beautifully framed and composed. the review is captivating, another must read on my ever-growing list. what a sad thing to happen to a family in the middle of the night. heartbreaking.
@catsmeowb - thank you, camille. the book actually begins in the present with sofia's daughter alexis wanting to know her sofia's past. thankfully, alexis' own story only occupies a chapter in the beginning and another in the end. hers is the usual cliche but the beautiful story is in between, rich in greek tradition and customs and when you get to the part that tells about the island life of the patients, the author doesn't just tell, she shows it in such a way you are almost walking the streets of that island and seeing the patients in the varied stages of their disease. the subplots are a bonus and believable. the storytelling, i find, was very engaging. i would guess you will love the book, too.
i should like to see this island in the book. it said that the island was pretty much like a normal community, and i would guess that much. i suppose an island full of people, people won't just stare at each other's sickness the whole time; they have to have some kind of diversion and normalcy.
@slang - thanks, sean. much appreciated.