Publisher's Synopsis
'Sempre; finding home' is a story of love and the unseen bonds that bind and shape us. Within minutes of landing in Porto, Jennifer, a young English woman searching for a new beginning in Portugal, is reminded of an old ring she had found in a London park months earlier. The piece of jewellery connects people as seemingly unrelated as 16 year-old Inês, a Portuguese girl who follows Wellington's army, and Michael, an old man living in London's Barbican Estate; and fate continues to play no small part in bringing love into Jennifer's life. It is while the young English woman is settling into her new home in the small village of Nogueira, that she meets Nelson, a man whose past relationships were haunted by the sudden deaths of his parents. The couple's tentative steps forward introduce us to other characters, everyday people who had no choice but to cope through wars, the flu pandemic of the early twentieth-century and the heartache of forbidden love. We learn also a little about Portuguese immigration into England, people filling a gap in the labour market, and those fleeing from persecution under the 'New State' Dictatorship in the 1930's, 60's and 70's. Portugal's tradition of fine filigree jewellery gets a mention, along with Euro 2004, hoping to show how a country embraces its heritage and traditions, while at the same time welcoming a changing world. Through scenes of sorrow, frustration, love, friendship, forgiveness and laughter, we inch our way along, discovering the story behind the ring Jennifer found, leading Maria, Nelson's grandmother, to tell Jennifer that in her opinion "life's like that, rarely always happy or always sad, but one sometimes having the upper hand for a while." It is the message of 'hope', above all else, that I have tried to demonstrate throughout 'Sempre; finding home'. Yet also, as the couple's story is woven into a larger tapestry, it shows how lives connect over different countries and times, and is perhaps a poignant lesson in a world dominated by the rise of isolationist politics, and a United Kingdom where BREXIT continues to divide its people. My intention has not been to write a story as 'brooding' as Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebeca', or a novel as historically and politically epic as something by Ken Follett, or Portuguese author and journalist José Rodrigues dos Santos, even though I admire these authors greatly. We are told that story-telling has never been solely about entertaining, but about teaching us something along the way, and I believe it is because I am not an academic, but write from the heart, and with experience of much of the subject matter, that the developing romance between Jennifer and Nelson remains accessible to all, despite the political and historical content of the story.
