Customer Reviews

Clarion of Midnight: Megali Idea

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A thriller and romance all in one.
Kristina O'Donnelly gives you it all.
You will love it.

I found Clarion of Midnight: Megali Idea to be very power-packed. It offered a dab of everything, from romance to action to history. O'Donnelly is a very talented writer.

Archeologist Mark Cohen is investigating an ancient shipwreck off the Turkish coast when he runs into two beautiful women on a bus. One of these, the powerful Anika Alkibiades, takes an instant liking to Mark, teasing him with her sensual body--and with archeological treasures she claims have been in her family for generations but which he suspects may have been illegally looted from Turkish digs. The second woman, whose identity he does not learn for some time, is the daughter of the Turkish Interior Minister Burhan Bey.

Mark soon finds himself caught up in Anika's plans to restore Greek rule to Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) and to recreate the ancient Byzantine Empire--the Megali Idea. Yet as Mark gets to know Leyla Kayhanoglu, Burhan's half-American daughter, he realizes that Anika's dangerous plan may be the worst thing that can happen to Turkey--and to the anti-Communist alliance. A continuing investigation into past lives and a look into the political turmoil in the Middle East and between Turkey and Greece adds interest to an exciting story.

Author Kristina O'Donnelly continues her LANDS OF THE MORNING series with an action-packed look into a Turkey torn between communists and right-wing Islamists, with a few leaders attempting to hold onto Ataturk's idea of a modern, democratic, and westward-leaning Turkey. Anika's plan is doubly appealing because another empire, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, once ruled virtually the same territory as the Byzantine Empire and, as Burhan points out, Turks, not Greeks, form the heart of what Anika would claim.

In CLARION OF MIDNIGHT, O'Donnelly combines romance with action in a page-turning thriller. You don't need to read THE HORSEMAN, the first novel in this series, but those who have will enjoy seeing Burham continue to deal with his energetic but high-maintenance wife and daughter, as well as the sweet romance between Mark and Leyla.

I am a Kristina O'Donnelly fan; have read all her other novels. Clarion of Midnight - Megali Idea is the second novel in ber series, Lands of the Morning. For whatever reason, The Horseman, which is the lead novel, and The Scorpion Child, which is the third, were published long before this one. In other words I ended up reading The Scorpion Child two years before I got a chance to read Clarion/Megali Idea. However the good news is that CLARION OF MIDNIGHT - MEGALI IDEA does have its own story line spinning around 3 new characters, Anika, Leyla, and Mark, that makes this novel enjoyable all on its own.
Also, there is another difference. Both The Horseman and The Scorpion Child contain undertows of mysticism, and reincarnation, ESP, etc. CLARION/MEGALI IDEA is a thriller, earthy and gritty. Turkish politics and their relevance to the United States' interest in that region or the world, are delved into in a no-holds barred manner, and the conflicted, controversial romance between Leyla, the young, beautiful Turkish girl with an American mother, and Mark, the American Jew, is both tender and believable. In fact, I find that Kristina O'Donnelly writes very well and honestly, about the psyche of a man in love and in lust. Or better said, that a man can lust after one woman while still thoroughly in love with another. Mark loves Leyla, fully and sincerely, but has to continuously battle the sexual spell cast upon him by Anika. Wow, what an enchantress is that Anika! Yes her ambitions and brilliance reminds you of Catherine the Great of Russia, and so will her libido.

There is more I'd like to write about this novel but have to return another time. Meanwhile, enjoy arm-chair travel into exotic lands, at its best.