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Orhan's Inheritance
Orhan's Inheritance
Orhan's Inheritance
Audiobook8 hours

Orhan's Inheritance

Written by Aline Ohanesian

Narrated by Assaf Cohen

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

A young Turkish man journeys back in time and across continents in search of a stranger who will forever alter the way he sees himself, his family and his country. When Orhan's brilliant and eccentric grandfather-a man who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs-is found dead, submerged in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But his grandfather's will raises more questions than answers. Kemal has left the family estate to a stranger, thousands of miles away, an aging woman in an Armenian retirement home in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan's grandfather would have willed their home in Turkey to an unknown woman rather than to his own son or grandson. Left with only Kemal's ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There, over many meetings, he will not only unearth the story that 87-year-old Seda so closely guards, but discover that Seda's past now threatens to unravel his future. It's a story that, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which his family is built. Moving back and forth in time, between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, Orhan's Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that haunt a family.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 7, 2015
ISBN9781622315604
Orhan's Inheritance

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Rating: 4.122881355932203 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I liked the story, but due to some issue, it would not play after chapter 13 even though downloaded offline...very disappointed with S
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Divided timeline 1990/1915 about Armenian genocide. Woman loses her entire family on forced March from home in Anantolia with the Turks accusing them of turning against the Turks in WWI. Interesting realistic story, but doesn’t follow thru on deep thoughts. Made me want to know more, though about that country’s involvement in the war.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Orhan's Inheritance illuminates the horrors of the murder, rape, and enslavement of the Christian Armenians by the Muslim Turks during World War I.Woven in is a compelling tale of Orhan's eventual journey from Turkey to California to discover the truths of his grandfather's indigo dye legacy, his own home, and the deeper secrets of his family history.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5*** Orhan’s grandfather Kemal built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs. When he dies, his will bypasses his only son and Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But, Kemal leaves the family home to a woman no one has heard of – Seda Melkonian, an Armenian woman living in a Los Angeles retirement home. Orhan travels to California to meet with Seda and try to discover her connection to his family. Seda and Kemal’s story of young love across religious and cultural taboos unfolds against the backdrop of World War I and the Armenian genocide. The novel moves back and forth between 1990s and the last days of the Ottoman empire. There are not a lot of fiction books about World War I (as compared to WW II), and only a small number that deal with the Armenian genocide. So, this is an interesting and informative subject on which to focus. What people had to do to survive and how the trauma affected them forms the basis for a compelling story.As Orhan meets with Seda to discover her connection to his family, he learns about events the world seems to have forgotten. However, Seda seems to want to forget about it. She has put those memories aside in order to live her life. Still the trauma haunts her. But Seda’s niece and others of her generation seem bent on exploring their families’ histories. It made me wonder when, or whether, one can ever let go of past wrongs. Must hate and rancor pass from generation to generation because one’s grandfather hurt the other’s grandfather? Ani is angry with her aunt’s generation for not talking about their experiences during the war: ”You know, there’s no difference between withholding and lying, right?” Ani asks her aunt But she seems equally angry that Orhan, a Turk, would want to explore the exhibit and learn what happened from her aunt. It’s as if the events that occurred are the sole property of the descendants of the Armenian victims of that wartime atrocity. ”Is that what the exhibit is about? Finding a cure for your grief?” Orhan asks Ani.Untangling the family connections is a daunting task and once he opens that box he may not like what he discovers. I believe that the journey to discovery changes the course of his life.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Really interesting novel about the Armenian genocide that took place in Turkey. As someone who has read so many books about the Holocaust (WW2) I found it fascinating - and disturbing to read about this event, because I knew so little about it. The similarities between the Armenian experience and the Jewish experience were scary, as they speak to human nature and how easy it is to turn on your neighbor and those you do not know, how cruel people can be and how they can justify insane behavior .
    The novel gives us two perspectives, one of a young girl who is forced to leave her home and join a trail of fellow Armenians as they are deported to an arid desert. Many die along the way, the horror will stay with her forever. The second narrative is that of the grandson of a Muslim Turk who leaves his family home to this woman. As the young man seeks the reason for the inheritance he learns (for the first time) of this horrific incident in his country's past. he also learns about his family and what they went through during this time in Turkey's history.

