The Winter of Apollo - Paperback

by Valeria Reece (Author)

After establishing the British School of Athens, Andrew and Kate were invited to celebrate Christmas and Diana's wedding with the rich and eccentric Lord Tolemache - an antiquarian researcher whose astronomical theory would ultimately place Stonehenge as a great enigma of our civilization.

Such an event, though, would be attended by eminent scientists not satisfied with the attention and projection that the monument could raise, which certainly would divert future scientific investments - they would spare nothing and no one to see such a project fail. Meanwhile, before Kate's departure from Greece, the historian will have two mysterious encounters: from one she will receive an unexpected chest containing notes and research on the origin of Apollo's myth, pointing for a connection with the civilization of the Hyperboreans, mentioned by Herodotus and other eminent Greeks; the next encounter will be with the oracle of an old Greek woman foreseeing the dangers that Kate would face in pursuing such a quest. Unaware that they were possibly following in the footsteps of Pythagoras 2,500 years ago, Andrew and Kate arranged to return to England, stopping off to see the ancient stone ruins in Malta, where Andrew's friend was excavating. Then, they will visit the mysterious monuments of the Morbihan in Brittany; Kate suspected that could be as well the path traced by the mysterious order she unexpected found herself part of. Soon the couple would start connecting the dots, uncovering a past and a link that even the Greeks and Britons have not known about. Although most of the guests were determined to have a fantastic celebration as part of their irresistible and seductive way of life, a sinister crime from the past intervened in Lord Tolemache's plans, exposing Kate to a frightening series of macabre events. Under the humorous spirit, jealousy and hatred would challenge the protagonists' journey, like driving forces united to fight for that knowledge to remain buried in the past, haunting their Christmas that winter "On an island beyond the land of the Celts, where the north wind blows."