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Re-Reading

Old tales of romance

Tulip Chowdhury goes back to the past
LUKE Carey, a retired army officer, woke up one morning to a phone call that changed his life. His daughter, Dani was behind the bars, charged with murder of Ricco, her mother's personal assistant. He knew deep down that somewhere, in the picture was his ex-wife, Nora, and her endless philandering. The riddling question was how did Dani get involved in this?
Where Love Has Gone holds the reader captive with its story of love and betrayal. Lust broke mother and daughter apart and crumbled the family to pieces. Dani, Luke and Nora, standing on three corners of a family triangle, were faced with unpredictable challenges. Complexities of life took them to a point where they seemed to be surrounded by live volcanoes. Malice, revenge and failed love send lava shooting to heights that is about to destroy their lives unless the truth is found.
"Did he rape you?" That was Nora asking her daughter Dani.
"No, mother it was I who asked him..." Dani replied. Their eyes met and there was nothing else to be said. The teenage daughter and the mother in her late thirties, both knew why they were talking about a particular man and his physical relationships.
Nora was a well known sculptress, the rich and social elite. Dani was the only child she and Luke had in their troubled marriage. However, Luke was happily married to Elizabeth, his second wife. When Luke got the news of his daughter Elizabeth was expecting a baby at any moment. But Elizabeth convinced Luke that Dani needed him and so he should go to her. Luke had not seen Dani for the past ten years but he needed to be by her side in the crucial time of her life.
When Luke met Dani in prison, she refused to open up to him. She said that it was useless for him to know any details for he would leave her again as he had once before. She told him that her stepfather who had been good to her had left too. Her mother always won, she kept people who prized her only in the house. Luke asked her,
"Exactly whose boyfriend was Ricco, yours or your mother's?"
She gave her answer and then said, "You know mother. She wants to be the wheel of everything. Just this once I wanted to show her that she wasn't."
" Why, Dani, why particularly him? Why not someone else?" Luke asked
She looked at him wide eyed, as if wanting to know how much he knew. Dani was a girl growing up with too many adult secrets revealed to her. Luke felt more useless knowing that he had not been there to protect Dani from Nora whose voracious sexual appetites were like an open book to those around her. Margaruitte, Nora's mothers had no control of her daughter though the old lady could manage two huge fortunes without losing on a penny.
Luke shuttled between his hotel and Dani at the prison. At the back of the mind he prayed that Elizabeth and the coming will be okay. Nora's grandmother was trying to be helpful in his efforts to get Dani out of the mess and to have the law serve her with a shorter sentence. To add to the troubles, some explicit pictures of Ricco with some women came to surface and landed in the wrong hands. Those pictures could mean bigger trouble for Dani. But for Luke, salvaging the pictures could be risking his life. When Luke was pinned to the wall with all the troubles, Nora was back to one of those sudden desires she had, she wanted Luke back in her life.
Luke was well aware that Nora was jealous of his happiness with Elizabeth, that somewhere she still felt the flames of love flickering for him. But time had hardened the heart that had once desired Nora all the way. He could now reply to her with words that could burn and kill love with the language of hate and recrimination. But would that end Nora's endless adventures with men, adventures that seem to be the juicy part of her fame as a top sculptress in the world of art? Would those words save Dani from further emotional upheavals from her parents?
Luke was faced with the challenges of saving his daughter form capital punishment and saving her from a mother who burned any obstacle to getting her ways, not even her own daughter. In this saga, the twists and turns of human nature are woven into a remarkable tapestry that leaves a profound mark on the readers.
Where Love Has Gone was on the bestseller list on the British best seller list in 1965. The American author is known to have sold more books than J.K. Rowling with the reported sale of 750 million. History, melodrama and sex are artfully presented in his books. In fact his first book Never Love a Stranger was in controversy due to its graphic sexuality. The Carpetbaggers, another sensual novel was also on the best sellers list and made into a major film.
TULIP CHOWDHURY WRITES FICTION AND IS A TEACHER. SHE IS CURRENTLY BASED IN AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS, USA