About this ebook
In love with a radical leader, an expatriate must decide whether to put the world before his heart
Thirty miles from the Mediterranean coast, in the lush Syrian heartland, there is a compound known as Kasr-el-Sittat—the Fortress of Holy Women. Built by a deranged cult leader to house his many wives, it was abandoned when the Second World War brought the cult to its knees. Now it has been purchased by a group of European exiles: displaced people whose revenge on the world will come in the shape of a mushroom cloud.
When life in postwar Britain proves unbearable, Eric Amberson returns to Syria, where he spent the war shuffling papers for the British army. There he meets one of the women of Kasr-el-Sittat and falls quickly in love. Elisa Cantemir is a rare beauty, but Eric will find that beneath her elegant exterior is an anarchist who wants nothing more than to plunge the world back into the hell of war.
Thirty miles from the Mediterranean coast, in the lush Syrian heartland, there is a compound known as Kasr-el-Sittat—the Fortress of Holy Women. Built by a deranged cult leader to house his many wives, it was abandoned when the Second World War brought the cult to its knees. Now it has been purchased by a group of European exiles: displaced people whose revenge on the world will come in the shape of a mushroom cloud.
When life in postwar Britain proves unbearable, Eric Amberson returns to Syria, where he spent the war shuffling papers for the British army. There he meets one of the women of Kasr-el-Sittat and falls quickly in love. Elisa Cantemir is a rare beauty, but Eric will find that beneath her elegant exterior is an anarchist who wants nothing more than to plunge the world back into the hell of war.
About the author
Geoffrey Household (1900–1988) was born in England. In 1922 he earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from the University of Oxford. After graduation, he worked at a bank in Romania before moving to Spain in 1926 and selling bananas as a marketing manager for the United Fruit Company.
In 1929 Household moved to the United States, where he wrote children’s encyclopedia content and children’s radio plays for CBS. From 1933 to 1939, he traveled internationally as a printer’s-ink sales rep. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer for the British army, with posts in Romania, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and Persia. After the war, he returned to England and wrote full time until his death. He married twice, the second time in 1942 to Ilona Zsoldos-Gutmán, with whom he had three children, a son and two daughters.
Household began writing in the 1920s and sold his first story to the Atlantic Monthly in 1936. His first novel, The Terror of Villadonga, was published during the same year. His first short story collection, The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories, appeared in 1938. Altogether, Household wrote twenty-eight novels, including four for young adults; seven short story collections; and a volume of autobiography, Against the Wind (1958). Most of his novels are thrillers, and he is best known for Rogue Male (1939), which was filmed as Man Hunt in 1941 and as a TV movie under the novel’s original title in 1976.
In 1929 Household moved to the United States, where he wrote children’s encyclopedia content and children’s radio plays for CBS. From 1933 to 1939, he traveled internationally as a printer’s-ink sales rep. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer for the British army, with posts in Romania, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and Persia. After the war, he returned to England and wrote full time until his death. He married twice, the second time in 1942 to Ilona Zsoldos-Gutmán, with whom he had three children, a son and two daughters.
Household began writing in the 1920s and sold his first story to the Atlantic Monthly in 1936. His first novel, The Terror of Villadonga, was published during the same year. His first short story collection, The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories, appeared in 1938. Altogether, Household wrote twenty-eight novels, including four for young adults; seven short story collections; and a volume of autobiography, Against the Wind (1958). Most of his novels are thrillers, and he is best known for Rogue Male (1939), which was filmed as Man Hunt in 1941 and as a TV movie under the novel’s original title in 1976.
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