“I never thought I’d write again,” admits Joan Sargent when discussing her new book Turkoise. “I’d been suffering for eight years with writers block and had just about given up on writing.” An unforeseen circumstance occurred. Joan accidentally slammed her head into a door jamb and she was diagnosed with a moderate concussion. Usually one would consider this event to be a hardship with no positive outcome but fate often hides in the darkest of shadows.

“That’s when the dreams began,” recalls Sargent. “Vivid, colorful dreams, unlike any I’d ever experienced. With those dreams came daytime reveries about a pair of characters; a Greek mariner with eys the color of turquoise, and a beautiful, raven-haired young woman. They were lovers and kept trying to get together in some place, at some time, before they were once again seperated.”

“Finally at 4am one hot summer night, I walked upstairs to my garret, put pen to paper–and began their story on the Island of Santorini thirty-six centuries ago. That was the end of my writer’s block.” The story of these lovers continued for the next two years and saw them meeting up as they traveled through time from Santorini to 6th century Roman Byzantium; 10th century Kyoto, Japan; 13th century France; 18th century Virginia; and 19th century Spanish California. After two rounds of professional editing, Turkoise was born.

Set in a small beach town in Southern California, the story is narrated by a modern day young journalist who’s mourning the death of her fiance and is called in to investigate a psychiatric patients claims of reincarnation through time to meet her soul mate. The thing that joins the lovers throughout the ages is the color and stone turquoise.

[About this Shoot: From the story and synopsis that Joan graciously delivered to me, she wanted me to represent the book in some way. I came up with what I thought the young maiden lover would have looked like and chose a setting of a house that reminded me of old world with stone and vines. The subject is pacing and staring off, trying to be patient until next she travels to meet her lover.]

See Large Version of the Photo Here