My Brother Michael

Many, many years ago, I was a young angel. Young angel was into books (as is old angel).

There was no such thing as Young Adult books at that time, but there were gothic and contemporary mysteries. There were several authors who my sister and I read and one of them was an author who wrote under the name of Mary Stewart.

Wiki explains the genre that she wrote under. "Mary Stewart was a British novelist who developed the romantic mystery genre, featuring smart, adventurous heroines who could hold their own in dangerous situations."

That was the very thing that attracted me, the fact that the heroine could hold her own in dangerous situations. Even then, these themes attracted me. If the girl fainted, I was so out of there. :-)

One of my favorite Mary Stewart books (and there are just so many of them, that I refuse to list them all) was "My Brother Michael".

It took place in Greece and as a matter of fact, it was not the only one that did. The English authors seemed to have a love of Greeks... :-)

I fell in love with Greek men and to this day, wish that I could travel there...but, oh well.

The thing that comes to my mind and brings this all back to the forefront of my consciousness, is when I hear things like Persephone, or Hermes, or Hades, for that matter. All these years later, the words in the book spoken by the hero, resonate in my mind. He is in an amphitheater and he recites these lines from Sophocles' Electra:
Hades, Persephone, Hermes, steward of death, Eternal Wrath and Furies, Children of gods, Who see all murderers And all adulterous thieves, come soon! Be near me, and avenge My father's death, and bring My brother home!‎

The hero was searching for his long dead brother and so the words were important to him, too.

I find it so funny that something so very far away in my life's journey, is still able to come back to me, at the drop of a name.

Oh, BTW, check out the price of the paperback and yes, the photo is of my book, lovingly kept all these years. I couldn't believe that I could put my hands on it, within seconds of beginning a search for it. I don't think I have touched it for decades.