Tatiana

About the Book

On vacation in Greece, Judith Kahn, a forty-five year old foundation executive from San Francisco, forms a friendship with Tatiana Starova, a foundation grantee from St. Petersburg, Russia.  Staying at a converted windmill on an Aegean island, the two women become friends through sharing their life stories.

Back in St. Petersburg, Tatiana discovers she is suffering from ovarian cancer.  Judith puts together a group of women to help Tatiana -- Kay, Judith's dynamic boss; Gloria, an African-American family practitioner; and Carmen, a Hispanic oncologist.  The women bring Tatiana to San Francisco and, with the help of a visiting Russian doctor, Stas Arnatov, shepherd her through treatment with an experimental drug.

As each member of the group interacts with Tatiana, she begins, through Tatiana's guidance, to cope with her own life dilemma -- an unsatisfying romance and career; or a past break with family; or a daughter's anorexia; or a lonely personal life.  In trying to heal Tatiana, the group members themselves are healed.

Although Judith and Tatiana never return to Greece together, they return to the windmill in their hearts and find courage and peace as they face the end of Tatiana's life.

About the Author

Ellen Boneparth writes at home in California's wine country and in her adopted home of Lesbos, Greece.  Tatiana begins in Greece and takes the reader to San Francisco and St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Ms. Boneparth has published three previous books set in Greece.  Nona: A Different Kind of Motherhood is a memoir about her relationship with her Greek god-daughter.  Days of Atonement is a historical novel about the Jews of Greece during World War II.  Death at the Olive Press is a murder mystery about an American woman who restores her dream house, an abandoned olive press on a Greek island, and gets caught up in a conspiracy of art thieves.

Ms. Boneparth has, from time to time, lived and worked in Greece.  She makes her permanent home in Santa Rosa, California, with her husband Jim Wilkinson and their two Greek immigrant cats.