    The story is well told and the dual narrative format works well. More importantly it brings to life another terrible event that everyone should know about. We need to remember the past to prevent it from reoccurring.....
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The book toggles between present day Turkey and America and the Armenian genocide during WW I. The narration is very well done and there are several plot twists that are very intriguing. The author has written fiction- but is paying tribute to a family member- and I find that detail very satisfying. Sometimes fiction makes our understanding of human cruelty more easily understood.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In 1990, Orhan's grandfather dies and much to his family's chagrin, leaves the house to some woman named Seda whom no one has ever heard of. He goes to a nursing home in California to seek out this Seda, hoping she will legally sign the house over to him, and discovers the connection between her and his grandfather, Kemal, a story which delves into the Armenian genocide during World War 1.The story moves back and forth between 1915 and 1990, telling the story of Lucine and Kemal. I liked the parts set in the far past especially, and thought the author did a good job of portraying the devastation of forced marches and brutality of war while many of the characters were well-drawn and sympathetic. The more modern sections, where characters discuss whether or not such things should be left in the past or stay fresh in our collective memories, read to me a little preachy. Through Lucine's character, especially, this debut novel brings to life a tragic, little-known or acknowledged piece of Turkey's history.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I had checked this book out from the library on my Kindle. Sadly, it was checked in before I finished it. I put it on hold and again and two months later when I was able to finish it, the book was still imprinted in my memory so strongly that I was able to pick up right where I left off. I knew nothing about the Armenian genocide in Turkey before I read this. Not only is a story of the annihilation of a people and the cruelty ethnic groups can inflict on others, in this case because of religion, it is the story of the strength required to stay alive, the need to do things you have to forget to continue living. First time author, Aline Ohanesian, makes the story of Orhan who discovers the history of his family as he flies from Turkey to California to discover why his father left the family home to an old lady no one knew. The author has created strong writing in the story of a people who were forced to flee. I kept thinking about the Syrians now and that if there is one thing in which war and excel it is the creation of refuges, who did nothing to bring on their forced migration or more often death. This story is as powerful as Kite Runners (Hosseini) in telling the story of persecuted people.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Orhan’s Inheritance, Aline Ohanesian, author, Assaf Cohen, narratorBased on the author’s background and actual history, this book tells the story of the Armenian genocide that has for so long been denied by the Turks. It tells the story from all vantage points, illustrating the abuses and suffering on all sides of the tragedy as WWI raged. Nothing I have read in the past, or now, makes me believe that this did not happen or that it was not the atrocity the Armenians claimed, but I am sure there are Turks who will still deny it.The brutality and violence inflicted upon an innocent group of people, aimed at wiping out their population because of their heritage, cannot be excused away by saying it was them or me. Its memory cannot be put on the garbage heap of history as if it never occurred. The forced exile of these people was carried out with a cold cruelty that brooked no compromise. Although the men and women of Christian and Armenian descent had done nothing to indicate that they were enemies of the Turks, the Turkish government wanted them out of their country, and the Turkish citizenry convinced themselves that the Armenians would do just the same to them if they had had the opportunity to expel the Turks first. The deed itself was heinous, but they made it worse by stealing their businesses and homes and possessions, justifying their own improved status as the consequences of war. Couple that greed and jealousy with religious bigotry and war, add in the thugs that were willing to carry out the willful extermination of a people, and you had all the ingredients needed to set the scene for the Armenian genocide. With guards, few in number but high in their ability to be vicious and sadistic, thousands of Armenians were suddenly forced to march out of Turkey without time for adequate preparation and with few belongings, to their deaths. Unable to defend themselves, and with no possibility of outside help, they had no choice but to obey the edicts. The scope of this criminal act, at this time, had no comparison. It was before Hitler. The Turks have tried to purge the event from memory, but the Armenians, like the Jews who suffered through the Holocaust, are keeping the memory alive, hoping to prevent such an occurrence from repeating itself. This is a novel, not an actual historic presentation, but it illustrates that time of horror, hopelessness and helplessness, because it did occur.The story is told in two time frames. One begins in 1915, when all the able-bodied Armenian men and women were rounded up