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The Long Shadow
Fourteen-year-old
Andrew discovers his mother's hidden diary at his grandmother's home during a
Christmas gathering. His eyes are opened to a family secret when he reads about
her time as a Red Cross nurse in
Salonika
during the First World War, and the tragic love affair she had with his father,
a Greek officer who died in battle. Four years later, Andrew is impelled to
visit his father's land and trace his roots. What - and who - he finds there
will change his life forever.
The Long Shadow is filled with
descriptions of
Greece
and its people. Dramatic images of battle and the terrible conditions endured
by the Allied Armies entrenched around
Salonika
in the “Birdcage” are authentic and vivid. Greek “rebetika” music and
dance play a vital role, reconciling in Andrew the dichotomy of belonging to two
very different cultures and helping him to unite them in his heart and soul.
Reviews:
'I'm immensely impressed by the novel, especially the
Greek scenes. It's a marvellously accomplished book.....many
congratulations on an impressive achievement.'
Colin Wilson
(author of The Outsider, Mysteries, The
Occult and many others.)
'Loretta Proctor
spins a poignant, gripping story, moving back in time from the calm of a
family home in England to the upheaval of wartime Greece - a world which she
brings vividly to life. I kept on reading into the early hours.'
Francis McNeil (author of
Somewhere Behind the Morning which was awarded The Harper Collins
Elizabeth Elgin Memorial Award for the most regionally evocative debut saga
of the millennium'. Her recent book is Sixpence in my Shoe.)
FIVE BEACON REVIEW FOR THE LONG SHADOW
Andrew is growing up after WWI, the illegitimate son
of an American nurse and a Greek officer who died in the war. It is the story of
his search to find himself and his place in the world by retracing his mother’s
steps in Greece.
This was a very engaging read! The plot, tempo, characters, dialogue and setting
were all superbly
crafted. The WWI descriptions were incredibly well-written offering the reader
everything needed to “live” those scenarios right along with the characters of
the book. The Greek feel of the story is excellent, truly taking the reader to
another place and time. I also loved the “life coming full circle” theme of the
ending. As I get older, I realize how true to life that concept is. It played
wonderfully in this story. I would be interested in reading anything this
author has written!
Reviewed by: Ramona
Excerpt from
“The
Long Shadow” …..Part One:
Dorothy’s
Diary
Old
Salonika before the Fire of 1917
March
27th. 1916
Yesterday, on my afternoon off, I decided to take a ride into town with
one of the ambulance men. I
wasn’t perturbed by all the rumours and horror stories about women venturing
into the city though I know Matron prefers us to go out in pairs or more,
preferably accompanied by one of the officers.
The fact is I love to be alone whenever I can; everyone is so on top of
each other in the camp and it makes me fidgety at times. When one is alone, one
can take in one’s surroundings undisturbed by the inconsequential chatter of a
companion. I assured myself I was
afraid of very little in life and had great faith in my own good luck.
The driver dropped me off at the
White
Tower
. I felt like a schoolgirl on
holiday; it was such a freeing experience to be out of the camp and on my own.
The bustle and noise was deafening at times with trolleys clanging along,
wagons, trucks and those useful Army Fords we call the Tin Lizzie bustling about
carrying stores and dropping of nurses, officers and anyone else who might have
cadged a lift into town. Amongst
this confusion, passed the horse-drawn gharries or arabas full of important
looking officer who had just arrived and hadn’t yet realised they were being
charged the earth for their ride. Then
there were the shouts of pastry sellers calling their wares, their sticky
sweetmeats buzzing with flies. Turkish
porters came by loaded with enormous weights from a piano to a huge wine barrel.
Soldiers in their various uniforms strolled along the promenade, mingling
with Greeks from the mountains in their long white pleated skirts they call the
fustanella. In the dirty, dusty
roads, oxen with loaded carts filled with anything from water melons to barrels
of wine, Army mules and donkeys with a fat Turk on them weaved their way amongst
the glorious confusion of races, sounds, religions and costumes.
