Publisher's Synopsis
The story begins in Cuba, when, Julian Hamilton, eighty, after a life as a famous writer, is confronted with Victoria, his daughter, whose existence he was unaware of. Julian has been spending his retirement and final days of a life that began with the conflictual dilemma he experienced as a young student after leaving Princeton University USA. A conflict that people have between their belief in themselves and their emotional lives. For the writer and painter, it is a greater burden and more onerous than the many people who have to decide whether to sacrifice ambition for a sense of responsibility towards love and family life.
After Princeton, Julian gets married but soon finds that following life's normal format, impairs the necessary dedication to evolve as a writer. Fearful of the emotional restrictions that come with full commitment, he leaves his wife to follow the romantic dream of "coup de foudre", love at first sight. He meets Rebecca serendipitously, who gives him the necessary inspiration, and they go travelling on an ancient Triumph Speed Twin motorbike, heading towards Morocco with no sense of responsibility. Things go wrong which fractures their passionate relationship, leaving them in a state of despair. Rebecca is raped and becomes pregnant and Julian goes into a monastery to make a clean break in order to establish a balanced perspective of the situation. They separate and Rebecca is left facing a lifetime of unhappiness.
The book contains romance, suspense, tragedy, travel, with some thriller action of rape, murder and sex. The doomed lovers' final curtain falls in Barcelona when Julian chooses his art over love: something he lives to regret.
The novel will present some readers with the unsolvable question as to which path should be taken!
