The Hounds of Samaria

Shortly before WWII erupts, George Ghikas starts having recurring dreams about an unknown dancing girl. Because George has Greek ancestry, the military sends him behind enemy lines on occupied Crete with orders to organize partisan groups in the White Mountains. While George is performing his important work, he has hallucinations of the same dancing girl who has appeared so often in his dreams. Progressively, George is enmeshed in a 3,600-year-old world, where it appears he was once the victim of a human sacrifice ceremony that was taking place in a restored Minoan temple located near his current base camp. The girl who has been haunting his dreams is the officiating priestess during the ancient sacrificial ceremony... until the temple is destroyed by an earthquake. Back in the 20th century, George narrowly avoids a suicide attempt by reenacting the sacrificial ceremony of so long ago...until the temple is once again destroyed, this time by German bombs.Author Nigel Patten loves words and the music behind them. He teaches English literature for the French Baccalaureate in an international alpine college. Patten grew up in the United Kingdom and later moved to Switzerland. He now lives and writes in a ski resort in the mountains above Lake Geneva.