"Tis But a Small Price to Pay"

UPDATED

This content is on the back page of the book that will be released some time this coming May or June 2006. I was allowed only 150 words to accomplish the synopsis.

Fourteen year old Makia dreamt of a bright, exciting future, away from her brutal, sadistic father. Her dream was to escape the oppression of early 20th century (the way you had wrote this had me confused. I presume you meant early 20th century, but wasn’t sure) Istanbul in Turkey, a country that regarded her to be of less worth than an animal. Her dreams were cut short by her allowed sale, that her father was commencing upon with an upcoming artist, Jacob Pierett. At first the marriage was the answer to all her prayers, but she still wanted to exert her freedom. Soon her marriage became a prison, and even the expensive life style her husband afforded her was not worth her desire to be free. After the birth of her seventh child she could no longer bare the thumb of her husbands pressure to conform to his rule. Upon the discovery of her husband’s unforgivable deed she knew what she must do. Take control of her own life.


This is the Introduction to the Novel and will appear on the first page of my book

Tis But A Small Price to Pay

Have you ever had a dream that happened in reality, “Exactly” like you dreamed it? And you knew it would come true because it just had a “Quality” to it. That has been happening to me for the last thirty years.

Have you ever thought about what it would have been like living over a hundred years ago, in a land that was so alien to your hopes, fears and dreams that death may have not been an enemy?

This story has been handed down through the generations about my Great Grandmother and inspired me to write this fictionalized account of her life in the early 1900’s of Istanbul, Turkey. At the tender age of fourteen she had married my great grandfather, who had been an artist. He was a ladies man whose work had taken him away from home a lot. Each time he came home, she became pregnant. After giving birth to seven children, she alone, picked up her seven children and sailed across the ocean on a ship bound for America. Had it not been for her courageous, heroic, inspirational quest to take control of her own life, mine would have been nothing.

This story intrigued me because I could not fathom the reason a single woman with seven children would take such a bold step to change her future. After doing extensive research on what life was like in Istanbul during the 1900’s I knew why.

Most of us at the age of fourteen barely know who we are, where we are going or how we will get there. At the age of thirty-five we wonder at the Ahh of life, and begin to get a grip of what it’s all about. At fifty-one, if, you’re lucky, it seems to all come together and we can put a lot of things in perspective. What I have come to put into perspective is, that hers was not a small price to pay but one of titanic proportions.

The compelling part of this story for me was when I began to write this novel. From the very day I embarked on this venture I began to have dreams. They were not the “premonition” type dreams for they lacked the “special” quality. These dreams unfolded and became the book. In each dream I saw the same female, I never saw a face, but I knew her thoughts, could feel her emotions. These dreams unfolded themselves over a period of ten to twelve years to the present when I have finished the novel.

Was it a figment of my imagination? Or was it more than that? Was it the spirit of my great grandmother come to inspire me in the darkness of my dreams? You be the judge.