and arrested and most were murdered in cold blood. Then each remaining family was given an oxcart and forced to quickly evacuate, although there were not enough oxcarts to go around. The only men remaining were infirm or too young to help. The women gathered their children, what they determined were bare necessities and treasures, and prepared to leave. They were given little food and water and marched in all weather, until they dropped from exhaustion, thirst or starvation. The women and children were brutally raped and beaten, and sometimes they were taken pretty much as slaves. Anyone who came to their defense was beaten mercilessly and/or murdered.The other time frame begins in 1990 when the dead body of Kemal, a man in his 90’s, is found immersed in a vat of blue die. His will leaves his business to his grandson Orhan Turkoglu and the home his father and his aunt Fatma live in to a stranger, a woman named Seda in California. Orhan’s father, Mustafa, is enraged. He threatens to take action knowing the courts and laws of inheritance will support him. He sues his own son, Orhan, for his own father’s property. Orhan sets out for the United States to try and get the house back from the mystery woman. This still does not make his father a happy man. His father is not a happy man, in general.The back history about Kemal is that as a young illiterate man, he worked for the well-to-do Melkonian family that ran a successful Kilim business in Sivas Province and lived on the highest plot of land in the town, which was forbidden to Christians, but had been overlooked. His boss had two beautiful daughters, one of whom had touched his heart. Lucine was only 15 at the time, but she was forbidden, as an Armenian Christian to have any romantic relationship with a Muslim Turk, especially one that was beneath her, uneducated and poor. However they were friends and she was going to teach him how to read. Kemal’s family was also in the kilim business, they were weavers, but they were not as successful.After Turkey expelled the Armenians, and they were separated, each of them, unbeknownst to each other, carried something the other had given them, as a talisman. He carried her handkerchief and she carried his drawing of herself that he had made. The artistic Kemal became a photographer. Using his grandfather’s camera he was able to see “more of the world” than with his own naked eye. However, he was arrested, beaten and tortured because of a photo he took, quite innocently. He was accused of being an enemy of the state and exiled to Germany. Eventually he was released and pardoned, and back in Turkey, he was conscripted. When the war ended, he found himself at an inn run by his Aunt Fatma. Fatma had rescued Lucine Melkonian, the woman Kemal had loved when they were children. When they were being forced to leave, he had actually offered to marry her and keep her safe. Kemal was a Muslim Turk and was not forced to leave. Lucine would not abandon her Armenian Christian family.After some time, during the forced march out of Germany, Lucine wound up alone. Near death, she was rescued by Fatma, Kemal’s aunt, who was the whore at the local inn, servicing the servicemen. To survive, she did what she had to do. She renames Lucine Seda, which is a Turkish name. Fatma is pregnant and gives birth to a child. The father’s identity is unknown.Kemal had asked Lucine to wait for his return. He went off to set up his future, but when he did not return or write in a timely fashion, when her uncle showed up, she left with him to search for her brother, Bedros. Eventually, Lucine leaves everything behind and travels to the United States, settling in California. Her thoughts of Kemal, and the pain associated with him, are buried deep within her, and she never speaks of her experiences in Turkey again.In the present time, in California, 90 year old Lucine, now only using the name Seda, is living in the Ararat Home. Her niece Ani, is planning to run a show of remembrance for the victims of the genocide. The show will be held in the home where there are several survivors who did not succumb to the genocide. Ani wants to keep the memory alive and to get closure from the Turks who have never taken responsibility for the tragedy and their abysmal behavior. As Kemal watches these elderly Armenian victims bear witness, he begins to realize that what he always believed about that time of history, was not quite true. With Seda’s revelations, his world is turned upside down. He must process and reconcile this new information Seda has given him. What Orhan finds out proves that his father’s court case will fail. As Kemal’s family heritage is unwound by Seda, his history becomes clearer and so does his responsibility to the Armenians. He is determined to set the record straight, even though the newfound reality will be traumatic for some people close to him. Making it right, he believes, is the far better choice and is his greater responsibility. He realizes this is also what his grandfather must have wanted him to do and he does it for him, as well.I had an audio and a print copy of this book, but I preferred the print copy because of the unusual names and foreign terms.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Descriptively powerful about the Armenian/Turkish relationship and the basic mysteries in the book were well presented in somewhat horrifying detail along the way. Beautifully written.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    * I received this as a free eBook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. *