I loved it all and laughed with sheer delight.
I decided to walk through the city and up the hill towards the massive
towering walls with their seven towers. A
most forbidding citadel stands on the ramparts up there and is called the Yedi
Kule. Here, so the story goes,
people had been imprisoned for years under the Turkish regime.
By the time these poor souls had been released by the Greeks, they had
staggered forth as old men whose families had all but forgotten them.
To reach this place, one first has to pass through the Jewish section of
the city that lies behind the sea walls to the Via Egnatia.
There seem to be synagogues everywhere.
I passed through the busy area of the markets and business quarters and
made my way through fascinating streets with dark little shops tucked away here
and there and heard the hammering and banging of myriad coppersmiths as they
fashioned their beautiful wares. Here big balconies hung out over the street and
elderly Jewish ladies in their strange Sephardic costume sat up on high, sipping
their coffees, and looking over curiously as I clambered up the hill.
The Sephardim Jews here speak a form of old Spanish-Greek, called Ladino.
They had been driven out of
Spain
centuries ago and allowed to settle here by the Turks.
It was a haven of peace for them here; they virtually made Salonika their
very own city, a second
Jerusalem
, where they lived in peace and without persecution for centuries.
Past the Jewish area one climbs to the
Upper
Town
where the Turkish quarters lie. This part of the city is quaint and mysterious
with its labyrinthine, cobbled streets. The
houses are made of wood or stone with stout wooden doors set in high walls and
closely latticed windows barred with wrought iron grilles.
Here one might glimpse the flutter of a dark robe and know that the
Turkish ladies sit in their harem behind these walls and look down on the
streets at all the passers by, yet cannot be seen themselves.
Little Turkish children also came out to look and pointed at me,
jabbering and giggling, calling to me for backsheesh, missie, backsheesh!
But I remembered my last experience and refrained from parting with
money.
Despite the heat, I enjoyed the climb up to the walls and once there
stood staring down on the city, thinking many deep things, still caught up in my
amazement at being there at all. In
worldly terms it had all arisen from such an apparently insignificant happening
as some Austrian Archduke being assassinated in a far off Balkan country!
In the distance lay majestic
Mount
Olympus
. Its high summit, ever wreathed in
misty vapours and drifts of cloud, was the home of the ancient, pagan Gods and I
wondered if they were taking their revenge for centuries of Christianity when
the Lamb of God had banished them all to the depths of Tartaros.
Perhaps they were now rising from the deep and calling for blood
sacrifices on a grand scale to feed their long held fury.
Something greater than our tiny human selves seemed at work.
Here was I, a puny mortal, close to the very home of these fierce,
ancient Gods. England seemed
so far away, another lifetime, another me.
Where
to buy:
The Long Shadow
is now available from Amazon UK here.
And from Amazon. COM (for
American purchasers) here
Also direct from
the Publishers: Publish America,
Baltimore
USA
: www.publishamerica.com
Or
Goldsboro Books at 7,
Cecil Court
,
London
,
UK
www.goldsborobooks.co.uk
This is the book collectors bookshop where you get first editions, signed.
Plus Borders, Gardners and Bertrams, Ingrams and other leading online bookstores in America, Canada, UK
and Netherlands. It can also be
ordered from any major bookstore in the
United Kingdom
,
United States
,
Canada
,
Netherlands
. If your library doesn't have it, why not ask them to order
it?
Other books are
in the pipeline.
Keep an eye
out for Gisla’s Hill
a story about
a woman’s inner transformation. It
is set in Islington,
London
during the 1960’s. I keep perfecting
it because this book is close to my heart.
The Crimson Bed has had some
massive reworking. It is set in Victorian London with a
Pre-Raphaelite background, a dramatic love story.
Having finished Crimson Bed
which at present resides on the slush pile at Little Browns, I am now busy with
another Greek story set in Crete. The Glass Madonna is something of
a supernatural thriller.
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