Spem: Hope in Garlic

By Mr Joseph Thomas St.Johanser

Miles Kingston heads a successful software business specialising in clandestine data research. To broaden his interests he reduces his eighty hour work week and joins the local amateur operatic society for their production of Verdi's 'La Traviata', where he meets Karen Johnson, who is cast as Violetta.
In the depths of the internet Miles's technicians discover an unknown early opera, setting the words of Shakespeare's long and tragic love poem, 'Venus and Adonis'. Miles decides to put on the opera at a summer music festival in Dorset, starring Karen as Venus. A hi-tech hologram of William Shakespeare is added by Miles's people for dramatic effect.
Karen is divorced, with grown up children. She has finished with looking after a family and wants to be a professional opera singer. She rejects Miles's proposal of marriage, though she loves him, because he is fixated on having children; compelled, so he says, by the demands of his selfish genes, who insist on being propagated.
The opera is rehearsed and premiered. Apparently alive, the hologram delivers a momentous speech regarding the selfish gene theme which effects Miles deeply in the middle of his performance, providing a resolution.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DTYL6494
• ISBN13: 9798307536261
• Release Date: January 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"