"Evicted from her Istanbul mansion, an elderly aristocrat forms surprising new connections across class and culture.
The last living member of a great Ottoman family, the refined yet sheltered Leyla finds herself homeless and vulnerable when her house is sold by the bank to a business tycoon and his ambitious wife. Forced out of this historic mansion on the bank of the Bosphorus, Leyla is rescued and taken in by Yusuf, the son of her family's former gardener who has become a journalist. She follows him to a modern, cosmopolitan district of Istanbul where she discovers a world of artists and outcasts alongside Yusuf's partner, Roxy, real name Rukiye, a hip-hop singer. Despite initial hostility, a real friendship gradually develops between these two very different women.
When Leyla's former home is emptied of its furniture, a hidden family history resurfaces thanks to the discovery of a photo revealing the old lady's uncanny resemblance to a British officer. Could Leyla be the product of an illegitimate union between an Ottoman woman and an Englishman? With a marked sense of romance, this vibrant novel displays all the layers of a society where social classes as diverse as the former Ottoman aristocracy, the nouveau riche, and the Turks who returned after immigrating to Europe coexist."
"From the internationally bestselling author of Serenade for Nadia, a powerful story of love and faith amidst the atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people.
Disquiet transports the listener to the contemporary Middle East through the stories of Meleknaz, a Yazidi Syrian refugee, and Hussein, a young man from the Turkish city of Mardin near the Syrian border. Passionate about helping others, Hussein begins visiting a refugee camp to tend to the thousands of poor and sick streaming into Turkey, fleeing ISIS. There, he falls in love with Meleknaz-whom his disapproving family will call "the devil" who seduced him-and their relationship sets further tragedy in motion.
A nuanced meditation on the nature of being human and an empathetic, probing look at the past and present of these Mesopotamian lands, Disquiet gives voice to the peoples, faiths, histories, and stories that have swept through this region over centuries."
"In this heartbreaking Turkish novel based on the real-life sinking of a refugee ship during World War II, an elderly professor leaves America to revisit the city where he last glimpsed his beloved wife.
Istanbul, 2001. Maya Duran is a single mother struggling to balance a demanding job at Istanbul University with the challenges of raising a teenage son. Her worries increase when she is tasked with looking after the enigmatic Maximilian Wagner, an elderly German-born Harvard professor visiting the city at the university’s invitation. Although he is distant at first, Maya gradually learns of the tragic circumstances that brought him to Istanbul sixty years before, and the dark realities that continue to haunt him.
Inspired by the 1942 Struma disaster, in which nearly eight hundred Jewish refugees perished after the ship carrying them to Palestine was torpedoed off the coast of Turkey, Serenade for Nadia is both a poignant love story and a gripping testament to the power of human connection in crisis."
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