Turquoise

Price: AUD$24.95
Paperback, 441 pages
ISBN: 978 1921829062
Publisher: Sid Harta

Set against transcendent love, unrelenting hatred and
loyalties to friends and family, Turquoise is the story of an
enduring and passionate love a/air between Yasmin and
Renan, which spans two decades, two marriages and three
continents.

Yasmin and her Armenian classmate Ani were oblivious
to ethnic di/erences during their school years in Istanbul.
Years later they run into each other, and Ani introduces
Renan, her husband, to Yasmin. At that moment under
the blazing autumn skies, as Yasmin locks eyes with
Renan, she knows that she has come upon her destiny.
But political tensions in their land soon force Renan, her
secret love, and his family to immigrate to Sydney.

A few years on, Yasmin’s diplomat father is appointed as
the Turkish Consul General to Los Angeles where the
family faces a devastating tragedy that will impact their
lives in ways unfathomable. She is now forced to make a
choice between passion that de0nes her and reason that
guides her. When so much is stacked against Yasmin and
Renan, how can love possibly triumph?

About the Author

Ayshe Talay-Ongan is a psychologist and an emeritus academic. She has
three published textbooks in developmental psychology. Turquoise is
her debut novel. Its sequel Emerald is is currently underway. She lives in
Sydney with her family, and Simba, her cat.

www.turquoise-alovestory.com.au

More about Turquise and its author

“A big, powerful novel of love, angst, political unrest and ethnic hatred,” says reviewer

In her book, Turquoise: A Love Story, Ayshe Talay-Ongan (above) says she has gone deep into her own
life experiences to be able to write the novel. Wanting to pen a saga which would speak to all
women bar none, and to all men who struggle with roles and expectations heaped on them
by societal context or circumstance, she says she aspired to write Turquoise to inspire and
entertain, as well as to share women’s quests.

Yasmin, the protagonist in this novel, is a Turkish woman, a psychologist, having returned to
her homeland to Istanbul from New York, after having received all the academic accolades to
establish herself as an academic in a prestigious university there. Soon after, one evening, she
meets her school friend Ani, Armenian by origin, at her tennis club with her husband Renan
in tow. As soon as she lays eyes on him, Yasmin is inundated with the knowledge that she has
come upon her destiny: she has fallen deeply in love with her friend’s husband. 1e challenges
ahead of her loom, not the least of which is loyalty to her friend, the ethnic divide, political
and socioeconomic turmoil in her land, or immigrating from the country of their birth when
the going gets tough.

As Dot Whittington, the reviewer for !e Weekender puts it, “Turquoise is not a simple
romance but a tale of passion and love — the love of a child, a job, two countries and a man.”

The novel also explores one violent consequence of historical and ethnic hatred, which impacts
Yasmin and her family above and beyond the story of unrequited love and family loyalty.

According to Wendy O’Hanlon of Acres Australia, “This novel is also a strong comment on the
evil of how all humans have such traits and some countries are more openly prejudiced than
others.” O’Hanlon also adds “It is a big, powerful novel of love, angst, political unrest and
ethnic hatred. 1e author has skillfully penned these pages so that the characters are raw and
real, their emotions searing, their plight palpable.”

In Turquoise, the reader follows Yasmin’s life through the years with her professional
achievements, friendships, relationships, quest for motherhood in a love-starved marriage,
her entrepreneurial ventures, and travels. John Morrow, in his review of the novel in Pick
of the Week, claims that with “With the characters who come across as completely 2awed
and human, you will be pulled into this novel that runs the full gamut of emotions and
relationships.”

Turquoise: A Love Story is available in bookstores and online outlets like Amazon in paperback
or eBook format. Also from the publishers www.sidharta.com.au, distributors www.
dennisjones.com.au or author website: www.turquoise-alovestory.com.au.
Ayshe Talay-Ongan