Gainsborough House Press – förlag

The same sequence of days can arrange itself into several different stories, like the shifting shapes in a kaleidoscope. Seven inter-connected lives and seven stories weave themselves together over two days in London. Lily has returned to London from Cyprus, where she lived with her father, and is preparing to visit her estranged mother, Claire. Peter is Claire's younger lover, Jonas is a poet and wanderer who watches Lily as she runs through the park, and Sasha is a singer and part-time waitress who lives in Lily's building. Herbert, who sees into the hearts of those around him, is father to Claire and her half-sister, Sonya. When tragedy strikes, new connections are forged, long-standing dynamics upended, and shapes and colours shift.

Ariela Abramovich was born in the Kaunas Ghetto. She miraculously survived the Nazi manhunt when her parents smuggled her out of the Ghetto in a potato sack then left her on the doorsteps of the orphanage. From there she was taken in by a fisherman's family and, after the war, reunited with her parents. Ariela recounts the stories of her childhood, about her father who was involved in rescuing and finding homes for many orphaned children after the war; about her parents adopting a girl whose parents were exiled during Stalin's repressions; about her close family life with her two brothers; and about her struggle with ill health. If a writer of fiction had decided to invent the life-story of a heroine for a novel, they would have been unlikely to come up with a more dramatic and gripping plot than the story of this woman whose life was shaped both by circumstances and her determination to overcome them. This book by Ariela Aramovich Sef is a personal testimony and a family saga played out against a background of some of the most momentous historical events of the twentieth century. Ariela brings these events to life as she narrates her gripping stories of survival in the Ghetto, growing up in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and Thaw period, and migrating to the West. With remarkable courage she also coped with congenital heart disease, prevailing and living life to the full. Ariela shares with the readers not only her interesting life in Paris, Moscow and London, but also her pain, loss, endurance and nobility of spirit, gentle sense of humour and episodes of happiness.

Ariela Abramovich was born in the Kaunas Ghetto. She miraculously survived the Nazi manhunt when her parents smuggled her out of the Ghetto in a potato sack then left her on the doorsteps of the orphanage. From there she was taken in by a fisherman's family and, after the war, reunited with her parents. Ariela recounts the stories of her childhood, about her father who was involved in rescuing and finding homes for many orphaned children after the war; about her parents adopting a girl whose parents were exiled during Stalin's repressions; about her close family life with her two brothers; and about her struggle with ill health. If a writer of fiction had decided to invent the life-story of a heroine for a novel, they would have been unlikely to come up with a more dramatic and gripping plot than the story of this woman whose life was shaped both by circumstances and her determination to overcome them. This book by Ariela Aramovich Sef is a personal testimony and a family saga played out against a background of some of the most momentous historical events of the twentieth century. Ariela brings these events to life as she narrates her gripping stories of survival in the Ghetto, growing up in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and Thaw period, and migrating to the West. With remarkable courage she also coped with congenital heart disease, prevailing and living life to the full. Ariela shares with the readers not only her interesting life in Paris, Moscow and London, but also her pain, loss, endurance and nobility of spirit, gentle sense of humour and episodes of happiness.

Rose loves roses. She also believes there is an angel in every cloud. She dyes her hair the blonde of her childhood and bakes cakes with marrows from her garden, where she works wearing wellington boots over her shoes ‘to save them’, and remains till the moon rises into the sky. _x000D_Rose lives with her husband Frank, her other love, in a blue house in a seaside town where their lives are shaped by the rhythm of the tides and the rise and fall of the sun. Frank is a carpenter with one eye brown like winter and one green like spring. He is built solid as the wood he works with and is grounded where Rose is quirky. Whenever he finds time, he paces the seashore with his hands in his pockets, breathing in sea air, counting his steps and planning for his and Rose’s future._x000D_When Rose and Frank are in their forties, they become parents to a daughter, whom they name Olive. Her birth is breech and she is born after a storm which blows all the petals from Rose’s roses and the leaves of the olive tree on to the windows of their house. After her birth, everything changes. _x000D_After Frank is a story about a mother’s love for her daughter, about change and adapting to change and about knowing that not all problems can or need to be solved.

Rose loves roses. She also believes there is an angel in every cloud. She dyes her hair the blonde of her childhood and bakes cakes with marrows from her garden, where she works wearing wellington boots over her shoes 'to save them', and remains till the moon rises into the sky. Rose lives with her husband Frank, her other love, in a blue house in a seaside town where their lives are shaped by the rhythm of the tides and the rise and fall of the sun. Frank is a carpenter with one eye brown like winter and one green like spring. He is built solid as the wood he works with and is grounded where Rose is quirky. Whenever he finds time, he paces the seashore with his hands in his pockets, breathing in sea air, counting his steps and planning for his and Rose's future. When Rose and Frank are in their forties, they become parents to a daughter, whom they name Olive. Her birth is breech and she is born after a storm which blows all the petals from Rose's roses and the leaves of the olive tree on to the windows of their house. After her birth, everything changes. After Frank is a story about a mother's love for her daughter, about change and adapting to change and about knowing that not all problems can or need to be solved.