The Wild Geese and the North East Wind

Book excerpt: The story begins in Cuba when Julian Hamilton, aged eighty and 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 conflicting dilemma he experienced as a young student after leaving Princeton University, USAa 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 toward love and family life. After Princeton, Julian gets married but soon finds that following lifes 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 or love at first sight. He meets Rebecca serendipitously, who gives him the necessary inspiration, and they go traveling 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, and some thriller action of rape, murder, and sex. The doomed lovers final curtain falls in Barcelona when Julian chooses his art over lovesomething he lives to regret. The novel will present some readers with the unsolvable question as to which path should be taken!