E Troubled Destiny

All hearts strive for love, but just as some waken to fool¿s gold, others watch their trust raped within a sanctity gone awry. Just turned thirty-eight, Elaine embarks on a two-year assignment at just the right time in her life; and she arrives in Istanbul, Turkey, with an agenda: to focus on work, to secure her career, and to lay the foundation of renewal. What, she asks, could possibly go wrong? E Troubled Destiny begins just three months into Elaine¿s tour, and it seems Rachel, her sixteen-year-old daughter, has a different agenda. This becomes but one challenge for Elaine, however, when the torso of an American she recently met with floats to the surface of the Bosporus, leaving her with an uncertain danger and no clue as to why. So far, she can cope; but when Ryan, a young airman stationed in Istanbul, unveils his love for her, Elaine is plunged into a cauldron of desire and doubt that has her at wit¿s end. So far, she can manage; but when Paddy, a man she knew briefly before leaving for Turkey, arrives on the coast of the Black Sea, coping and managing are no longer an option. Elaine now enters into a tortuous period where she must face her own worst fears and decide who, if anyone, can share the love she holds. The author spent his formative years overseas from 1955 through 1962, particularly in Asuncion, Paraguay; Lahore, West Pakistan; and Dacca, East Pakistan, now Dhaka, Bangladesh. As an adult, he lived in Istanbul, Turkey (1970¿C1971), and later traveled to Cairo, Egypt, and Tegucigalpa, Honduras,to visit his wife during her assignments there. This is the author¿s first novel. Beyond life itself, he owes his parents for the experience of world travel in a unique era, the patience to allow a boy¡¯s imagination to roam, and the loving discipline to hold that imagination in check. All these factors played an integral part in the creation of this novel.