Lisa, an intelligent and attractive high school senior, is on a quest to understand happiness. Guided by her middle-class values, Christian faith, and a keen interest in science and philosophy, she navigates life with her unpredictable, alcoholic mother and her own inner demons. Dreaming of a freedom as delicate as a butterfly’s, Lisa finds solace in her final year when she meets Christos, an accomplished long-distance swimmer.
Captivated by Christos’s love for beauty and his laid-back nature, Lisa joins his family’s Greek band as a singer and dancer after graduation. Fortuitously inheriting substantial assets, she establishes a thriving taverna, though at the expense of her health.
However, Lisa’s world shatters when she uncovers Christos’s hidden traits of deception and dishonesty, defended by him through Machiavellian principles and a curious analogy to Santa Claus. This revelation challenges her deeply held Christian virtues and scientific rationale. Resolute to win her trust, Christos undergoes a transformation, adopting honesty and humility.
Ultimately, the couple finds common ground and retreats to Christos’s inherited farm on a picturesque Greek island. There, amidst ancient stone houses, pencil pines, and the crystalline Aegean Sea, they rediscover each other and perhaps the elusive happiness Lisa has been seeking.
John David Petty is a retired analytical chemist/inventor; founder and previous owner of Ionode Pty Ltd, a manufacturer of electrochemical sensors. He is the holder of six US patents with counterparts in other countries and has a number of papers in leading analytical chemistry journals relating to his inventions, co-authored with academic collaborators and industrial sponsors. He is widely read, and his work has been influenced by many authors. John has no previously published novels.