Eighteen-year-old Yiorgos is desperate to escape the bounds of tradition and his father's iron fist. As a child, writing poetry and roaming his beloved mountains on the island of Crete provided some reprieve, but now he is slated for mandatory military service. Instead, he stows away on a ship and heads for America. On board, chance encounters with an old sailor and a mysterious young woman set him on a path to Canada that will change his life forever.
But Yiorgos's journey is only part of a larger story. From his great-grandmother fleeing the 1850 Massacre of Aleppo, to his mother surviving war and a troubled marriage, to the woman he secretly loves and the sister seeking independence while trying to reconcile a modern refugee crisis with her own family history-their lives reflect exile and belonging, love and betrayal, faith and sacrifice. Together, they form a multigenerational tale of resilience and discovery spanning over a century, showing the unbreakable ties that connect families across time and oceans.
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