    Orhan’s grandfather Kemal built the family business, making kilim rugs, out of the dust remaining after WWI. By 1990 he has become quite eccentric often immersing himself in a brass cauldron of dye. No one knows why, but one day he is discovered dead in one the cauldrons, his body from the neck down stained deep blue. Orhan idolized his grandfather because of his business acumen, respected him for his dedication to family but more importantly loved him deeply; unfortunately he never felt the same way about his father. After the funeral, when Kemal’s will is read Orhan is relieved that the business his grandfather worked so hard to build was willed to himself rather than, as tradition and Turkish law dictates, to his father. He had worked side by side with his grandfather while his father lived off the fruits of their labour. He knew his father would run the business into bankruptcy. His relief was short-lived when the family estate is bequeathed to someone of whom he’s never heard. What was his grandfather thinking? And more importantly who was this mystery woman?

    Armed with legal papers, an offer of a settlement and firm determination Orhan travels to America to meet this woman, with the sole intention of retaining his family’s home. Before he arrives in Los Angeles Orhan comes to the decision that, yes, he wants her to sign the papers, but he also need to know why Kemal willed the estate to her in the first place. What connection could this 90-year-old woman living in a nursing home possibly have to his grandfather? When Orhan meets Seda he is very persistent and she reluctantly begins to tell him the story of her life that by default is also his grandfather’s life. A story that takes Orhan back to when she and Kemal were children, the years of WWI and the horrors they endured during what has come to be known as the “Armenian Genocide”. A story that cracks the very foundation of everything Orhan ever believed about his family.

    This book is a touching, somewhat tragic, love story. This book is a story of survival and the strength of the human spirit. This book is a study of what happens when racial, religious and ethnic prejudices erupt and how it impacts on the “everyman” trying to simply live his life. This is the kind of book that stays with you after you close the back cover and I can’t help but make comparisons to “Kite Runner” and “The Almond Tree”, also outstanding debut efforts for their respective authors as this is for Ms. Ohanesian. This one will certainly not disappoint fans of those books.

