Book Title: Kilingiri
Author: Janna Gray
Release Date: May 21st 2013
Genre: Romance, Women’s Fiction, Romantic Saga, Saga
Presented by: As You Wish Tours
ONE LINER
With exotic locations richly painted, Kilingiri, a saga of love and loss with its many painful twists and turns, proceeds like beads threaded on silk until the circle is completed.
BLURB
1968, Srinagar, Kashmir and Nina is devastated by the death of her new-born baby girl. Sister Angela and Father Michael at the mission hospital step in to nurse Nina back to health but when the friendship between Nina and Father Michael turns to love, Michael makes a decision which will resonate through the years.
It is 1981 and in Kinsale, Ireland, Nina, devoted to her son Joshua, lives a loveless existence, but a chance encounter changes everything. Michael is back in her life, he leaves the priesthood and happiness is within their grasp.
But when past and present collide, their whole world is turned upside down.
Only by facing the consequences of what has gone before, can Nina and Michael embrace the future.
Janna Gray guides us masterfully through this poignant story of love, loss, betrayal and hope.
EXCERPTS
The clinic, set in a fenced compound, was comprised of four white-washed mud and stone buildings and the most basic of medical equipment. Day after day the ill and the maimed queued with infinite patience to see Father Michael, firm in the belief he would cure their ailments. Nina marvelled at his ability to communicate with his patients in their own language, smiling when cantankerous old men berated him with shaking fists, soothing fractious, snotty-nosed babies and advising anxious mothers. She helped him dispense his meagre supply of pills and potions, cleaned suppurating sores and bandaged wicked wounds. Initially all the blood and pus made her want to throw up and she had to force herself not to gag when faced with open wounds crawling with maggots which he assured her were a cheaper, albeit revolting alternative, to antibiotics. But, after a couple of days she became a pro at removing embedded stones from puffy, angry-red flesh and even managed to sew up several gashes with stitches the nuns at the convent school in Ascot would have been proud of.
‘How do these people cope when you aren't here?’ she asked one evening, over a simple meal of rice and dhal.
‘Jaishree and Sushila – the two women who were helping out today – do the honours. They've learned a lot from Sister Angela over the last couple of years and are pretty competent unless there's an emergency.’
‘What happens then? What if they’re faced with a situation that’s beyond their capabilities?’
Michael pushed aside his tin plate and lit a cigarette. ‘They do what they can, Nina. If they can't cope, the patients die. It's as simple as that. Out here in the boonies the sick rely on Jaishree and Sushila and God ... when he can tear Himself away from the Vatican.’
Author Bio
Janna Gray grew up in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and was educated at boarding schools in Kodaikanal, South India and Derbyshire, England. She trained to be a teacher in London where she met and married her husband Simon. His job took them to Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand where she raised two sons, worked at British and International schools and wrote articles for newspapers and magazines.Currently living in the UAE, Janna was the Senior Mistress (a title which caused much merriment among her colleagues!) and Head of Pastoral Care at Repton School before trading her marking pens and report cards for the world of writing novels. She enjoys travelling and sailing and had a love-hate relationship with exercise until she discovered the joy of Zumba where the trainers turn a blind eye to her inability to remember dance sequences. She sings in the shower and with choirs, has an allergy to golf and recently discovered the allure of oils and acrylics – a delightfully messy way to express her inner artist.
AUTHOR LINKS
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Thanks for promoting 'Kilingiri' on your blog. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteJanna Gray
You are so welcome! Good luck!
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