Summer Heat
Available in English May 9, 2024
Also available in Turkish, Greek, and Malayalam
Melike has it all: a beautiful home in Istanbul, a career as an art historian, an attentive husband. But her yearning for more excitement has led her surreptitiously into the arms of other men. On the cusp of her fortieth birthday, Melike is resolute: the affairs must stop. Then she receives a mysterious email from a man named Petro, requesting a tour of Istanbul’s Byzantine churches. Against her better judgement, she accepts. As soon as she sees Petro, with his endearing smile and impeccable charm, Melike knows she is in trouble. But she is not the only one keeping secrets. Petro has a hidden agenda of his own—one which, when uncovered, will not only upend Melike’s future, but alter everything she believed about her past…
Set alternately between 2003 and 1974, during Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus, Defne Suman’s third novel to be translated into English tells of one woman’s place in her country’s devastating history.
About the translator
Betsy Göksel was born in a small town in South Carolina in 1940. After graduating from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, by chance she began teaching English at The American College for Girls in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1962. She married a Turkish engineer and continued teaching English at the school, which merged with Robert College in 1971, for the next 35 years, while raising three daughters. In 1997 she returned to her native country to oversee the birth of her grandchildren, the passing of her parents’ generation, then returned to her adopted homeland in 2008. She lives now on the Aegean island of Bozcaada with her dogs and spends her days translating fiction from Turkish to English, writing, reading, and walking with the dogs over the shores, dunes and fields of the island. Her translations include The Hate Trap by Haluk Şahin as well as several books on art and architecture for the Istanbul Municipality.
