"Telmenu Saimnieks is a grand love story that involves strong character action set in a historical background. Saimnieks is a novel that has all the elements of a best seller, that is to say, it involves love, war, conspiracy, friendship and evil, all in a proportional combination to the very end of the story."
Janis Vechi folded his hands over
A Touch of Telmeni
the carved handle of his pitchfork,
leaned his wispy frame forward,
and perused his farm's wind-
swept, budding rye fields. Grain
extended forever, dipping and
rising like an open sea along the
rolling terrain. Resting quietly
below and to the west of the
land's contours, spread the placid,
sapphire cover of Bauzis, a natural
reservoir and fish supply.
Across the water and nestled among freshly scented spruce and birches along the far bank, liepa trees swayed, teeming with tiny sallow clusters of wintergreen scented blossoms amidst glossy, heart-shaped leaves. In all his travels he had never before seen any tree like the liepa except in Latvia.
Telmeni, he mused, recalling the first time he’d walked this land. Forty-five years ago, the old Lettish word that meant 'in The Father's hand’ immediately came to his mind. And nothing over the forty years it belonged to him had made him think any differently.
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Telmenu Saimnieks ~ The Lord of Telmeni is a fast-paced, character centered family saga set in the Eastern European World War I stage. Each farm needs a Saimnieks, or Lord. Telmenu Saimnieks in the year 1912 was Janis Vechi. His son, Voldemars was one of the youngest Latvians to attain officer status in the Czarist Cavalry. But the Great World War sparked to life with the consummation of young heroes, the Russian Empire imploding at the seams, the Latvian populous clamoring for independence, and the Kaiser's German military ravaging the bucolic landscape. Voldemars finds himself caught between duty to his conscripted country, Russia, and his heart and heritage, Latvia and Telmeni. Voldemars' destiny is his struggle between his legal loyalty to the Czar, his own country's rise for independence, his father's desires for his future, and the welfare of his wife and new-born daughter.
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Fiction ISBN:0-595-22448-2 Trade Paperback Writers Showcase Press May 2002 Pages: 476 Price: $21.95 Size: 6" x 9"
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Gunti Goncarovs has studied Latvia and family history for over twenty years, sparked by his parents and grandparents stories of the old country. He has returned to his homeland on several occassions to see the land which so consumes his attention. Educated in chemistry, Gunti enjoys plotting out his ancestoral lineage. Telmenu Saimnieks is his first novel in a planned series of three about Telmeni and her family. Gunti presently lives in North Carolina, with his wife and three daughters.
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