Mara's Shadow

A Turkish diplomat’s wife, Mara, is murdered and her four-year-old daughter abducted. Twenty years later, a portrait surfaces of a young woman who resembles the deceased Mara. Reina Kaya mistakenly places a stunning portrait of herself in an auction in New York City. Titled The Dream, financier Ethan Roberts purchases it. With the painting’s arrival, a ghostly white cat appears and dissipates around him. Reina’s disastrous attempt to retrieve the painting fails when he catches her in his room, but as she escapes he is taken with her beauty. When Ethan discovers that the police are about to take her into custody on behalf of the Turkish government, he steps in to save her. Reina has no idea or knowledge of her possible background; she is, however, both captivated and intimidated by him. She becomes his obsession, as he feels compelled to help her. But Reina is morphing before his eyes—“no longer an innocent girl but his wife, no longer an artist’s assistant, but a woman of means, no longer an orphan, but a woman with an extended family… a family that seeks her death” While he hunts the truth, Ethan finds himself protecting her with his power, but he is unable to protect her from his desire.