The Sins Of The Son

There are probably many moments in one’s life when feeling that everything is boring and that nothing works as it should. Well that’s exactly what Lia thinks. But things are about to change.

Who is Lia? Well she is a journalist and this book is about her. About the way she fights her destiny and struggles to understand the weird events that are starting to come out in her life.

The book, written by Theo Anghel, was published this year at Quantum Publishers. In 292 pages it incorporates a mix of feelings that you didn’t even knew could exist together. Fear, courage, desperation, love, hate, indifference, all gathered in one single soul, Lia’s.

The story begins when she receives a case from her boss. She must interview a man locked for various crimes. But when she gets there, she doesn’t find what she was expecting. The cruel man she thought she would see is actually a mysterious one who stops her breath every time he looks at her. She starts to somehow feel fear, but not a fear that could make her run away, but a fear that makes her want to get closer. He drives her mad, giving her fragments of truth, but mostly lies.

She gets back to work with absolutely no relevant information, and tells her boss that she no longer wants to continue the case. But it seems that the prisoner now only wants to talk to her and no one else.

At their next encounter, she receives a ring from him, supposedly to protect her. At first she thinks it is a normal ring until things start to go crazy. Events begin to be wilder and wilder and facts beyond her imagination start to torment her. She tries to escape, to get out of this mess, but the more she tries to run, the more she is caught in an endless run for the truth.

At the insistence of her friend (almost boyfriend) Dima, she decides to talk to a client for the mountain house in which she grew up. But when going to meet the customer, she has the shock to see that the client is actually Luca, the prisoner whom she tries to escape.

And that is the moment when she thinks that it couldn’t be worse than that. She finally finds out the truth. The real nature of Luca, his connection with her dreams, the feelings that posses her when he is around, everything starts to take shape in a life that seems to be a dream. A dream that sometimes is a nightmare and sometimes the most beautiful illusion.

She realizes that the dreams that she has and which seem to be continuing from the last point every time she fells asleep are actually memories. The images are so clear, the characters seem so real that she can no longer deny that there were true at some point.

She is stuck between continuing her boring life and starting an adventure in the search of the truth. But this game turns against her at some point. And from the fight for finding the truth she turns it into the fight for her life. Forces beyond her imagination seem to have plans other than she has imagined and Lia cannot do anything. She can run but she cannot hide. Her fear mixes with her determination, her love mixes with episodes of hate and fury which melt in the eyes of a single man.

While running for her life she must also face her principles. She must decide weather to go on and release her feelings or to bury them even further into morality and prejudice, weather to love evil or to hate it, weather to overpass the true nature and accept the fact or to keep on with the judgement.

While reading this book I thought about the world. Even though we are not faced explicitly with evil, it is present in our lives every day. The way we act, the way we talk, the way we judge or not to someone, all represent decisions of weather to embrace the evil part within us or to stick to the good side. And most of the times, weather we like it or not, we decide to stick to the evil. It is just human nature. Reading the book you cannot help but wonder: “What would I do in this case?”. And also I cannot help to admire Lia. She is a simple woman but has the courage to face things that a normal human being might not be able to endure. She faces her fears in the search for the truth. Now I appreciate it as courage, but I cannot say for sure if it is really courage, love or professional defect. Maybe a combination of all three. Regardless which of them motivates her, most of the times brings her in a total mess that she herself doesn’t know how to get out of.

Luca on the other side has to face more or less the same quest. He struggles between following his true nature or giving in to feelings. He somehow wants to choose the second option, but the stakes are too high. He has gathered so much hate in him throughout the years and he makes consistent efforts not to release it every time he gets angry. He would like to give in to good, but there are higher characters that have no interest in letting him do it. So he is caught between two worlds: the real world, in which he could be happy and in which he could find love and peace, and the world which he comes from, a world driven by hate, indifference, lack of feelings and remorse, killings any god knows how many others.

The two of them are aware of the fact that they should stay away from one each other, but they cannot help and one way or another they meet again and all their efforts to stay away are worthless.

I liked this story because it does not fit into the conventional. I liked it also because of the beautiful style of the author. Some humor slipped throughout the key moments and delicious irony (I am a big fan of irony and sarcasm and I always find amusing when I see it in others too). Mysteries were revealed slowly throughout the book, but it left enough suspense for the next volume, for you to wait anxious the publishing of it. That’s what has happened to me. Now I cannot help but wondering how will their story continue. How will they face the dangers that await them?

© picnicontheshelf, September 4, 2018