A Pyre Of Roses

Michael Attzs is a young man whose unique ethnicity is a source of mystery, drama, and personal conflict. He has only blurry memories of his childhood, which include a frantic man leaving him at a Catholic orphanage in a village. His mysterious past leads to the shocking murders of his wife and son-and later to an ill-fated second marriage to a woman with alleged ties to his sordid past. The identity of his birth parents, and the circumstances that brought him to the orphanage, leads him to agonizing conflict and self-doubt. He concedes to his wretched fate and renounces his birthright and the church and flees the island. However, the deathbed confession of an elderly priest brings a glimmer of hope to Attzs's otherwise worthless existence.Other people, whose tragic pasts intersect with Attzs's chaotic life, battle their own demons. Amid their wretched existences, each somehow finds absolution-some in a glimmer of hope, others in an unexpected encounter, and a few in the finality of death. A novella within the novel, Bloodline: The Abraham Dynasty, and based on investigative reports by a journalist, uncovers the greed of a family clan, thought to be Attzs's blood relatives. The reports unearth shocking aspects of Attzs's buried past as well as a conspiracy that links his presumed father with the island's illicit drug trade, the secular sins of the church, and the island's racial tension on the verge of its independence.It is a poignant story of a man who struggles to find the truth about his identity, amid a web of deceit, lies, and latent danger.

• | Author: Roland P. Joseph
• | Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• | Publication Date: Aug 24, 2016
• | Number of Pages: 274 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1534966293
• | ISBN-13: 9781534966291