Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
One hot summer day in 2003, 40-year-old art historian Melike Isik leaves her summer home in Princes Island and takes the ferry to Fener, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city.
She is travelling to a mysterious meeting with an even more mysterious man. Known only to her through a brief email exchange, Petros has contacted her out of the blue, asking for a tour of Istanbul's Byzantine churches. Melike, intrigued, agrees to help.
The place they arrange to meet, the Church of Saint Mary of Mongols, holds tender memories for Melike, located right across from where her long-dead grandmother lies. But what Melike at first assumes is a coincidence soon gives way to something much greater.
And as she begins to realise Petros's real motivations, long-held secrets begin to unravel...
Synopsis
'Every woman must be nourished by an inner reservoir of secrets...'
Melike has it all: a beautiful home in Istanbul, a career as an art historian, an attentive husband. But her yearning for more excitement has led her surreptitiously into the arms of other men.
On the cusp of her fortieth birthday, Melike is resolute: the affairs must stop. Then she receives a mysterious email from a man named Petros, requesting a tour of Istanbul's Byzantine churches. Against her better judgement, she accepts.
As soon as she sees Petros, with his endearing smile and impeccable charm, Melike knows she is in trouble. But she is not the only one keeping secrets. Petros has a hidden agenda of his own - one which, when uncovered, will not only upend Melike's future, but alter everything she believed about her past...
Set alternately between 2003 and 1974, during the Turkish Army's invasion of Cyprus, Defne Suman's third novel to be translated into English tells of one woman's place in her country's devastating history.