Distant Music
Description:... The reader finds the first Esperanca in timeless fifteenth-century Madeira. It is Portugal's finest hour- her explorers are reporting that the world is not flat; Christopher Columbus is about to discover a whole new world. And Jewish scientists, map-makers and navigators are playing their part in this great outward-looking adventure. Esperanca longs to learn to read. Can her friend, the sailor, Emmanuel, help her discover her own new world in the holy books of the Hebrew tradition?The second Esperanca is a spoiled teenager in Faro, until she converts to the faith of Emmanuel, the printer. But this is 1492, and the Jews are about to be expelled from Portugal, with terrible suffering.The third Esperanca becomes involved in a murder-mystery in Byron's Lisbon. Who is the dark stranger who kills washerwomen as they cross the aqueduct at night? But her meddling destroys her gentle bookseller friend, the learned Emmanuel - a scapegoat, like so many innocent Jews throughout history.Finally, there is Hope, living among London's expat community in the Portuguese enclave of Vauxhall. Married to Dan, she is in love with Dan's brother, Mel. Hope is desperately searching for something - but what?
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