Hush

In the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, a young Orthodox Jewish woman in the holy city of Jerusalem is expected to marry and produce many sons to help hasten the Messiah's arrival. While the feisty Esther Kaminsky understands her obligations, her artistic talent inspires her to secretly explore worlds outside her religion, to dream of studying in Paris—and to believe that God has a special destiny for her. When tragedy strikes her family, Esther views it as a warning from an angry God and suppresses her desires in order to become an obedient "Jerusalem maiden."

But when a surprising opportunity forces itself on to her preordained path, Esther finds her beliefs clashing dangerously with the passions she has staved off her entire life—forcing her to confront the most difficult and damning question of all: To whom must she be true, God or herself?

Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter the course of his—and his family’s—history. From the small Hungarian town of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in labor camps, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a family shattered and remade in history’s darkest hour.

'Brothers and Lovers' is a novel stretching from Apartheid South Africa in the  nineteen-fifties via a cruise up the East coast of Africa through the Suez Canal to London and Europe ending  in the first years of the 21st Century.

 An ill-fated love affair between  Raymond, a Jewish boy and Crystal, an Afrikaans girl,vehemently opposed both by his parents and her bullying father. Parallel to this is  bitter fraternal strife  between Raymond and his brother Larry.

The story describes the sectarian hatred amongst the white groupings of South Africa set against  the racist paternalistic attitudes toward the coloured and black populations.

In contrast there is a picture of London in the swinging sixties and seventies , a French Alpine Ski resort and life in England under New Labour at the turn of the Century.

 Historic events taking place alongside the progress of the story are described in italics.