    I must admit that I was not aware of the “Armenian Genocide” issues that are so prevalent in the news these days. There is no such thing as coincidence so I assume the publication date of this book was well planned. “Orhan’s Inheritance” is beautifully written and tells an incredible story and if, like me, you don’t know much about that particular piece of world history it may give some perspective on current events.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This historical novel toggles back and forth between the 1990s and the end of the Ottoman Empire. Don’t give up on it. It is a little confusing, but worth the struggle. The author does an excellent job of portraying the good and bad sides of our humanity. It has everything--love, hate, war, peace, and finally forgiveness. I don't usually care for stories that switch back and forth in time, but this book pulled it off wonderfully. She kept me on the edge of my seat with an ending I did not see coming!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    ORHAN”S INHERITANCE by Aline OhanesianThe discord between the Turks and the Armenians comes alive in Ohanesian’s book that details three generations of those two groups that once occupied the same land. The book begins in 1990 with the reading of a will. Orhan, a Turk, has been left his family’s business, but not the family home, in the will written by his grandfather. The home has been left to an unknown woman living in California. Orhan’s father is enraged. He and Orhan’s Auntie have been left with no stake in the family’s Kilim rug factory and only an apartment building in another town in which to live. Orhan flies off to meet the Californian, Seda, an aged Armenian, in an effort to regain the family home. The rest of the book is divided between the events in Armenia just after the close of WWI and the meetings between Orhan and Seda. The connection between the two families is compelling reading. The horror of the Armenian genocide is rendered in a beautifully written tale of love, horror, forgiveness, deceit, discrimination, fear, kindness, anger and, finally, understanding. 5 of 5 stars
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Aline Ohanesian’s novel ultimately is a meditation on the nature of restitution for human wrongdoings. What constitutes appropriate restitution: clear-eyed remembrance and preservation of the facts as they are known; acknowledgement by the perpetrators, including their decedents; acceptance and forgiveness by the injured; application of the most accurate names to events; the return of material things or their equivalents to the injured? Orhan, returns to his family’s village following the mysterious death of his grandfather, Kamal. Kamal’s unusual will leaves the family home to an unknown woman, Seda Melkonian. Orhan searches for her in order to ask her to forgo the bequest so that his father and aunt can continue to live in the house. He discovers an aged woman living quietly in a facility for elderly Armenians in California. Ohanesian uses Orhan’s need to understand Seda’s connection to his grandfather as the set piece for her novel’s exploration of the human toll that persecution by the Ottoman Turks took on Armenians during World War I. She follows two families, one Turkish and the other Armenian, and shifts settings between the 1990’s when Kamal died and 1915 when the Turks persecuted the Turkish Armenians. Ohanesian deftly manages this plot structure to create an engaging and largely unpredictable story although the sections on the removal of Armenians from Ottoman lands was much more effective than the more bland ones involving the family squabbles following Kamal’s death.Ohanesian’s handling of this important subject does justice to the atrocities that accompanied the so-called deportation of Armenians by the Turks. Also she effectively manages the controversy where Armenians seek restitution and Turks insist that the Armenian assertions are baseless because wars claim victims indiscriminately. Ohanesian highlights this modern controversy using dialogue between Orhan and Ani, Seda’s activist niece. With the exception of Orhan’s father, Mustafa, the principal characters travel arcs through the story that reflect increased enlightenment about these issues.This is an effective presentation of some complex questions that still resonate today, but it lacks sufficient detail in a number of areas to fully understand characters and events. The strange circumstances surrounding Kamal’s death are unclear. They suggest suicide but this is not explicit and his psychological makeup at the time of his death seems obscure. Orhan’s backstory of photography, arrest, torture and exile to Germany seems too important to be treated as lightly as it is in the novel. Orhan is estranged from Mustafa. Does this have religious, cultural or political connotations? The love story between Kamal and Lucine is important to the plot but was handled superficially and lacks emotional involvement. Lucine’s original rejection of Kamal seems abrupt and indeed curious. It is a truism that history can be interpreted from varying perspectives. Why did the US invade Iraq? If you are a Republican, it was because of faulty intelligence; if you are a Democrat, it was because the administration “cooked the books.” This story is clearly being told from an Armenian perspective. Without exception, the Turkish soldiers conducting the deportation lack nuance. They are all brutes. Except for Aunt Fatma, who has many humane attributes, Turks are portrayed badly while the Armenian characters are generally beneficent. Racism, envy and demonization of an entire ethnic class did occur, but the origins of these Turkish attitudes toward the Armenian minority were not well explored in the novel. Finally, unbelievable coincidences abound in the story and detract from enjoying its spell. Lucie serendipitously finds Fatma’s inn and is rescued by her; looking for prostitutes, Kamal and his friend also discover Fatma’s inn and there they discovers Lucine; after being almost totally absent throughout the novel, Lucine’s uncle Nazereth returns to rescue her and her brother.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The first lines will draw you in while the rest of the writing keeps you there. Emotional and heart tugging at times, tender and loving at others. The writing is very well done and nicely edited. The characters are layered and well developed. The story is told through younger eyes as older eyes share family history in a way that makes you want to keep reading along with another set of older eyes that add a delicateness to the story. I like the element of truth within the story as well as the delivery. I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review which in no way influenced my opinion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wish that half stars were an option because I would give this book a 4.5 star rating. What a tale of anguish with heart-wrenching family loss and unbelievable tales of civil war and genocide between the Turks and Armenians. Alternating history of modern vs. war-time stories of a family and their roots, truly known only by two women who aren't speaking to anyone of their pasts until a death and a cryptic will opens up old wounds and reveals a family to be something other than many of them thought they were.When an old Turkish man, Kemal, dies and his will is read the majority of his cloth dyeing empire is left to his grandson Orhan who has been exiled to Germany after being wrongfully found guilty of treason and imprisoned and tortured years prior. The one piece of property that was not left to Orhan is the family house that Orhan's father and aunt have lived in for decades. This house is left to a woman living in America whom no one has ever heard of before. Orhan's father decides to hire a lawyer to try to nullify the will and keep the house in their family, but before his father does that Orhan wants to travel to America to find this woman and see who she is and how she knew his grandfather. What he finds rocks his family as he knows it to the core and the tales this woman tells is a completely different side of history than that Orhan has ever heard.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a beautifully written book about an inheritance in 1990 that sparks an interest in a long-buried Turkish past. When Orhan's beloved grandfather dies and leaves the family home to an unknown woman in his will, Orhan begins a journey to unravel the mystery of her connection to his grandfather. The history of his family that is enmeshed with Turkish and Armenian rivalries is told in haunting prose.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Orhan Türkoğlu returns to his home village in Turkey when his grandfather dies. He learns that he has inherited the family business, but the family home has been left to an unknown woman, Seda Meltonian, who resides in an Armenian nursing home in California. Orhan travels to the U.S. to meet Seda in hopes of getting back his ancestral home and learning about her connection with his grandfather Kemel. The story alternates between 1990 and 1915. Orhan’s story, of course, is set in the more contemporary time period. Seda and Kemel’s stories are revealed in flashbacks to the last years of the Ottoman Empire when able-bodied male Armenians were killed or forced into labour and when women, children, the elderly and infirm were deported and sent on death marches leading to the Syrian desert.This is a timely novel since this year marks the 100th anniversary of what is known as the Armenian Genocide, an event which the Turkish government denies. Six years ago, I read Summer Without Dawn by Agop J. Hacikyan so I knew a bit about the massacre which scholars believe may have been the model for Hitler’s Final Solution. Ohanesian’s description of events beginning in 1915 will inspire readers to do further research into Turkish and Armenian history. The author presents history from both Turkish and Armenian perspectives in both the past and the present. We see how the lives of Kemel and Seda are swept into chaos. Both of them make choices that impact their lives but both are also victims of political decisions. We understand and sympathize with both of them. Then we see how their descendants have been affected 75 years later. It is for a reason that William Faulkner is quoted at the beginning (“The past is not dead; it’s not even past”) and that Kemel tells his son that he wants to “meld my past to your present.” Though one could understand a temptation to blame Turks, that is not the case. Seda speaks about there being good Turks who “had nothing to do with what happened to my family.”Certainly, a major theme is how one should address wrongs of the past. How should Armenians deal with what happened to their people? Surely, it is important that the story of the Armenians be known; Seda’s niece mentions that Armenians want to tell their stories not just to themselves but to “’the rest of the world.’” Seda, however, wants to leave the past in the past and she tells Orhan that her niece “’has too much past in her veins and you have none.’” How should the Turkish people of today be held accountable for the actions of their ancestors? Should there be a public apology by the Turkish government? But simply saying one is sorry is not enough as Seda says: “’But sometimes empathy is not enough. Sometimes empathy needs to be followed by action.’” The book is beautifully written. I loved sentences like “Time and progress were two long-lost relatives who send an occasional letter.” And the imagery is so effective. Orhan describes life in his village where “every person, object, and stone has to have some sort of covering, a layer of protection.” As it happens, history is also covered up, and Orhan has to get to the truth, an action like “peeling . . . off . . . an ill-fitting coat.”This book should appear on must-read lists. It entertains: it contains a lot of suspense as there is much mystery and danger. And it teaches about a historical event not well-known. Readers cannot but be emotionally drawn into the story as Orhan learns about the true nature of his inheritance.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When I first read the synopsis and realized that this book was about the history of Turkey I was immediately interested. I lived in Adana, Turkey for two years and my oldest son was born there.This books covers an aspect of Turkish history that was new to me. I was not familiar with the Armenian connection. If you love historical fiction this is perfect. The writing is wonderful and the story flows well. I was just engrossed from the beginning. I read the book in two days. Thank you for letting me preview this title. It brought me back to the time I lived in Turkey and I learned something about the Armenian genocide. I received this book from LibraryThings Early Reviewers program.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Im about half the way thru the book and it keeps getting more interesting. It opens my eyes up to a whole new world.